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Institutional Review Board (IRB)–Style Ethics Review
Project Title
Federal FOIA Intelligence Search
Principal Investigator / Maintainer
Trey Smith
1. Purpose of the Project
The purpose of this project is to facilitate ethical discovery, citation, and organization of publicly released U.S. government records from official FOIA Electronic Reading Rooms.
The project does not involve experimentation on human subjects and does not collect personal data.
2. Human Subjects Determination
IRB Determination:
☑ Not Human Subjects Research
Justification:
- No interaction with individuals
- No collection of personal identifiers
- No intervention, manipulation, or observation of behavior
- Data sources are entirely public and government-released
3. Data Sources
- Public FOIA Electronic Reading Rooms
- User-supplied search terms
- Optional user-approved PDF text extraction
Excluded:
- Private communications
- Classified or restricted materials
- Authentication-gated systems
4. Risk Assessment
Potential Risks
| Risk | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Privacy harm | Minimal |
| Misinterpretation | Moderate |
| Overreliance on AI | Moderate |
Mitigations
- Explicit AI disclosures
- Citation anchoring
- Warnings against evidentiary misuse
- User-initiated actions only
5. Informed Consent
While no human subjects are involved, the application provides:
- Explicit opt-in for AI
- Clear disclosures
- Usage warnings
This satisfies ethical transparency expectations.
6. Data Retention
- No persistent storage
- No logging
- Session memory only
- No training on user inputs
7. Ethical Safeguards
- No automated decision-making
- No profiling or inference
- No surveillance functionality
- No downstream redistribution of content
8. IRB Conclusion
This project qualifies as Exempt / Not Human Subjects Research and adheres to ethical standards for transparency-focused public data tools.
Ethics Statement
This system is designed to support accountability, not automate judgment.