free-standing-law

Analysis of single titles of the U.S. Code, and the tools that produce it, toward a repeatable method for reviewing a title: what of the enacting laws was not codified, what is outdated, and how the text of each section has changed.

Path	What it is
`tools/textchange/`	Ranks a title's sections by how many words of their text changed across the US Code mirror's release points, and writes a redline for each change (`tools/textchange/README.md`)
`analysis/textchange/`	That ranking for titles 11 and 24: `top.tsv`, `sections.tsv`, `transitions.tsv`, `summary.json`, `redlines.json`, `index.html`
`tools/uncodified/`	For one title, every section of the laws that went into it and where each section is now: the title, another title, a statutory note, or nowhere in the Code (`tools/uncodified/README.md`)
`analysis/uncodified/`	Those tables for titles 11 and 24: `tN.md`, `tN.csv`, `tN.json`
`docs/uncodified.md`	Findings from those tables, written by hand: Pub. L. 95-598's free-standing provisions and their relation to title 11, the pattern in later amending Acts, title 24 and its draft bill
`tools/outdated/`	Finds provisions of a title that are outdated, no longer applicable or wrong: a scanner over OLRC's release-point USLM, a checker that renders the reviewed tables, and the method (`tools/outdated/README.md`)
`analysis/outdated/`	Titles 11 and 24 at release point 119-138: `candidates/` (scanner output), `tables/t11.tsv`, `t24.tsv`, `t11-dollar-amounts.tsv` (reviewed) and `tables/t11.md`, `t24.md` (rendered); summary in `analysis/outdated/README.md`
`tools/site/`	Builds the static site at freestand.linkedlegislation.org from `analysis/` and `docs/`, with U.S.C., Public Law and Statutes at Large citations linked; `.github/workflows/pages.yml` deploys it to GitHub Pages (`tools/site/README.md`)

Files under analysis/ are generated; regenerate them rather than editing them. The exception is analysis/outdated/tables/*.tsv, which are reviewed by hand and checked by tools/outdated/report.py. data/ holds caches and downloads and is not committed.

Python 3.11 or later with lxml. Commands are run from the repository root.

Build log

2026-11-12: static site with linked citations

tools/site/build.py renders the analyses' Markdown to HTML, copies the data files and the redline viewer, writes an index, and links citations: U.S.C. sections and subsections to the US Code mirror, Public Laws, Statutes at Large pages and chapter-era Acts to the Statutes at Large site. The viewer links each change's release points and attributed laws. .github/workflows/pages.yml builds and deploys on every push to main.

Re-check: pip install markdown==3.7 && python3 -m tools.site.build && python3 -m tools.site.check_links _site.

2026-11-12: outdated, inapplicable and wrong provisions in titles 11 and 24

Moved here from aih/codification-bills (PR 30, closed unmerged). tools/outdated/scan.py lists signals in the statutory text of the sections in force at release point 119-138 (OLRC footnotes, links to repealed or missing sections anywhere in the Code, References in Text notes, Change of Name and Termination notes, a term list, past dates, duplicate designations). Each signal was reviewed, and the facts were checked against the enacted law and outside sources, into analysis/outdated/tables/. Title 24: 31 findings (11 outdated, 12 not applicable, 8 wrong) and 8 checked signals, with the treatment in the codification-bills draft of each; 8 findings are not raised by the draft. Title 11: 16 findings (2 outdated, 7 not applicable, 7 wrong) and 7 checked signals; 40 printed dollar amounts differ from those in force since Apr. 1, 2025.

Re-check: bash tools/outdated/fetch_uscode.sh 119-138, then for N in 11 and 24, python3 tools/outdated/scan.py N && python3 tools/outdated/report.py N (0 problems); git status should list nothing changed.

2026-11-12: provisions of the source laws not in titles 11 and 24

Moved here from aih/codification-bills, where it was built and not committed. tools/uncodified/ indexes every title's source credits and statutory notes at release point 119-138, reads each source law's table of contents from the statutes API (statutes.linkedlegislation.org), and disposes of each section. Title 11: 869 sections of 83 laws, 262 not in the text of any title. Title 24: 185 sections of 61 laws, 44 not in the text of any title, joined to the draft bill's dispositions in aih/codification-bills drafts/t24/bill.toml. Findings in docs/uncodified.md.

Re-check: python3 -m tools.uncodified fetch-code && python3 -m tools.uncodified index && python3 -m tools.uncodified fetch 11 && python3 -m tools.uncodified run 11 (and 24, with aih/codification-bills checked out beside this repository); with the same release point and statutes API the outputs do not change. python3 -m unittest discover -s tools/uncodified/tests -t . runs 11 tests.

2026-11-12: text change ranking for titles 11 and 24

Moved here from aih/codification-bills (PR 29, closed unmerged). tools/textchange/ reads each section's version history and text versions from the US Code mirror's API (uscode.linkedlegislation.org, aih/uscode-redesign), diffs consecutive text versions word by word, and ranks sections by words inserted plus deleted. Window: release points 113-21 (2013-07-18) to 119-121. 48 sections had a substantive text change: 35 in title 11 (5,103 words), 13 in title 24 (1,378 words).