Provenance is a feature, not a footnote
If a finding can't be traced back to the record that produced it, it isn't intelligence — it's a rumour with good formatting. Provenance is what makes the difference.
It is easy to make software that produces confident-sounding conclusions. It is much harder — and much more valuable — to make software whose every conclusion can be walked back to the exact record that produced it.
Provenance is that walk-back. In CLERINT, every edge in the graph, every line in a report, every input to a score links to its source: the article, the transaction, the transcript, the field note. Nothing is asserted from nowhere.
This matters for three reasons. It lets analysts check the machine rather than trust it blindly. It lets oversight audit a conclusion after the fact. And it lets the work stand up when it is challenged — in a review, a tribunal, or a courtroom — because the chain from evidence to conclusion is intact and visible.
The alternative is a system that summarises without citing, that scores without showing its inputs, that produces a beautiful dossier no one can defend. That is not intelligence; it is a rumour with good formatting. Provenance is the feature that keeps the two apart.