The source stays where they put it.

• Reads source documents. Open a court filing, leaked memo, transcript, or regulatory submission and ask anything. Answers cite the page in the source.
• Summarises long records. Depositions, indictments, and regulatory filings, reduced to something a reporter can use without uploading the source anywhere.
• Translates source materials. For non-English sources whose documents can’t go to Google Translate or DeepL.
• Spreadsheet Q&A. Open donor lists, lobbyist filings, or campaign-finance exports in Excel or CSV and ask questions in plain language. Files are parsed locally and never uploaded.
• Edits drafts without exposing them. Tracked-change edits to a DOCX that use the real source detail without it entering a vendor’s prompt log.
• Redacts before publication. One-pass anonymisation saves a clean copy with no tracked changes, comments, or metadata, so the published version doesn’t expose the source or third parties.

Muet works on one document at a time. To search thousands of leaked files you will still want a dedicated tool; Muet handles each document you read.

• Vendor logs. Every prompt and uploaded document sits in the vendor’s system, where abuse-review staff, security investigators, and future acquirers can read it.
• Legal demands. The May 2025 court order in NYT v. OpenAI compelled OpenAI to retain “deleted” ChatGPT messages, including for Plus, Free, Team, and most API users. The court overrode whatever the vendor’s contract said.
• Cross-border exposure. A US-hosted vendor is reachable by US process even when the source isn’t. A reporter in one country using a vendor in another routes the document through both jurisdictions.
• The shield-law gap. Most reporter-shield protections cover direct compulsion of the journalist. They don’t automatically extend to a third-party vendor that holds the same material.

When the AI runs on the reporter’s own Mac, none of these exposures arise: there is no vendor log, third-party storage, cross-border routing, or parallel custodian.

• Investigative reporting on whistleblower-supplied materials.
• Cross-border reporting where the source faces real risk.
• Court-record analysis where the journalist has the documents but the public doesn’t.
• Reading individual FOIA returns without uploading them.
• Editorial review of pre-publication drafts that name real people in real situations.
• NGO and human-rights research with the same threat model as journalism.
• Documentary and book research where the source documents have to stay on the writer’s laptop.