Terms of service · version 2026-10-15 · effective October 22, 2026
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Version 2026-10-15 · Effective October 22, 2026. Hidden Levers is a project of the Hume Institute for Political Influence Research.
Welcome to Hidden Levers. These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and the Hume Institute for Political Influence Research, a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation ("Hume," "we," "us," or "our"). They govern your use of the Hidden Levers website, the Desk tools, the Hidden Levers MCP connector and related services (together, the "Service"). Hume is the seller of every paid subscription to the Service.
PLEASE READ THESE TERMS CAREFULLY. THEY INCLUDE FEDERAL RESTRICTIONS ON HOW CAMPAIGN-FINANCE DATA MAY BE USED (SECTION 5); AUTOMATIC RENEWAL OF PAID SUBSCRIPTIONS AND AN ALL-PAYMENTS-FINAL, NO-REFUND TERM (SECTION 10); A DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND A LIMITATION OF LIABILITY (SECTIONS 14 AND 15); AND AN AGREEMENT TO RESOLVE DISPUTES BY BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION, WITH A WAIVER OF JURY TRIAL AND OF CLASS ACTIONS, WHICH YOU MAY OPT OUT OF (SECTION 18).
Accounts. When you create an account, you will be asked to check a box confirming that you are 18 or older and that you accept these Terms, including the binding arbitration agreement and the waiver of jury trial and class actions in Section 18, and our Privacy Policy. Checking that box is your electronic signature and your agreement.
Purchases. When you buy Desk, you will be asked to agree, separately and at checkout, to the automatic-renewal and payment terms in Section 10.
Reading without an account. You can read much of the Service without an account. If you do, you are not asked to accept these Terms, and we do not claim that browsing alone makes you a party to them. The federal restrictions described in Section 5 apply to you anyway, because federal law imposes them directly.
Organizations. If you use the Service for an organization, you confirm that you have authority to bind it, and "you" includes that organization.
Electronic communications. You agree that we may give you notices, disclosures and records electronically, by email to your account address or on the Service, and that they satisfy any requirement that they be in writing.
Our record of your acceptance. We record which version of these Terms you accepted and when. We keep that record while your account exists and for four years afterward.
You must be at least 16 to use the Service, and at least 18 (or the age of majority where you live, if higher) to create an account or buy a subscription. The Service is operated from, and directed to people in, the United States.
Hidden Levers is a nonpartisan research platform that organizes, links and analyzes public records about money in American politics, including reports filed with the Federal Election Commission ("FEC"), lobbying disclosures and other government, openly licensed and permitted sources. It also presents analysis computed from those records, such as entity-resolution linkages, similarity measures, percentile rankings and network views ("Computed Data").
Some text on the Service may be generated by a language model from those records and analyses ("AI-Assisted Text"). AI-Assisted Text is labeled where it appears. Where AI-Assisted Text and the underlying record disagree, the record governs.
The public records are free. Records drawn from FEC filings and other government sources are available on the Service without payment and without an account. A paid subscription buys analytical tools over those records, not the records. No paid plan makes available any individual-contributor record, or any field of one, that is not also available without payment.
The Service is offered three ways:
We may offer other plans later under terms we publish then. We may change features and limits, subject to Section 10 for paid subscriptions.
Give us accurate registration information and keep it current, including a working email address, which we verify. You are responsible for keeping your sign-in credentials safe and for activity under your account. Accounts are personal: you may not share an account, or transfer or sell your credentials or MCP connection credentials. If you suspect unauthorized use, tell us at hello@hiddenlevers.org (subject: "Security"). We may suspend or end accounts as described in Section 17.
Much of the data on the Service comes from reports filed with the FEC. Federal law restricts how information about individual contributors in those reports may be used, and those restrictions apply to you directly, whether you got the information from us, from the FEC or from anyone else.
Under 52 U.S.C. § 30111(a)(4) and 11 C.F.R. § 104.15, information copied or otherwise obtained from reports or statements filed with the FEC may not be sold or used by any person for the purpose of soliciting contributions or for commercial purposes, other than using the name and address of a political committee to solicit contributions from that committee. The regulation states that soliciting contributions includes soliciting any type of contribution or donation, such as political or charitable contributions (11 C.F.R. § 104.15(b)).
The notice we show with contributor information on the Service reads:
Federal use restriction · verbatimFederal law prohibits the sale or use of contributor information copied from FEC reports, by any person, for the purpose of soliciting contributions (including charitable contributions) or for any commercial purpose. 52 U.S.C. §30111(a)(4); 11 C.F.R. §104.15. Hidden Levers does not provide contributor contact information.
The restrictions below are, in places, broader than the statute. They are promises you make to us. You may not use any information you obtain through the Service that derives from FEC reports — including contributor names, locations, employers, occupations and contribution histories, and Computed Data and AI-Assisted Text derived from them — to:
These rules apply whatever your purpose (commercial, charitable, political or non-commercial) and whatever your tax status:
These rules keep binding you for as long as you keep any data from the Service, including after your account ends.
The FEC's regulation permits using contributor information in newspapers, magazines, books and similar communications, including news reporting, commentary and analysis, so long as the principal purpose of the communication is not to communicate contributor information for soliciting contributions or other commercial purposes (11 C.F.R. § 104.15(c)). Journalism, academic research, policy analysis and civic transparency consistent with that principle are what the Service is for.
Some data on the Service, including congressional stock-trade records, comes from financial disclosure reports filed under the Ethics in Government Act. Federal law makes it unlawful to obtain or use those reports for any unlawful purpose; for any commercial purpose, other than by news and communications media for dissemination to the general public; to determine or establish anyone's credit rating; or for use, directly or indirectly, in soliciting money for any political, charitable or other purpose (5 U.S.C. § 13107(c)). You may not use information from those reports that you obtain through the Service for any of those purposes.
A breach of this Section 5 is a material breach of these Terms and a ground for immediate termination under Section 17. We may investigate suspected misuse and cooperate with lawful inquiries into it.
Whether or not you have an account, you may not use the Service or data from it to:
Hume is not a consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., and the Service does not provide consumer reports. You may not use the Service or any data from it as a factor in deciding anyone's eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, housing, government benefits or a license, for tenant screening, or for any other purpose the Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates.
Public facts. Facts in government records (for example, that a reported contribution was made and its amount) are public. Nothing here restricts your use of facts you obtain independently from the government sources, except that the statutory restrictions in Section 5 follow the data wherever you get it.
Our material. The Service, including its software, design, text, compilations, database structure, linkages, scores, rankings and other Computed Data and AI-Assisted Text, is owned by or licensed to Hume. Subject to these Terms, we give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service and to reproduce reasonable excerpts of Computed Data and AI-Assisted Text for journalism, research, teaching and other non-commercial purposes, provided you credit "Hidden Levers / Hume Institute for Political Influence Research" with a link where practicable, keep any confidence indicator, "Low-confidence estimate" badge, uncertainty language or caveat that accompanies the excerpt, and identify AI-Assisted Text as machine-generated when you quote it.
What the licence does not cover. Bulk redistribution; use in competing products or commercial data services; removing attribution or labels; model training (Section 6); or anything Sections 5, 6 or 7 prohibit. Licensing requests: hello@hiddenlevers.org (subject: "Licensing").
Error reports and feedback. If you send us corrections, error reports or feedback, you allow us to use them without restriction or attribution.
What Desk includes. A Desk subscription turns on, for your account, the Dashboard, the Influence Explorer, Franklin (our research assistant, which answers questions in AI-Assisted Text, Section 3) and access to the Hidden Levers MCP connector, a server that lets an AI assistant or other client you choose query the Service for you using the Model Context Protocol. Desk access starts automatically when your payment succeeds and ends as described in Sections 10 and 17.
Your client, your provider. When you connect an AI assistant or other client to the MCP connector, the results it retrieves are sent to that client and to whatever provider runs it. You choose that client and provider; Hume does not operate them, and they handle data under their own terms. You are responsible for your client's use of the Service as if it were your own: Sections 5, 6 and 7 apply to everything it retrieves or does.
The notice travels with the data. MCP results that contain individual-contributor information carry the federal notice quoted in Section 5.1. You may not remove it from results you store, share or republish.
Limits and changes. Franklin and the connector have rate and volume limits, which we may set and change to protect the Service. We may add, change or remove MCP tools. Programmatic access outside the MCP connector (an API) is not part of Desk.
Credentials. Connection credentials are personal to your account. Do not share them or place them where others can use them. We may revoke and reissue them at any time.
10.1 Seller and processor. Hume sells Desk subscriptions. Stripe, Inc. processes payments for us. Your card statement will show HIDDEN LEVERS DESK.
10.2 Prices. Desk costs $20 per month or $200 per year, plus any applicable tax, unless a different price is shown to you at checkout. The price, billing interval, renewal date and any discount that applies to you are shown at checkout before you pay, and in the confirmation email we send you.
10.3 Founding rate. If you subscribe to monthly Desk during the founding-rate window shown at checkout, you pay the founding rate shown there ($10 per month) for your first 12 monthly billing periods, as long as your subscription stays active without interruption. After those 12 periods, your subscription renews automatically at the standard monthly price then in effect (currently $20 per month) unless you cancel before that renewal. We will email you about 14 days before the first charge at the standard price, with the new price and how to cancel. If you cancel and later subscribe again, the founding rate does not return.
10.4 Student and academic discount. If you are a student, faculty member or researcher at a college or university in the United States and have an email address there ending in ".edu", you may be eligible for 50% off the standard price. The discount is not available for schools outside the United States, and it does not combine with the founding rate. We may ask you to verify eligibility; if you are not eligible, we may end the discount from your next renewal after telling you.
10.5 Automatic renewal. Your Desk subscription renews automatically at the end of each billing period (monthly or yearly, as you chose), and we charge the payment method on file the price then in effect, plus tax, until you cancel. You agree to these recurring charges when you check the automatic-renewal box at checkout.
10.6 Price changes. We may change the price of Desk. If we do, we will email you at least 7 and no more than 30 days before the new price applies to you, and the new price applies from your first renewal after that notice. If you do not want to pay it, cancel before that renewal.
10.7 Reminders. Each year, on the anniversary of your subscription, we email you a reminder of what Desk is, how often and how much you are charged, and how to cancel. If you are on a yearly plan, we also email you about 30 days before each yearly renewal.
10.8 Cancellation. You can cancel at any time, online, by choosing "Manage billing" on your account page and then "Cancel". You do not need to call us, give a reason or take any other step. Cancellation stops all future charges; your Desk access continues until the end of the period you have already paid for, and then ends. You can also email hello@hiddenlevers.org (subject: "Cancel") from your account address, and we will cancel for you.
10.9 All payments are final; no refunds. Except where applicable law requires a refund, all payments for Desk are final and non-refundable. We do not give refunds or credits, in whole or in part, for any reason, including for a partial billing period or time not used, if you cancel, if we suspend or end your account under Section 17, or if we change, suspend or discontinue Desk or the Service. You agree to this at checkout when you buy.
10.10 If we discontinue Desk. If we decide to discontinue Desk or the Service, we will stop charging renewals and email subscribers at least 30 days in advance where we reasonably can. Access ends on the discontinuance date. Section 10.9 applies to any period already paid for.
10.11 Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails, Stripe may retry it, and your Desk access may be paused until a payment succeeds. If no payment succeeds, the subscription ends.
10.12 Disputes and chargebacks. If you think a charge is wrong, please email hello@hiddenlevers.org (subject: "Billing") first so we can look into it. If you file a chargeback or payment dispute, we may suspend Desk while it is open. Nothing in these Terms limits a right you have under applicable law or your card issuer's rules.
10.13 Taxes. Prices do not include sales or similar taxes, which we add where we are required to collect them.
10.14 Confirmation and receipts. When you subscribe, we email you a confirmation that states the plan, price and billing interval, that the subscription renews automatically, how to cancel, and that payments are final. We email a receipt for each payment.
Pages you read without signing in may show advertising served by Google and its partners. Signed-in accounts (free and Desk) do not see advertising. Advertisements are third-party content, not our content: Google and its advertisers select them, we do not create or review them, and each advertiser is responsible for its own ad. We use Google's controls to block political and gambling advertising. Google selects ads automatically, so one may still appear; tell us at hello@hiddenlevers.org and we will block it. Advertisers do not choose, sponsor or review our content, and an advertisement is not an endorsement by Hume of any product, cause or candidate, nor does it reflect our view of anyone named on the page. Our Privacy Policy explains how advertising uses information about you.
The Service uses data from government and other sources listed on our attributions page and links to other websites. We do not control them and are not responsible for them. The original government filing, not the Service, is the authoritative record.
The Service republishes government records as filed, including errors, misspellings, duplicates and amendments in the source, and presents Computed Data, which is statistical and can be wrong, including records linked to the wrong person. Our methodology page explains how we tell reported facts from computed inferences and from AI-Assisted Text.
"Low-confidence estimate." Some politician, committee and individual-contributor pages carry a badge reading "Low-confidence estimate". It means that, under our published methodology, the computed figures on that page have lower confidence than usual — for example because of how source records were linked. It is a statement about our data, not about the person or organization, and it does not suggest any wrongdoing. A page without the badge is not guaranteed to be accurate.
Nothing on the Service is an accusation or implication of illegality or wrongdoing by any person or organization, and the Service gives no legal, financial, investment or voting advice.
Forecasts and ratings. Election forecasts, win probabilities, partisan-lean indexes and similar figures on the Service are statistical estimates, produced by a published method applied the same way to every race. They are not certainties, and they are not endorsements. Hume does not support or oppose any candidate for public office or any political party.
Corrections. To report an error in our data, email corrections@hiddenlevers.org with the page address and what you believe is wrong. We fix errors in our own processing; we annotate, but cannot change, errors in an official filing, which the filer or the FEC must correct; and we will consider limiting location display further for documented safety reasons. We do not remove accurate records of lawful, publicly disclosed activity because a person would prefer not to appear in them.
THE SERVICE AND ALL DATA, INCLUDING COMPUTED DATA AND AI-ASSISTED TEXT, ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, TIMELINESS OR UNINTERRUPTED AVAILABILITY. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO SOME OF THIS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS: (A) HUME AND ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, VOLUNTEERS, CONTRACTORS AND VENDORS (INCLUDING THE SERVICE'S DEVELOPMENT VENDOR) ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA OR REPUTATIONAL HARM, ARISING FROM THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS; AND (B) OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF $100 OR THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM. THESE LIMITS DO NOT APPLY TO LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THESE LIMITS, SO SOME OF THIS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
To the extent the law allows, you will defend, indemnify and hold harmless Hume and its directors, officers, employees, volunteers, contractors and vendors from claims, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of the Service in breach of these Terms, including Sections 5, 6, 7 and 9, or in breach of law or anyone's rights.
By us. We may suspend or end your account, Desk access, MCP access or any feature at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have broken these Terms or the law, that your use risks harm to the Service or to others, or if the law requires it. Access ends at once, on your next request. If we end or suspend your account for a breach of these Terms — including Sections 5, 6, 7 or 9, or abuse of the Service — we do not refund any amount, including any unused part of a paid period (Section 10.9). You may ask us in writing at hello@hiddenlevers.org to review a suspension or termination; we decide in our discretion.
By you. You may stop using the Service at any time, cancel Desk as described in Section 10.8, and ask us to delete your account as described in our Privacy Policy.
What survives. Sections 5, 6, 7, 8, 10.9, 10.12, 13 to 16, and 18 to 22 survive the end of your account, and Sections 5, 6 and 7 keep applying to any data from the Service you still hold.
PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. YOU AND HUME AGREE TO RESOLVE DISPUTES BY BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION, AND YOU WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND TO TAKE PART IN A CLASS ACTION, UNLESS YOU OPT OUT AS DESCRIBED BELOW.
Talk to us first. Before bringing any claim, email hello@hiddenlevers.org (subject: "Dispute") with your name, account email and a description of the claim, and try in good faith to resolve it with us for at least 60 days.
Binding individual arbitration. Except as stated below, any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, with any hearing held in Pennsylvania or by video, at your choice. Hume pays the filing, administrative and arbitrator fees that the AAA's consumer fee schedule assigns to the business. If 25 or more similar demands are filed by or with the help of the same counsel or coordinated group, they will be administered under the AAA's Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules. This agreement is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act.
Class-action and jury waiver. You and Hume bring claims only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective or representative proceeding. You and Hume each waive the right to a trial by jury.
Exceptions. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and either of us may ask a court for an injunction against misuse of intellectual property or a breach of Section 5.
Opt-out. You may opt out of this Section 18 by emailing hello@hiddenlevers.org (subject: "Arbitration opt-out") within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, with your name and account email. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.
If this Section is unenforceable. If the class-action waiver is found unenforceable for a dispute, that dispute will proceed in court, not in arbitration, and the jury waiver still applies to the extent the law allows. A change to this Section never applies to a dispute already notified to the other party.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and applicable federal law, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules; this does not deprive you of any protection of your home state's law that cannot be waived by contract. Subject to Section 18, court proceedings will be brought only in the state or federal courts located in Pennsylvania, and you and Hume consent to their jurisdiction.
If you believe material on the Service infringes your copyright, send a notice that meets 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) to our designated agent: Hume Institute for Political Influence Research, Attn: Copyright Agent, 502 W 7th St, Ste 100, Erie, PA 16502, hello@hiddenlevers.org (subject: "Copyright"). We end the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.
We may update these Terms. For a material change, we will give notice by email to account holders, or by a prominent notice on the Service, at least 14 days before it takes effect, and we will ask account holders to accept the new version the next time they sign in. Changes apply only going forward. A material change to Section 10 or Section 18 applies to an existing subscriber only after the subscriber accepts it, and a change to Desk's price follows Section 10.6 instead. If you do not accept a change, you may stop using the Service and cancel Desk under Section 10.8. The version and effective date at the top of this page identify the current Terms.
These Terms, with the Privacy Policy, are the whole agreement between you and Hume about the Service. If a provision is unenforceable, it is limited or severed as little as necessary and the rest stays in effect (subject to the last paragraph of Section 18). Not enforcing a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in a reorganization or transfer of the Service, with notice to you. We are not liable for failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control. We may send notices through the Service or to your account email. Legal notices to us: Hume Institute for Political Influence Research, 502 W 7th St, Ste 100, Erie, PA 16502, Attn: Legal, with a copy to hello@hiddenlevers.org (subject: "Legal").
Data errors and correction requests: corrections@hiddenlevers.org. Everything else, including billing, cancellation, privacy, security and legal notices: hello@hiddenlevers.org.