Legal, privacy & data use

U.S. Wealth Watcher operates as a journalistic and public‑information publication. Our purpose is to inform the public about the financial interests and campaign funding of people who hold or seek public office, using records the government already makes public. Reporting, analysis, and commentary on this site reflect our editorial judgment. Where the law provides an exception for “news and communications media for dissemination to the general public,” U.S. Wealth Watcher publishes in reliance on that exception.

U.S. Wealth Watcher is a private project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the U.S. government, the Federal Election Commission, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the federal judiciary, or any agency, official, candidate, campaign, committee, or political party. References to people and organizations are for identification, news reporting, and commentary only.

Our figures come from primary public records — see Sources & licenses for the full list and links to original filings. In summary:

• Campaign finance: U.S. Federal Election Commission (public domain).
• Financial disclosures / net worth: U.S. House Clerk and U.S. Senate disclosure systems (public records).
• Biographical data: Wikipedia and Wikidata, used under the Creative Commons Attribution‑ShareAlike license (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
• Portraits: public‑domain congressional portraits.

We link to the underlying filing wherever possible so any figure can be independently verified.

The records we publish are public, but federal law restricts how some of this data may be used — by us and by you:

• FEC contributor data (52 U.S.C. §30111(a)(4)): information that identifies individual contributors may not be sold or used by any person for commercial purposes or to solicit contributions or donations.
• Financial‑disclosure reports (Ethics in Government Act, 5 U.S.C. §13107): these reports may not be obtained or used for any unlawful purpose; for any commercial purpose(other than by news media for dissemination to the general public); to establish anyone’s credit rating; or to solicit money for any political, charitable, or other purpose.

You may read, share, and cite this site freely. You may not scrape, copy, or reuse the individual‑contributor or disclosure data for commercial purposes, for solicitation, for credit decisions, or for any unlawful purpose. Misuse may carry civil penalties under the statutes above.

• Net‑worth figures are estimates. Disclosures report assets and liabilities only in broad value brackets; we sum bracket midpoints into a range and a headline estimate. Figures are approximations, may contain errors, and exclude assets the law does not require to be disclosed (for example, a personal residence). See methodology.
• The site is provided “as is,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, or fitness for a particular purpose.
• Nothing here is legal, financial, investment, tax, or other professional advice.

We rely in good faith on official public records. If you believe a figure or fact is wrong, or that a record has been misattributed, email [email protected] and we will review it promptly and correct verified errors. We may note material corrections.

Original text, design, code, charts, and data compilations on U.S. Wealth Watcher are © U.S. Wealth Watcher and its contributors, except where noted. U.S. government works are in the public domain. Wikipedia/Wikidata content is used under CC BY‑SA 4.0 and remains under that license. Names, marks, and likenesses belong to their respective owners and appear here for identification, news reporting, and commentary (fair use). To license or reuse our original material, contact us.

We aim to collect as little as possible.

• What we collect: standard server logs (IP address, browser type, pages requested) for security and operation, and optionally privacy‑respecting analytics to understand aggregate traffic.
• Cookies & advertising: if we use analytics or display ads, third‑party providers may set cookies or similar technologies to serve and measure them. We do not use the contributor or disclosure data on this site to target advertising.
• No sale of personal information. We do not sell visitors’ personal information.
• Your choices: you can block cookies in your browser. Depending on where you live (for example, the EU/UK or California), you may have rights to access or delete personal data we hold about you — contact us to exercise them.
• Children: this site is intended for a general adult audience and is not directed to children under 13.

U.S. Wealth Watcher may be supported by reader contributions, memberships, sponsorships, grants, and/or advertising. Funding never influences our editorial coverage, and sponsors and advertisers receive no access to, or use of, the contributor or disclosure data beyond what any reader sees. Sponsored content, where it appears, is clearly labeled. See Support U.S. Wealth Watcher.

By using the site you agree: to use it lawfully and only for personal, non‑commercial, or journalistic purposes consistent with Section 4; not to scrape or bulk‑extract data in violation of Section 4 or to overload the service; and that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, U.S. Wealth Watcher and its contributors are not liable for any damages arising from your use of, or reliance on, the site or its data. These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the state in which the publisher is established, without regard to conflict‑of‑laws rules. We may update these terms; continued use means acceptance.

Questions, corrections, privacy requests, or copyright/takedown notices: [email protected].