Terms of Use & Privacy Policy

The Bridge Index (“this site,” “we”) publishes analysis and commentary on public statements made by sitting members of Congress and declared candidates for federal office — people acting in a public capacity, on matters of public concern. By using this site, you agree to these terms.

What the scores are, and aren’t. Every rhetoric score is the output of a fixed, published rubric (see Methodology), applied with the help of an AI language model, measuring whether a specific public statement engages the substance of an issue or defaults to tribal blame, personal attack, or absolute certainty. These are our editorial ratings of specific statements against that rubric — they are opinion and analysis, not a factual claim about anyone’s character, motives, or worth as a person. Every score links back to the statement it came from so you can read it yourself and judge whether you agree.

AI can make mistakes. Language models can misread sarcasm, misattribute who a statement is directed at, or otherwise get a call wrong, the same way a human reviewer working at this speed and scale could. See AI Notice & Reporting for the full disclosure and how to flag something that looks wrong. We review flagged items and correct genuine errors; we don’t promise every flag results in a change, since not every disagreement is a mistake.

Not voting, legal, or professional advice. This site is one input among many for forming your own judgment, not a recommendation on how to vote or a substitute for reading primary sources yourself. Predicted bill positions are explicitly labeled as model inferences, never as something a senator or representative actually said.

No warranty. This site is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind. We don’t guarantee it will be error-free, complete, or continuously available — parts of it (particularly newly-added data sources) are explicitly still being verified against real-world output, and coverage of individual members and races is actively expanding rather than complete.

Changes. We may update these terms as the site changes. Continued use after an update means you accept the current version.

We don’t have user accounts, and we don’t track you individually. There’s no sign-up, no login for regular visitors, and no advertising trackers on this site.

The contact/report forms (Questions and Report) open your own email client with a pre-filled message to waterunderthebridge.track@gmail.com. Nothing you type there is stored on our servers — it’s sent directly from your own email account, the same as writing us an email yourself.

Aggregate, anonymous traffic analytics. We use privacy-focused analytics (no cookies, no cross-site tracking, no personally identifying data collected) to understand overall traffic patterns and catch errors — think page-view counts and response-time metrics, not individual browsing history.

Admin access to the internal review tool at /admin is protected by a login cookie used only by the site’s own maintainer — it has nothing to do with regular visitors and collects no visitor data.

Third-party sources. This site links out to government and public-data sources (Congress.gov, the FEC, OpenSecrets, GovTrack, and others — see the footer on every page). Those sites have their own privacy practices, which this policy doesn’t cover.

Not directed at children. This site isn’t intended for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them.

Changes. We may update this policy as the site changes; the date at the top of this page reflects the latest revision.

Questions about either policy? Reach us at waterunderthebridge.track@gmail.com.