Search FEC records for candidates by name. Returns candidate identifiers and their principal campaign committee IDs, which are required for retrieving detailed financial information. Useful for campaign finance research and transparency investigations.
AI agents call search_candidates to retrieve information from Fec without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves publicly available campaign finance data without side effects. The FEC database is a public resource designed for transparency, and searching for candidate information is a standard read operation. No data is modified, deleted, or executed. The low severity reflects that misuse would only expose already-public information.
From the tool's definition Tool 'searches FEC records for candidates by name' and 'returns candidate identifiers and principal campaign committee IDs' — pure query/retrieval with no modification or execution capabilities.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
Search FEC records for candidates by name. Returns candidate identifiers and their principal campaign committee IDs, which are required for retrieving detailed financial information. Useful for campaign finance research and transparency investigations. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Fec MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the Fec MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for search_candidates: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Fec. Nothing to install.
search_candidates is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the search_candidates rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for search_candidates. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
search_candidates is provided by the Fec MCP server (sh-patterson/fec-mcp-server). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Every MCP server has a record like this.
Type a name, get the same breakdown: verified identity, auth posture, risk grade, capabilities, recommended policy.
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