Ask HN: Any good tools for viewing congressional bills?

I work on R00M 101, a Reddit-based OSINT profiler. While building it, I realized most open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools are scattered across GitHub, outdated blog posts, or random Discords.

So I put together a public-facing directory of 100+ OSINT tools used by analysts, journalists, and security folks, free, filterable, and categorized by risk, platform, and use case.

The idea was to make something useful and no-friction.

Built with static HTML + SQL backend + a lot of caffeine. Would love feedback on how to improve the UX or tool curation.

If anyone wants to contribute tools or help moderate, that’s also welcome.

Thanks!

Comments (15)

indigovole · 2d ago

Any way to turn off the special effects?

r00m101 · 2d ago

I just added a switch button turn them off :)

ahofmann · 2d ago

Oh my, thank you! I wouldn't last for more than 5 seconds on the page with that background noise animation.

r00m101 · 2d ago

Totally fair, I’ll make the toggle more visible or default it off on first visit. Appreciate the feedback, and thanks for giving it a look even with the chaos!

Xss3 · 2d ago

Default off. It looks like an old myspace profile.

r00m101 · 2d ago

I’m not even old enough to have used MySpace, so that one’s a bit lost on me. Most of the feedback on the homepage vibe has actually been positive, but I hear you

Xss3 · 2d ago

The overall vibe is good.

Animated backgrounds are gaudy though and most people (including me) dislike them in my experience.

They're distracting, increase load time, increase resource use and screen updates, (especially important for battery powered devices like laptops and mobile), and just dont tend to serve a purpose aside from aesthetic sugar that tech savvy users (your target market) in general dont appreciate even when static and minimal.

UI_at_80x24 · 2d ago

And I didn't stay on the page long enough to find it.

raviisoccupied · 2d ago

I'm curious as to what risk means in this context?

UX feedback: When I scroll to the bottom of the page linked in the post, and click on the API/Pricing links in the footer, it fails to redirect me.

r00m101 · 1d ago

Great question, the risk category is meant to reflect the potential sensitivity or legal/ethical complexity of a tool’s use. For example, tools that scrape private data or could be easily misused might be tagged higher risk, while something like a domain WHOIS lookup would be low risk. It’s not a legal judgment, just a way to help users assess how carefully they might need to tread.

Also, thanks for catching that, I just fixed the footer links!

NicuCalcea · 1d ago

Some useful tools there, but how would you use some of these, for example the "Curated collection of insightful quotes and comments from Reddit", for OSINT?

I use Bellingcat's Toolkit, it's constantly updated by people who do this for a living: https://bellingcat.gitbook.io/toolkit/

r00m101 · 1d ago

Appreciate that, and agreed, Bellingcat’s toolkit is excellent.

Totally fair question. That particular tool is more situational, it can surface quotes tied to a username, which can help spot ideological lean, professional background, or even cross-platform clues if phrasing is reused elsewhere. It’s less about hard identifiers, more about building contextual profiles when attribution is subtle.

That said, I’m always reviewing which tools actually add value. If something feels out of place, I’m open to removing or recategorizing it.

y42 · 1d ago

Why are there tools like "Chattoday" or "Addmesnaps" - don't see how they support OSINT?

Rizu · 2d ago

This is built with Lovable.dev, it would have cost you a lot less caffeine without that

r00m101 · 2d ago

You're right, but for https://r00m101.com backend I needed a lot caffeine

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Comments (15)