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The People's Email Network exists to give you an avenue to more
effectively communicate with your legislative representatives. We take
no political
position on any of the questions presented. That is your
responsibility as a citizen.
Help us spread the word
about this resource to everyone you know.
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The People's Email Network Terms Of Use
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Last Updated: January 2007
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1. THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOURSELF AND THE PEOPLE'S EMAIL NETWORK
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By your access and use of the web site or web page form from which these
terms and conditions are hyperlinked ("The Web Site"), you signify your
agreement to be bound by all terms, conditions, and notices ("Terms Of
Use") contained or referenced herein. The People's Email Network ("THE
PEN") offers availability of The Web Site and its materials or services or
code to you conditioned on your acceptance without modification of this
Agreement, and your use thereof constitutes your acceptance of this
Agreement. If you do not wish to be bound by these Terms Of Use, you may
not access or use The Web Site or any of its materials or services or
code. THE PEN may terminate this Agreement, or terminate or suspend your
access to The Web Site or any of its materials or services or code at any
time, with or without cause, with or without notice, and will not be
liable to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to the
services or materials. Upon such termination or suspension, your right to
use The Web Site will immediately cease.
We reserve the right, at our discretion, to update or revise these Terms
of Use. Kindly check the Terms Of Use periodically for changes. Your
continued use of this site following the posting of any changes to the
Terms Of Use constitutes acceptance of those changes. Any page of The Web
Site may itself contain additional terms that further govern use of that
web page, including without limitation, particular features or offers. If
any terms contained in this Agreement conflict with any terms contained
within a page of The Web Site, then the terms in this Agreement will
control the situation.
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2. VERACITY OF INFORMATION SUBMITTED AND U.S. CITIZENSHIP
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You represent that you are at least 18 years of age and have attained the
age of majority in the province or state in which you reside, and that you
are a resident or citizen of the United States. You expressly warrant
that any information that you submit, including but not limited to your
name, email address, mail address, or phone number is correct. You
specifically represent that the name you submit is your correct legal name
and that your address is your current residence address for the purposes
of determining your representative members of the U.S. Congress, or
otherwise determining your closest relevant media outlet or other policy
maker where they are the intended recipients. THE PEN
makes no representation that materials on this site are either appropriate or
available for use in locations outside the United States, and accessing
them from territories where their contents are illegal is prohibited.
Those who choose to access this site from other locations do so on their
own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, and may
not create any messages through The Web Site unless they possess U.S.
citizenship.
Any information which you submit, together with any comments or other
information you enter, can, and will to the best of our ability and at our
sole discretion, be transmitted to those members of Congress you select,
with the express intent that those recipients should have that
information. You agree not to impersonate any other person in using the
functions of The Web Site, nor to enter on behalf of any person or
individual any personal information other than their email address without
their express and separate authorization for each particular instance
thereof, nor to assume multiple identities for yourself so as to have more
than one vote on any particular question or issue. At any time you may
have one and only one email address for use related to The Web Site.
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3. COPYRIGHT, PATENT AND TRADEMARK RIGHTS
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All services and/or materials found in The Web Site, including any form
emulating, cloning or duplicating its web pages, are protected by
copyright, patent, trademark, or other intellectual property laws. Any
commercial use of the services and/or materials found on The Web Site are
strictly prohibited, without the express, prior, written consent of THE
PEN. Any reproduction or redistribution of the services and/or materials
not in accordance with the terms set forth herein is expressly prohibited
by law, and may result in severe civil and criminal penalties. Use of the
software comprising the web page code and server code (the "Software")
which operate The Web Site is governed by these Terms Of Use. You may not
reverse engineer, disassemble, reverse encrypt, decompile or otherwise
attempt to discover the source code of the Software available on The Web
Site or any servers THE PEN may use, except and only to the extent that
such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law.
All materials, information, products, services, software or other contents
of The Web Site (the "Content") are Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
The People's Email
Network, all rights reserved. Except as expressly authorized by THE PEN,
you agree not to sell, license, rent, modify, distribute, copy, reproduce,
transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, edit, or
create derivative works from such materials or content. Systematic
retrieval of data or other content from The Web Site to create or compile,
directly or indirectly, a collection, compilation, database or directory
without written permission from THE PEN is prohibited.
Moreover, certain aspects and features of The Web Site and the web page
and server code which enables it, including but not limited to its
structure, functions, capabilities, design, configuration, apparatus,
methods, devices and system, are patent pending and may not be reproduced,
used, cloned, imitated, reverse engineered, emulated or duplicated without
the express written license of THE PEN, including under but not limited by
the doctrine of equivalents.
Furthermore, all company names, service marks, logos, trade names,
trademarks, web sites and domain names of THE PEN are and will remain the
exclusive properties of THE PEN and nothing in this Agreement will grant you
the license to use such marks for any purpose not explicitly authorized.
You may post artwork provided for the purpose of linking on another web
site if and only if you provide a direct hyperlink back from that image to
The Web Site.
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4. PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE AND UPDATES
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With respect to your use of the Software associated with THE PEN grants to
you a nonexclusive, revocable, personal, non-transferable license to use
the Software solely in connection with The Web Site and in accordance with
this Agreement on a single computer for our own personal use. You are not
permitted to use any component of the Software, including but not limited
to html code, javascript code, ActiveX, java, Flash, or any other objects,
in connection with or to access, or use, or for use on any other web site,
except to transmit messages through The Web Site and using The Web Site
only and exclusively. THE PEN reserves all rights to the Software not
expressly granted to you in this Agreement. The Software is protected by
copyright, patent, and other intellectual property laws and treaties. THE
PEN or its programmers, suppliers, associates and licensees own the title,
copyright, patent and other intellectual property rights in the Software,
which is licensed, not sold. THE PEN may automatically check your version
of the Software and may automatically download upgrades to the Software to
your computer to update, enhance and further develop The Web Site.
THE PEN is in no way liable for any claims arising from your use of the
Software. As a condition of your use, you agree to indemnify THE PEN for
all claims relating to your downloading, use, reproduction of, receipt
of, or distribution of content through the Software. THE PEN reserves
the right, in its sole discretion and at any time
to modify or discontinue the Software, limit, terminate or suspend your use of the
Software, assess charges for the use of the Software in the future, and/or
make changes to this Agreement therefor. With regard to instances of the
Software linked to from or embedded in other websites THE PEN will provide
reasonable notice of any such termination for reason other than violation
of these Terms Of Use.
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5. SUBMISSION OF AUDIO CONTENT AND MESSAGE POSTING
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With respect to submission of audio content for broadcast purposes, you
grant us the non-exclusive right to broadcast your submission without
limit in perpetuity, with a display of any artwork, title, website link and
description you submit, together with your name, but not including your
email address. All audio submissions must be your own creation, or you
must have a controlling interest in the production.
With respect to areas of The Web Site which may be designated as action pages,
public posting areas, message boards, chat rooms, or any such like electronic
bulletin boards, for materials you post or otherwise provide to THE PEN
related to The Web Site (a "Submission"), you grant THE PEN permission to
(1) use, copy, copyright, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly
perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission,
each in connection with The Web Site, and to (2) sub-license these rights,
to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. THE PEN will not pay
you for your Submission, and your posting of any such Submission
constitutes a full and entire granting and transfer of rights in and to
the Submission for all purposes and mediums, whether in existence now or
in the future. You hereby grant THE PEN and its affiliates and licensees
the right to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, distribute,
have distributed, and promote the content of any Submission in any form,
anywhere and for any purpose.
Moreover, for each Submission, you represent and warrant that you possess
all rights necessary for you to make the grants in this section, that you
own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content of any
Submission within the four corners of the doctrine of fair use pursuant to
copyright law, and that public posting and use of your content by THE PEN
will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party. THE PEN is
not obligated to maintain any Submission and may remove your Submission at
any time.
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The Web Site may produce automated search results or otherwise provide links
for you to other sites on the Internet. These sites may contain
information or material that some people may find inappropriate or
offensive. These other sites are not under the control of THE PEN, and you
acknowledge that THE PEN is not responsible for the accuracy, copyright
compliance, legality, decency, or any other aspect of the content of such
sites, or changes or updates to such sites. THE PEN is providing these
links to you as a convenience and an educational or informational resource
and the inclusion of any such link does not imply endorsement of the site
by THE PEN or any association with its operators.
In addition to issue action pages on questions THE PEN chooses to address
unilaterally, The Web Site may also host custom issue action pages
created at the request of or proposed by other parties, or provide code to
other sites for like forms that interface over the internet with The Web
Site. All such instances of code are fully encompassed by these terms
and conditions whether those pages are hosted by THE PEN or not. The
continued maintenance of such custom issue action pages is by mutual
agreement, and may be discontinued by THE PEN upon reasonable notice at
its sole discretion.
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7. DISTINCTION BETWEEN CONGRESSIONAL AND FRIENDS EMAILS
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The Web Site currently is configured to handle two categories and types of
email messages. If you have left any of the check boxes checked next to
your representatives in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives, or if
that option is not specifically provided, we will attempt to transmit an
email message to them (a "Congressional Email") including your personal
name, address, and phone (if required) information, together with your
comments and position on the question (the "Question") at issue on the
page or form section of the page where you input that information, but
will not include in that message any of the CCs you input as friends'
email addresses. If there are additional administrative agency or policy
maker recipients they will be specified on the form. All such messages
will be processed by THE PEN through the appropriate Internet gateways
maintained by members of the U.S. Congress or otherwise transmitted to
them, and will be submitted either in the background of whatever browser
session you have opened or by one of our servers directly. Where other
recipients are specified on a particular action page such as media outlets
or other policy makers, these messages are handled in the same way as
Congressional Emails.
If you input any friends' email addresses in that input field, we will
additionally format an email message (a "Friends Email") for transmission
by your own email client or ours to these additional email addresses.
Depending on the capability of our email client, some of these addresses
may be included instead in the Friends Email of another user of The Web
Site with preferably, but not necessarily, the same point of view on the
Question. A Friends Email is not intended to, and to the best of our good
faith ability, will not include any personal physical address information,
and will not include any of your personal comments to Congress, but only a
general indicator of your position on the Question, your name and email
address. If your own email client is being used, you will generally have
an opportunity to review the exact text of this outgoing email and agree
to take responsibility for the final act of sending it with your approval.
ATTACHMENTS ARE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN AND YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE NOT TO ADD ANY
ATTACHMENT TO ANY EMAIL MESSAGE AT THE CLIENT END.
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To the extent that the information you input is intended to be transmitted
to third parties you have selected, THE PEN can take no responsibility and
bears no liability for what the recipients may do with that information
after transmission. Whether there is any expectation of privacy in an
email is still an open question. Notwithstanding the foregoing we will
not ourselves intentionally disclose your name, mailing address or phone
number except as specified above, for reasonable cause, or on legitimate
authority as required by law or court order, to parties other than the
congressional representatives, media outlets or other policy makers for
which your messages were intended. With regards the message postings referenced
in section 5 above, we will endeavor to truncate personal names for
public posting purposes, where not included in your personal comments
themselves.
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9. OPTING-OUT AND OPTING-IN
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If an opt-in checkbox appears on a form linking to The Web Site, you will
not be contacted by us unless that checkbox is checked, or unless required
for verification of the functioning of the system. Otherwise, by your
access and use of The Web Site, you expressly agree and consent to be the
recipient of periodic communications related to The Web Site or for any
other reasonable purpose, at our sole discretion. You are not required to
affirmatively opt-in, but if you do so you may have access to certain
additional special features of The Web Site. If you receive more
communications pursuant to this section than you would like, or would
otherwise wish to impede the transmission of any such messages, you may
affirmatively opt-out using the "Remove Me" link at the top of our main
home page. Anyone who verifies an opt-out request will be precluded from
any further use of The Web Site, unless they affirmatively opt-in from the
adjacent "Opt-In" link there.
Upon receipt of an opt-out request we may act on that directly, or else
send you a verifying email to confirm that you are the authorized person
who controls that email address. Once verified, we will endeavor in good
faith to extract and delete your name and email address from any list we
maintain or submitted by another user of The Web Site. We do not warrant
that we will be successful in preventing the transmission of any messages
to any person after they have opted-out, in particular because other users
of The Web Site may have the opportunity of adding additional CCs, and may
thereby add in again email addresses which our system has extracted in the
handling at the server end, before final transmission by them of a Friends
Email at their client end.
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10. USE OF LISTS OF EMAILS
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You are hereby advised and put on express notice that any input in the
form of individual email addresses, lists of email addresses, or raw text,
may be transmitted immediately to THE PEN for parsing and database
storage, whether the form containing those input elements is finally
submitted by you or not. In particular we disclose that this is
universally the case with respect to files which you select by a browsing
function or as to any list over a certain size, and you agree that we have
fully authority and your consent to do this. We will endeavor to maintain
an opt-out list in reasonable good faith and to use this list together
with any other list at our sole discretion to attempt remove email
addresses from those you may so provide to (1) prevent transmission of
messages to parties not interested or permitted by us to receive such
transmissions, or (2) to prevent the transmission of multiple messages on
the same topic or question to any party who we may believe has already
received notification of the same. You warrant and represent that any email
addresses you input or submit under this section do not contain, to the
best of your good faith knowledge, the email addresses of anyone who would
object for any reason to the receipt of messages through The Web Site,
either one time or on a regular basis, and expressly grant, delegate and
extend to us whatever authority or consent you have from them to send
emails to any such email address for any purpose.
Depending on the limitations of the email client at your end, or based on
the volume of your submitted list of email addresses, we may at our sole
discretion remove from your outgoing Friends Email any addresses in excess
of a number which we may predetermine, and to add those extra email
addresses instead to the outgoing CCs of other users of The Web Site with
additional available capacity for the purpose of load balancing. We will
endeavor in good faith to match email addresses you submit to outgoing
messages of like position on the Question, but do not warrant we will do
so in all cases.
If there is, and you leave checked, a the check box checked labeled "Yes,
I will accept extra CCs", you hereby give THE PEN your express permission
and consent to add a reasonable number of additional CCs, from any list of
email addresses we maintain or possess, to any outgoing Friends Message
you may create on The Web Site. If you do not wish THE PEN to do so you
must affirmatively uncheck this box when you use The Web Site. If you do
not uncheck this box, you agree to hold us harmless from any cause of
action related to the complaint of any additional CC recipient in this
regard.
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11. COMMERCIAL USE OF THE WEB SITE
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The Web Site is only for your personal use to express your personal views
on important issues of day. You agree will not use The Web Site for any
commercial purpose, or the promotion of any other product, service or web
site, except by such hyperlinks as we expressly agree to provide for you
on The Web Site. You will not use the Web Site to transmit repeated
messages to any party unless you have a good faith belief they will not
object to such messages, and will immediately refrain from transmitting
any subsequent message to any party through The Web Site on their request.
You will not use The Web Site in any way that is unlawful, or harms THE
PEN, its affiliates, resellers, distributors, service providers and/or
suppliers or any customer, user or intended message recipient, as
determined in THE PEN's sole discretion. Without limiting the generality
of this section, you may not use The Web Site in any manner that could
damage, disable, overburden, or impair The Web Site (or the network(s)
connected to The Web Site) or interfere with any other party's use and
enjoyment of The Web Site.
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12. GOVERNING LAW, JURISDICTION AND FORUM
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These Terms of Use will be governed by and construed in accordance with
the laws of the State of California, excluding its conflicts of law rules.
You agree that in any legal action or proceeding between you and THE PEN
for any purpose concerning this Agreement, you agree to submit to the
exclusive jurisdiction of either the Los Angeles Superior Court or the
United States District Court, Central District of California, as
appropriate based on the cause of action, and you expressly waive all
defenses to jurisdiction.
You and THE PEN agree that any cause of action arising out of or related
to The Web Site must commence within one (1) year after the cause of
action accrues. Otherwise, such cause of action is permanently barred.
Any failure of THE PEN to insist upon or enforce strict performance of any
provision of these Terms Of Use will not be construed as a waiver of any
provision or right. Neither will the course of conduct between the
parties nor trade practice act to modify any provision of these Terms Of
Use. THE PEN may assign its rights and duties under these Terms Of Use to
any party at any time without notice to you.
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13. SEVERABILITY AND INTEGRATION
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Unless otherwise specified herein, this Agreement constitutes the entire
agreement between you and THE PEN with respect to The Web Site and
supersedes all prior or contemporaneous communications and proposals
(whether oral, written, or electronic) between you and THE PEN with
respect to this site. If any part of these Terms Of Use is held invalid or
unenforceable, that portion will be construed in a manner consistent with
applicable law to reflect, as nearly as possible, the original intentions
of the parties, and the remaining portions will remain in full force and
effect. The section titles in the Agreement are solely used for the
convenience of the parties and have no legal or contractual significance.
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You agree to indemnify, and will indeed indemnify, whether upon request or
without, to defend and hold THE PEN, its officers, owners, directors,
employees, agents, shareholders, licensors, suppliers, business partners
and any third party information providers to The Web Site, its services or
materials from and against all losses, expenses, damages and costs,
including reasonable attorneys' fees, resulting from your improper use of
any services or materials, your use or misuse of The Web Site, or any
violation of this Agreement by you. THE PEN reserves the right, but
assumes no obligation, to assume at its own expense the exclusive defense
and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in
which event you will cooperate with THE PEN in asserting any available
defenses. The provisions of this paragraph will inure for the benefit of
THE PEN and its officers, owners, directors, employees, agents,
shareholders, licensors, suppliers, business partners and any third party
information providers to The Web Site, its services or materials. Each of
these individuals or entities will have the right to assert and enforce
these provisions directly against you on its own behalf.
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15. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
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Under no circumstances will THE PEN, its subsidiaries, or it licensors, be
liable for any damages, including without limitation any direct, indirect,
consequential, special, incidental or punitive damages that result from
the use or the inability to use The Web Site, or any claim attributable to
any errors, omissions or other inaccuracies in the service and/or
materials or information obtained on The Web Site. The exclusion of
damages under this section is independent of your exclusive remedy and
survives in the event such remedy fails of its essential purpose or is
otherwise ruled unenforceable. These limitations apply whether the
alleged liability is based on contract, tort, negligence, strict liability
or any other basis, to the extent such limitations are not prohibited by
applicable law, even if THE PEN has been advised of the possibility of
such damages. If you are dissatisfied with The Web Site or do not agree
with any part of this Agreement, or if you have any other dispute claim
against THE PEN, your sole and exclusive remedy is to discontinue using
and accessing The Web Site.
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16. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
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All of the Content included in or available through The Web Site are
provided "as is", "as available" and "with all faults" for your personal
use. The Content is provided without warranties of any kind, either
express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of
merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, noninfringement,
workmanlike effort, title, quiet enjoyment, promise of no encumbrances, no
liens, warranties. satisfactory quality, or performance arising through
the course or dealing of usage or trade. THE PEN does not warrant that
the Content is accurate, reliable, correct, error-free, that The Web Site
will be available uninterrupted or accessible online as any particular
time or from any particular location, that any errors or defects will be
corrected, or that the content is free of any harmful components. There
are no warrantees that extend beyond the face of this Agreement.
You further acknowledge and agree to hold THE PEN harmless, not
responsible and not liable for any viruses, worms, Trojan horses, or other
any other code containing contaminating, destructive or disabling
properties that you may encounter through, or which may affect your use of
The Web Site, or any other web site, for any incompatibility between The
Web Site and any other web site, for any delays you may experience in
initiating, conducting or completing any transmissions or transactions in
connection with, through or linked from The Web Site in an accurate or
timely manner. You are responsible and are urged to implement sufficient
procedures, safeguards, defensive anti-virus software, and checkpoints to
satisfy your particular requirements for data or system integrity, and for
maintaining an external means for reconstruction of any lost data. The
use of this site is solely at your own risk, to the extent such
limitations are not prohibited by applicable law.
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17. OFFENSIVE, HARMFUL AND ILLEGAL COMMUNICATIONS
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Your use of and access to The Web Site is further conditioned on your
agreement not to submit or include, whether by comments, messages, notes
or otherwise, any unlawful, harmful, infringing, abusive, harassing,
obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, profane, hateful, discriminatory,
indecent, threatening, offensive, defamatory, tortious, illegal or other
objectionable material of any kind, in any transmissions or
communications, whether input to any of the forms on The Web Site, or
added by yourself before sending any mail message formatted for you for
transmission. YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE NOT TO INCLUDE ANY ATTACHMENTS OF ANY
KIND WHATSOEVER IN ANY MESSAGE WHICH MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR USE OF
THE WEB SITE, WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IT TO HARMLESS OR NOT. You agree not to
use The Web Site for any unlawful purpose, including the encouragement of
unlawful conduct.
Violations of this provision are grounds for immediate and permanent
termination and exclusion of you from the use of The Web Site. To the
maximum extent permitted by applicable law, THE PEN may monitor your email
submissions, form inputs, or other electronic communications and may
disclose such information in the event it has a good faith reason to
believe it is necessary for purposes of ensuring your compliance with this
Agreement, and protecting the rights, property, and interests of THE PEN
or any user of The Web Site. If THE PEN believes, in its sole discretion,
that you are in violation of this section, in addition we may forward the
offensive materials, your communications with THE PEN and your personally
identifiable information to the proper authorities for investigation or
prosecution.
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© 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 The People's Email Network, Patent Pending, All Rights Reserved
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