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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
Last Updated: June 2005

1. THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOURSELF AND THE PEOPLE'S EMAIL NETWORK
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.

2. VERACITY OF INFORMATION SUBMITTED AND U.S. CITIZENSHIP
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. 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.

3. COPYRIGHT, PATENT AND TRADEMARK RIGHTS
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 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.

4. PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE AND UPDATES
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.

5. POSTINGS IN PUBLIC AREAS
With respect to areas of The Web Site which may be designated as 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.

6. THIRD PARTY SITES
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.

7. DISTINCTION BETWEEN CONGRESSIONAL AND FRIENDS EMAILS
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.

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.

8. PRIVACY CONCERNS
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 for which your messages were intended.

9. OPTING-OUT AND OPTING-IN
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.

10. USE OF LISTS OF EMAILS
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.

11. COMMERCIAL USE OF THE WEB SITE
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.

12. GOVERNING LAW, JURISDICTION AND FORUM
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.

13. SEVERABILITY AND INTEGRATION
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.

14. INDEMNITY
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.

15. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
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.

16. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
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.

17. OFFENSIVE, HARMFUL AND ILLEGAL COMMUNICATIONS
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.
© 2004, 2005 The People's Email Network, Patent Pending, All Rights Reserved