Petition System Privacy Policy
This document explains our privacy policy, information collection and operational features related to the petition system that is operated by this site. This document applies to petitions generated by the "Politics Fax Petition Service", regardless of the hosting domain or site of the petition.
Information CollectedThe Politics Fax Petition System collects personal identifying information from signers of the petitions it delivers, including a user's name, email address, physical address and in some cases their status as a registered voter and/or district of representation.
No financial information is requested or collected by any of the systems or petitions operated by this service, including but not limited to credit card numbers, social security numbers, bank account information or other data (other than a signer's status as a registered voter) beyond that which would be disclosed by an ordinary telephone directory search.
The servers involved in providing this service also record the Internet Address ("IP number") of all transactions. This data is generated in the ordinary course of processing all web transactions.
How Collected Information Is UsedThe email address you provide is confirmed by sending a confirmatory email message containing only a confirmation number and some form text to the indicated email address. The personal identifying information you entered is not transmitted with the confirmatory email, preventing disclosure if you misspell your email address or if someone enters an intentionally false email address.
An unconfirmed signature is typcially deleted from the system, in its entirety, in 72 hours.
Petition signatures are sent only when a response is received to the confirmatory probe. Returning the confirmatory probe email by hitting "REPLY" (with any message body text, so long as the confirmation number text remains unmolested) causes the system to queue for delivery a fax transmission to one or more individuals or offices, typically individuals in government (such as representatives, senators, the President of the United States, a governor, etc.) Your personal identifying information, with the exception of your email address, will be sent to the official(s) that the petition is directed to when you confirm your signature. This transmission will be made at any time after you return the confirmatory email, and in most cases will be sent within one or two days. This system uses a load-balancing algorythm and as such will initiate transmissions of "batched" signatures when a significant number of them have been queued for processing, or after an appropriate interval even if your signature is the only one pending.
Once the confirmatory email is returned to the system, it is not possible for the operators of this system to interrupt or stop your signature from being sent. Your signature is typically batched with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of others, and is inseparable from the constructed document that is sent by traditional fax transmission.
Retention And Disclosure of Submitted InformationThe information you submit to us will be kept at least until the petition related to it is withdrawn, replaced or has expired. Your information may be retained for an undetermined further period of time.
As explained above, your submitted information will be sent to the recipient of the petition(s) you sign. The recipient may also contact us for a complete list of signatures, or any part of it, at any time, and they will be provided that data on request. Instructions for doing so are found on the cover page that the system generates and sends with each transmission.
If you give consent for the system to email you on similar or related petitions, the system may generate to you an email if a petition bearing on the same subject matter, or one substantially similar, is generated and placed online in the future. If this question is not displayed for a given petition, you are NOT opted in to future petitions - you must specifically request this option in all cases, and some petitions do not have an "opt-in" feature at all.
The information you submit, and that which is logged by the system, may be disclosed to third parties, either intentionally or unintentionally, if we have a need to do so to investigate a problem with the system or software, to determine the origin of any attack launched against the service or the firm(s) providing the services upon which it depends, or in response to a query from a bona-fide law enforcement agency.
The information you submit may also be disclosed due to either system malfunction or intentional penetration by malicious individuals. No warranty or claim of security is made for the database systems used in this application.
Contact InformationPolitics-Fax is operated by a private individual, Karl Denninger. I have been operating the petition system since 1999. In addition to this service I also write and sell spam blocking software; I'm one of the "good guys" trying to keep the "male enlargement" and financial spam out of your mailbox. Sign your name here with confidence - your data will NOT be abused. You may contact the owner of this site and system by sending an email to info@politics-fax.org. To prevent spam this address has a spam blocker installed. Please place the words "I-AGREE" in your email's subject to override the spam block.
Thank you.