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DRCNet Privacy Policy

Some sections of our web sites ask you to provide us with your name, e-mail address, sometimes mailing address or other information. In this statement, we've attempted to describe as fully as possible what we will and won't do with this information. At DRCNet, we respect your right to privacy. We pledge to limit our use of your personal information to the ways described in this policy statement, and to select only such uses that are important to our organization and our cause. In all cases, we strive to uphold both the online standards of "netiquette" and the professional standards that are expected from nonprofit organizations.

First, DRCNet considers your e-mail address to be confidential, and never shares e-mail lists. Only key DRCNet personnel and certain technical contractors are allowed the ability to access the areas of the computer systems in which we store our lists, and the list is accessed only for the purpose of distributing DRCNet bulletins or for analyzing the makeup of our subscriber distribution. If you write us with a specific question or issue that can be better addressed by others, we might forward your correspondence to them, but otherwise you can consider your e-mail address to be confidential as far as DRCNet is concerned.

DRCNet pledges to use your mailing address only in ways that are considered appropriate for a nonprofit organization. We occasionally use mailing addresses that we've collected to conduct mailings for fundraising purposes, or to send you special alerts, bulletins, newsletters, thank you notes or other correspondence. If you prefer, you may opt out from receiving fundraising solicitations from us, or from receiving any DRCNet correspondence by US mail, by submitting your request to our contact form (please select "membership" in the drop down menu) or by contacting us at the address or phone number provided below.

DRCNet has in the past occasionally shared, traded or rented its mailing addresses (not e-mail addresses, nor phone numbers nor fax numbers) to allied organizations or political candidates. We have not yet, but might in the future, conduct similar arrangements with certain select businesses that have a particular connection to our cause, such as manufacturers or distributors of products that use hemp, sellers of books relating to civil liberties, etc.

In accordance with standard practices in the nonprofit world, any list sharing by DRCNet is done on a one-time use basis only. That is, an organization to which we provide your address for a mailing will have the use of it only for that mailing, and will not get to keep it, nor provide it to third parties, nor examine your entry on an individual basis, unless you subsequently establish contact with that organization. The same organization might, at DRCNet's discretion, get to rent or trade for portions of our list again, but would not have access to your name or address during any point in between.

You may specify your address as a "no-share," and if so, we will not include it in any trades or rentals in which we participate. To do so, please submit your request to our contact form (please select "membership" in the drop down menu) or by contacting us at the address or phone number provided below.

DRCNet will not provide information on your individual donation history or other organizational activity to any other organizations. DRCNet may, however, trade or rent portions of our list based on such criteria sorted in the aggregate. That is, we might trade use of the paying member portion of our list for use of another organization's paying member list, or the portion of our list that falls within a certain contribution range, or that has responded to action alerts on a given issue, etc. Any such trades would again be subject to the same rules and constraints described above.

Some sections of DRCNet's web sites, including but not limited to those focused on generating correspondence to state legislators, might be designed and utilized as collaborations with one or more other organizations. In such cases, the participating organizations, which would be identified on the section's web pages, may be entitled to permanent ownership of a copy of the portion of the database generated through use of that section. For example, a New York-based organization that collaborates with DRCNet on a web site directing constituent correspondence to members of the New York legislature might get to keep a copy of the mailing addresses, e-mail addresses and other information that the system used in that web site collects.

In such cases, our partner organizations would have to first agree, as a condition of establishing the collaboration, that they will treat all such data carefully and adhere to responsible use of it. That is, such organizations will not share lists of e-mail addresses generated through the collaboration; will make use of such e-mail lists sparingly, if at all, in order to not burden recipients with excessive amounts of e-mail; and will share, trade or rent mailing addresses only for one-time uses, and in a manner consistent with professional nonprofit standards.

DRCNet has at times conducted telephone solicitation campaigns for fundraising, and makes phone calls for political mobilization and for other purposes. If you do no wish to be called at any time in the future, please use our contact form (select "membership" in the drop down menu) or contact us at the address or phone number provided below. Note that DRCNet does not require you to provide a phone number in any of our forms or correspondence.

Issues or requests relating to DRCNet mailing lists, privacy policies or other similar matters may be addressed to: DRCNet, P.O. Box 9853, Washington, DC 20016, (202) 293-8340 or contact form (select "membership" in the drop down menu).