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The Political Graveyard Privacy Policy
I'm Larry Kestenbaum, and I'm solely responsible for The Political Graveyard web site. I do all site maintenance, including receiving and responding to all email, writing and debugging all programming, accepting new records into the database, putting new pages online, and so on.
During the years I have been operating the site, I have evolved a set of policies about privacy. This statement represents a codification of those policies which have already been in effect for some time.
There are different aspects of the privacy policy which are applicable to different groups.
The whole point of The Political Graveyard is to make accessible information about political leaders (including judges and diplomats) who have had an impact on American history. Each and every person listed as a politician on the site, living or dead, is a "public figure" within the meaning of New York Times v. Sullivan and following cases. The disclosure of personally identifiable information about political figures, including dates and places of birth and death, offices held, cause of death, burial location, relation to other political figures, indictments or other legal difficulties, historical significance, etc., is central to the mission of the web site and within my First Amendment rights.
However, I also reserve the right to omit from the web site any information I deem to be sensitive or personal, particularly as to living or recently deceased figures.
On occasion, political figures do contact me directly to provide information or simply to discuss politics or history. I never disclose private email addresses (even of public figures) to anyone else without the addressee's consent.
To avoid confusion, listed politicians who contribute information or ideas to the web site are not explicitly offered an opportunity to be omitted from the Acknowledgements. However, requests to be omitted from the Acknowledgements are always honored.
Requests by or on behalf of a political figure to be deleted from the politician listings in the database and web site cannot be honored, unless there was a mistake of identity or in the original determination of eligibility.
Requests to modify the text associated with a particular political figure are taken very seriously. The intent is that all entries be factual and balanced, yet brief. Indictments and trials are mentioned even if an acquittal or dismissal resulted, and even if the defendant was completely exonerated or had been wrongly accused. Suggestions for brief, accurate, and unbiased summaries of specific politicians' troubles with the law are always welcome.
When a burial site of a listed politician is on private property not open to the public, the Political Graveyard web site indicates only the county (or county equivalent), not the exact location.
I presume that ordinarily, a person who takes the initiative to provide information for the web site expects to be, or appreciates being, acknowledged for doing so. It is also important for research purposes to keep track of the sources of all information, and to maintain contact information in case questions arise.
As email and postal mail messages are processed, I send each first-time contributor an email message thanking them. If the email is undeliverable, I make no additional effort to find the person.
The name (if given), email address, and a copy of the incoming and outgoing email is saved in my personal archives for future reference. No email address or personal detail of contributors are disclosed to others without the person's consent, and none of this information is sold or shared or used in any way except to maintain The Political Graveyard.
A list of many of the contributors of information and ideas to the web site appears in the Acknowledgements. By default, the name of each new contributor is added to that list at the time of the next web site update. Contributors who do not provide their names, or who request (at any time) that they not be listed, are omitted. If a first-time contributor has not already indicated a preference to be listed or not listed, the thank-you email points out this option.
Some contributors ask that their listing in the Acknowledgements be a link to their email address or web site; these requests are honored.
Email messages from members of law or accounting firms often include a long boilerplate footer stating that the contents of the message are confidential. In general, if the boilerplate is contrary to the plain intent of the sender to provide public information for the web site, I disregard the claim that the information is confidential.
Comments about the site contained in email are subject to being excerpted without attribution for the comments page.
The Political Graveyard does not collect personally identifiable information about those who visit the web site.
However, the web server does generate, in the ordinary course of operation, http logs which record the numeric IP address, date and time, filename, and other information about each "hit". These logs are retained indefinitely, and are used to generate the traffic statistics which are published through the web site.
These logs are accessible only to me, to Paul Haas, the owner of my web server, and theoretically to others designated by Paul.
Referring sites with links to PoliticalGraveyard.com or Potifos.com (which show up in the http log) are occasionally checked to see if they should be added to the reciprocal links page, the awards page, or the reviews and comments page.
The Political Graveyard and its hosting web server do not generate or use "cookies" in any way.
The ads appearing on this Web site are delivered to users by Google and Amazon.com, our Web advertising providers. Visitors to the site who have Javascript "on" will also be downloading ad text directly from Google, which means they are generating http log entries (with IP addresses, but generally not personally identifiable information) at the advertiser's site. The advertiser's site may also set cookies on the user's machine.
For more information, please consult the privacy policies of the current advertising providers:
Note that this privacy statement (the one you're reading now) is from and about PoliticalGraveyard.com only, and does not cover the use of logs or cookies by any advertisers.
Use of the Political-Graveyard and TPG-current email groups on Yahoogroups is covered by Yahoo's privacy policy. In particular, any messages which are posted to either group are transmitted to its members, and may be archived in multiple locations. Your identity as a member of the group is essentially public, especially if you post any messages.
I do not want to encourage any trespassing on private property.
When a burial site of a listed politician is on private property not open to the public, the Political Graveyard web site indicates only the county (or county equivalent), not the exact location.
My determination of whether a grave site is or is not a private location is based on the totality of the information available to me at the time. I provide links to location maps only where I am certain that a site's location is public knowledge.
Property owners who would like a site they own not to be specifically identified, or to be identified in a different way, are invited to contact me.
The fact that a cemetery is listed on the web site, however, does not necessarily mean that members of the public are permitted to enter its grounds.
Contact Information
If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions about this privacy policy (or indeed any aspect of this web site), please contact Lawrence Kestenbaum, polygon@potifos.com, or P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106.
Revised, September 19, 2006.
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The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. It is the Internet's most comprehensive source for American political biography, listing 180,022 politicians, living and dead.
The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. Web hosting is provided by Paul Haas, of Ypsilanti, Michigan. The site opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on June 16, 2008.