Terms of Service

1. What the Site provides

The Site provides selected delayed public-safety radio recordings, machine transcripts, incident summaries, source links, maps, geographic statistics and civic guides covering elections, budgets and audit follow-ups. Current public access does not require an account or payment. We do not provide dispatch, emergency alerts, medical or legal advice, official criminal-history checks, or a guarantee of neighborhood or school safety. Do not rely on the Site to make emergency, medical, evacuation, personal-safety or other time-critical decisions. Follow official instructions and contact the appropriate agency directly.

The material may include distressing descriptions of injury, violence or other emergencies. It is intended for a general audience, not directed to children. Adults should supervise minors' use.

Civic tools summarize dated public records. Budget authorizations, proposed amounts and actual spending are different measures; transfers must not be counted twice. Bond authorization is permission to borrow, not proof that debt was issued or a project completed. Audit findings and management responses are attributed to their source reports; a finding is not by itself proof of waste, fraud or a current unresolved problem. These tools are not investment, tax or financial advice. Election information can change; confirm voting requirements, deadlines and ballot details with election officials.

2. Radio and accuracy

Recordings are selected received transmissions, not a complete account of an incident or all activity in Arlington. Reception gaps, unavailable channels, interference, omitted audio, processing failures and publication decisions can affect coverage. Audio is intended to appear no earlier than 15 minutes after a call ends; processing or review may take longer. "Keep listening" follows delayed recordings, not a real-time dispatch stream.

Radio speakers can make mistakes or repeat unverified allegations. A dispatch, report, arrest, location or mention of a person does not establish guilt, a diagnosis, a finding of wrongdoing or the final outcome. People accused of crimes are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. A recording's presence does not mean AFP endorses its statements.

Automated transcription and summarization can mishear words, mistake names or places, misclassify incidents, combine unrelated calls, split one incident or produce misleading summaries. Listen to the available original recordings and consult authoritative sources before relying on or repeating a claim. We may correct, combine, relabel, limit or withdraw material as information changes.

3. Maps and registry statistics

Event locations may be approximate and may describe an address, intersection, block or broad area. A map point does not establish that an event occurred at a particular home, business or school. Boundaries can be dated, incomplete, overlapping or different from commonly understood neighborhood names. Attendance areas do not establish current school enrollment eligibility or that an event involves a school. ZIP polygons are approximations of postal areas.

Radio statistics describe the Site's available, eligible records for the selected filters. They are not official crime rates, a complete count of emergencies, a measure of police activity or a risk ranking. Counts without a usable, unique boundary assignment are excluded from that boundary table. Different area systems overlap and should not be added together. Missing data does not mean no activity occurred.

Registry statistics are dated, area-level summaries of supplied source data. Source lists, duplicate handling, missing coordinates, later corrections and geocoding can affect totals. Some coordinates may be estimated or identify an institution rather than a verified residence. Table counts and shaded map ranges do not confirm any person's current status or residence and do not measure local offending or school safety. Read the collection date, processing notes and boundary sources on Statistics. These summaries are not an official current registry, individual background check or consumer report and must not be used for employment, housing, credit, insurance or other eligibility decisions.

4. Permitted and prohibited use

You may browse, listen, link to public pages and use material as permitted by these terms, applicable law and any applicable third-party license. You are responsible for your own use and republication. Preserve context and uncertainty; do not present AI output, a preliminary report or an approximate location as an independently confirmed fact.

You must not use the Site to threaten, stalk, harass, dox or unlawfully discriminate against anyone; identify or target victims or minors; interfere with emergency operations; trespass; or commit another unlawful act. Do not use it to impersonate AFP or an official agency, falsely imply endorsement, or manipulate a recording or summary to deceive others.

Do not bypass authentication, publication delays, access restrictions or rate limits; attempt unauthorized access to private systems or unpublished material; introduce malicious code; or automate requests in a way that materially disrupts the service. Public endpoints are not a promise of unrestricted bulk access, stable formats or an ongoing data supply. Contact us before arranging sustained or high-volume access. These restrictions do not prohibit lawful criticism, reviews, reporting, accessibility tools, fair use or other uses protected by law.

5. Copyright and third-party materials

AFP and the applicable rights holders retain their rights in protected original text, design, software, branding and other materials. We do not claim ownership of facts, public-domain material, other people's statements or third-party works merely because they appear on the Site. Third-party data, recordings, map imagery and software may have separate rights, licenses or attribution requirements. Their publication here does not grant rights we do not hold. Noncommercial use alone does not supply every permission that may be required.

Linking to the Site is welcome. When quoting or otherwise reusing material, comply with applicable law, preserve required attribution and do not imply AFP endorsement. Fair use, public-domain rights and other statutory exceptions remain available. Open-source components remain subject to their own licenses; these terms do not replace those licenses.

6. Corrections, privacy and copyright concerns

Send concerns to contact@arlingtonfreepress.com. Include the exact page or recording link, the specific issue, supporting information and a way to reach you. For a copyright concern, identify the work and material at issue and explain your ownership or authority to act. We may request information needed to evaluate a report and may correct, restrict or remove material as appropriate. A report does not guarantee removal, a particular result or a response within a fixed time.

Send only what is necessary. Do not send passwords, Social Security numbers, full medical records or unnecessary sensitive information about another person. Contacting us permits us to use the information you provide to assess and respond to the request; it does not transfer ownership of your work or authorize publication of your private contact details. Email is not an emergency reporting channel and may not be monitored continuously. Contacting us does not pause a legal deadline.

7. Privacy and external services

The Site stores your light/dark appearance preference in your browser's local storage. You can clear it through your browser settings. Hosting and security services receive network and request information, such as IP addresses, request URLs and browser information, to deliver and protect the Site. The Site uses IP-based rate limits and sampled operational request logging. Avoid putting sensitive personal information into search fields or URLs.

Cloudflare provides hosting and security infrastructure. Cloudflare may insert analytics code into pages, but the Site's current Content Security Policy blocks that code from loading. Cloudflare still receives the hosting and security request information described above. The incident Map loads map imagery from OpenStreetMap, which receives the information needed to serve those requests. External links take you to services with their own practices and terms. We do not control their content, availability or information handling. See Cloudflare's privacy policy and the OpenStreetMap Foundation privacy policy. This section describes these Site features; it is not a promise that all third parties collect no data or use no cookies.

8. Availability, access and changes

We may change or discontinue features, correct or remove content, and restrict access reasonably needed for security, legal obligations, publication decisions or violations of these terms. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, retention of any recording, a complete historical archive, continued availability of a link or compatibility with a particular device.

We may revise these terms prospectively by posting an updated version and date here. Material changes will be identified on this page, and any notice or consent required by law will be obtained. Changes do not retroactively alter accrued claims or create obligations where legally required assent is missing.

9. Disclaimers and limits of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the Site is provided "as is" and "as available," without express or implied warranties, including accuracy, completeness, availability, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. We do not warrant that the Site is error-free, secure against every threat or suitable for consequential decisions. Your use and independent verification of information are your responsibility.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, AFP and its personnel are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or lost profits, revenue, opportunities or data arising from use of or inability to use the Site. Subject to the exceptions below, their aggregate liability for claims arising from the Site is limited to the greater of US $100 or the amount you paid AFP for the Site in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

These exclusions and limits do not apply to fraud, gross negligence, willful misconduct, liability for death or personal injury that cannot lawfully be limited, or any other liability or remedy that applicable law does not allow us to exclude or limit. Nothing here authorizes unlawful publication or removes your nonwaivable statutory, consumer or other rights. Where a limitation is not enforceable, the applicable law controls.

10. Governing law, disputes and other terms

To the extent permitted by applicable law, Virginia law governs these terms without applying its conflict-of-law rules. Unless mandatory law requires otherwise, disputes subject to an enforceable agreement under these terms may be brought in the state courts in Arlington County, Virginia, or the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, if it has jurisdiction. Nothing requires you to use a court that lacks jurisdiction or gives up a mandatory right to a different forum. These terms do not impose mandatory arbitration or a class-action waiver.

If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply to the extent permitted by law. Failure to enforce a provision is not a continuing waiver. These terms concern use of the Site and do not override a separate written agreement signed by AFP, a third-party license or mandatory law. Terms concerning rights, disclaimers and disputes continue as applicable after you stop using the Site.

11. Contact

Arlington Free Press, LLC
contact@arlingtonfreepress.com

For Terms questions, corrections, privacy concerns and copyright reports, include the relevant link and enough information for us to understand your request. For emergencies, call 911.