Legal
membership-terms-2026-08-24bThese Terms of Service (these "Terms") are a binding agreement between you and LION — Local Integrity Oversight Network ("LION," "we," or "us") governing your account with, and your participation in or with, the LION network (the "Network"), the account service operated at lionwatchtx.org. By joining the Network, you become a member of the Network (a "Member") and you accept these Terms; if you do not agree to them, do not join. If you do not fully understand these Terms, do not join. You accept these Terms once, and they govern everything after — there is no separate agreement for each request. Section 4 contains the authorization that places your name on requests to government bodies. Read it closely.
LION is a public-records analytics firm based in North Texas. LION collects public records — from the publications of governmental bodies subject to the Texas Public Information Act, Tex. Gov't Code ch. 552 (the "Act"; each such body, a "Government Body"), from other public sources, and from records produced in response to members' requests — verifies each record against its source, and publishes what the records show, dated and cited.
LION is not a government agency and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for any Government Body. Membership is free. Full access to LION's library catalog is an optional paid subscription, described in Section 6A — you never need it to be a Member, to Adopt a request, or to receive records.
LION is not a law firm, does not practice law, and does not provide legal advice. Joining the Network does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing in these Terms, on the site, in correspondence from LION, or in a request prepared for you is legal advice.
LION cites statutes and Attorney General guidance in correspondence with Government Bodies because that is the subject matter of the correspondence. It is argument addressed to the Government Body, not advice to you. For legal advice about a request, your rights, or a dispute with a Government Body, consult a lawyer.
To join the Network you must be a single natural person, eighteen years of age or older, acting on your own behalf, joining under your own real legal name, and not confined in a correctional facility. The last requirement reflects the Act: under § 552.028, a Government Body is not required to accept a request from a person who is imprisoned or confined, or from that person's agent.
You may hold one account. Do not create a second account, use a second email address, or use another person's name to circumvent per-person limits; several provisions of the Act operate per requestor, and duplicate identities corrupt that. If LION reasonably believes two accounts belong to the same person, or that a name or email address is not genuine, LION may hold, consolidate, or close the accounts and any requests attached to them.
Keep your name and email address accurate. LION relies on them to identify you to a Government Body if properly asked, and to contact you about your own requests.
When you join, you appoint LION as your agent under the Act for requests you Adopt. To "Adopt" a request is to select a proposed request through the Network so that it is prepared and filed as your request — a request for public information under the Act, made by you, in your own name (a "Request"). Adoption requires no further consent because the authorization below is given here, once, and covers every Request you Adopt.
To be exact about the roles: every Request is yours. You make it, in your own name and your individual capacity, under your own right of access to public information. LION does not make requests. What you grant below is agency — LION acting for you, in the ways stated in this Section 4 and Section 7, and no others.
The following is the authorization, stated in your words. By joining you agree to all of it. LION keeps a record of the version of these Terms you accepted, the date and time of acceptance, and the agreement you gave.
The authorization
Agency. I authorize LION — Local Integrity Oversight Network — to act as my agent under the Texas Public Information Act: to prepare and submit my Requests, in my name; to communicate with the Government Body about them, including clarifying, narrowing, or withdrawing a Request; and to receive the responsive records and all statutory notices for me at openrecordsagent@lionwatchtx.org.
My name. The Government Body sees me as my first name, last initial, and LION member number, with LION named as my agent. My full name and email address are not included in a routine Request — though I understand I have no right to anonymity under the Act, and Section 8 describes what happens if a Government Body asks for further identification. What reaches the Government Body becomes part of the public record of that Request and cannot be taken back.
Money. LION agrees to no payment on my behalf. If a Government Body requests payment or sends a cost estimate, LION brings me the options — narrow the Request, withdraw it, or challenge the charge with the Texas Attorney General.
Enforcement. LION may send a Government Body an overdue notice and file a complaint with the Office of the Texas Attorney General for me, and will tell me when it does. LION will not spend money in my name without my separate consent, each time. LION does not file lawsuits.
Contact. LION may email me about my Requests, including a copy of each Request as filed.
Me. I am a single natural person, eighteen or older, acting on my own behalf, not confined in a correctional facility, joining under my own real legal name with one account.
You are the requestor of record on every Request you Adopt, and the right of access being exercised is yours. LION, as your disclosed agent, drafts or assists in drafting the Request, transmits it, and manages the response; the Request itself is made in your name and belongs to you.
The eligibility requirements in Section 3 exist for the same reason. A Request made by a person who is not who they claimed to be is a problem for you as much as for LION.
LION does not charge you — to join, to Adopt a Request, or to receive records — and LION never accepts, agrees to, or authorizes a charge in your name. No agreement of LION's will ever obligate you to pay anyone. (The paid Membership subscription in Section 6A is separate and entirely optional: it pays for access to LION's published catalog, never for a Request.)
LION cannot promise what a Government Body will do. The Act permits a Government Body to charge a requestor in defined circumstances, and a Government Body addresses estimates and invoices to the requestor of record — you. If that happens, LION will notify you, explain the options, and act on your instruction. LION will not pay the charge, agree to it, or commit you to it.
LION publishes a catalog of Texas school-library records. Reading the catalog takes a paid subscription called Membership. Here is the whole deal, in plain words:
The dashboard's free layer stays free — the statewide topic counts, each district's records-request status, and everything a free account can watch. A subscription only ever adds access. And the subscription is access to LION's published work: it is not a donation, not tax-deductible, and it buys no influence over what LION publishes.
Adoption places a Request in line for filing, and LION guarantees no filing time: a Request may be transmitted immediately after Adoption, after a hold, or not at all. LION files the Request as you Adopted it — LION may correct the recipient's address, but does not change the substance of a Request you have Adopted. LION may decline to file any Request, including one that duplicates a Request another Member has already Adopted, or one LION considers abusive, harassing, or outside the purpose of the Network. Every Request is filed as a separate request, in one Member's name; LION never merges your Request with another Member's.
LION is not obligated to file any particular Request, to file it within any particular time, or to file it at all.
This section describes the most important consequence of using the Network. When a Request you Adopted is filed, your first name, last initial, and Member number are provided to the Government Body as the requestor. The Request, and the correspondence concerning it, become part of that Government Body's public records, which anyone may request. LION cannot retract them, and neither can you.
The Act gives a requestor no right to anonymity, and LION does not promise you one. In a routine Request, LION sends only the short form of your identity; your full name, your email address, and the other contents of your account remain with LION. However, § 552.222(a) of the Act permits a Government Body to make an inquiry of a requestor "to establish proper identification," and other provisions of the Act can require identification in specific circumstances. If a Government Body asks LION to identify you further, LION will normally ask it to explain in writing why identification is necessary, and will make reasonable efforts to contact you before responding — though statutory deadlines do not always allow it. You may then choose: provide the identification, or withdraw the Request. LION cannot promise that a Government Body will never learn your full identity.
Within the Network — visible only to signed-in Members, not to the public — your first name, last initial, Member number, and the Requests you have Adopted appear beside each of those Requests and on the contribution leaderboard. LION's public pages do not display your name.
Note that even the short form of your identity may be sufficient to identify you in a small community. If that concerns you, do not Adopt Requests directed to Government Bodies where you would be recognizable.
Records produced by a Government Body in response to your Request are government records — neither yours nor LION's. LION receives them as your agent and may publish, index, analyze, and quote them, and may report on what a Government Body did or failed to do in response to your Request. LION may retain and use the records indefinitely, including after your account closes. Adopting a Request does not give you ownership of the records or any right to control LION's reporting on them.
LION may make records and responses available to you through the Network or by email, but does not guarantee delivery of any record to you, on any timeline or in any form.
Records produced by Government Bodies are public records, and LION claims no copyright in them. What LION creates around them is LION's: the site, the analysis, the annotations, and the selection, arrangement, and compilation of records and data, which are protected as compilations under copyright law, together with LION's name and marks. You may view and share LION's published work, with attribution, for personal, non-commercial purposes. Any other use — including scraping, bulk copying, republication, or commercial use — requires LION's prior written permission.
To withdraw a Request, use the withdraw option on that Request in your dashboard. Withdrawals are processed by a person.
LION guarantees neither a timeframe for processing a withdrawal nor its outcome. A Request may be transmitted before your withdrawal is processed, and a transmitted Request cannot be recalled. After a Request is filed, LION can only ask the Government Body to withdraw it; the filing is already a public record that cannot be undone.
You may close your account at any time from your account settings, and you may revoke LION's agency at any time, in whole or in part.
Closing your account does not operate retroactively. Requests already filed in your name remain filed — they are public records of the Government Body. Unless you direct otherwise, LION continues to receive and manage the responses to those Requests, because they are addressed to LION and abandoning them serves no one. If you direct LION to stop — on one Request or all of them — LION will act on that direction, subject to Section 11: LION guarantees neither a timeframe nor any outcome with a Government Body.
LION may suspend or close an account at any time, for any reason, without notice.
The Network is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. LION does not warrant that the Network will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, and does not warrant the security of any information you provide to LION, including your name and email address.
LION does not promise that any Request will be filed, that a Government Body will respond, that it will respond correctly or on time, that records will be produced, or that records produced will be complete or accurate. Government Bodies are not under LION's control. LION publishes records and analysis on a best-efforts basis and may be wrong; nothing on the site is legal, financial, or professional advice.
To the fullest extent permitted by law: (a) LION is not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or reputational harm, arising out of or relating to the Network or these Terms, on any theory of liability, even if advised of the possibility; (b) your sole and exclusive remedy for any dissatisfaction with the Network is to stop using it and close your account; and (c) LION's total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Network, these Terms, or anything LION does or does not do as your agent is limited to the total amount you have paid LION under Section 6A in the twelve months before the claim arose — which, if you have paid nothing (an account itself being free), is zero dollars (US$0).
Where applicable law does not permit a limitation in this section, that limitation applies to the fullest extent the law permits, and the remainder of this section stays in force.
You are responsible for the truth of what you tell LION — that you are eligible under Section 3, and that your name and email address are your own and accurate. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold LION harmless from any claim, loss, or expense, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of your breach of these Terms or your misrepresentation of your identity or eligibility.
Use the Network lawfully and for its purpose. Do not misrepresent your identity, create additional accounts, use the Network to harass any person or Government Body, attempt to disrupt or gain unauthorized access to LION's systems, or scrape or bulk-copy the site except as LION permits.
LION may modify these Terms at any time, and your continued use of the Network after the effective date of a modification constitutes acceptance of it — a new signature is not required. Each version carries a version identifier and an effective date, and the version you accepted remains on your account record. LION will make reasonable efforts to notify Members of changes, but the version posted at lionwatchtx.org/terms controls. If a modification materially affects the authorization in Section 4 — what LION may do in your name — LION may require you to accept the new version before you Adopt another Request, and may suspend or close the account of a Member who does not accept it.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Network is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state courts located in Grayson County, Texas, and the federal courts for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division, and you consent to personal jurisdiction and venue there. Any dispute must be brought solely in your individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, or representative proceeding.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, you and LION each waive the right to a trial by jury in any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Network, and any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Network must be brought within one year after the claim accrues, or it is permanently barred. You further waive, to the fullest extent permitted by law, any right to injunctive or other equitable relief against the operation of the Network or the publication of records and analysis; your remedies are limited to those stated in Section 14.
Severability; waiver. If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary or severed, and the remainder stays in force. LION's failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the privacy policy, are the entire agreement between you and LION concerning the Network, and supersede the terms effective August 8, 2026, and every version before them.
Assignment. You may not assign these Terms or the authorization in Section 4. LION may assign these Terms to a successor that continues the Network — including a legal entity formed to operate LION — and will notify you if that happens; your right to revoke under Section 12 is unaffected.
Survival. Sections 2, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, and 19, and the definitions used in them, survive the closure of your account.
Your Requests and records: openrecordsagent@lionwatchtx.org
Your account, privacy, and everything else: info@lionwatchtx.org
LION's handling of personal information is described in the privacy policy.
LION is a public-records analytics firm, not a law firm, and provides no legal advice. Nothing in these Terms creates an attorney-client relationship.
Prior versions: Terms of 2026-08-24 (morning) (superseded later 2026-08-24, naming only) · Terms of 2026-08-08 (superseded 2026-08-24) · Terms of 2026-08-03 (superseded 2026-08-08).