Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/09/14/14:57:46
Sorry for being off topic, but I believe this is very important to
this NG as well as every other ng, considering how many e-mail's news
group handle.
Please read it and pass it on.
Thank you
Vince McCarthy
Government charging for e-mail
GOVERNMENT WANTS TO CHARGE POSTAGE FOR E-MAIL
The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the
Government of the United States attempting to quietly push
through legislation that will affect your use of the
Internet. Under proposed legislation the U.S. Postal
Service will be attempting to bill email users out of
'alternate postage fees,' Bill 602P will permit the Federal
Govt. to charge a 5 cent surcharge on every email
delivered, by billing Internet Service Providers at source.
The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP.
Washington D.C. lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay
to prevent this legislation from becoming law. The U.S.
Postal Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the
proliferation of email is costing nearly $230,000,000 in
revenue per year. You may have noticed their recent ad
campaign 'There is nothing like a letter.' Since the
average citizen received about 10 pieces of email per day
in 1998, the cost to the typical individual would be an
additional 50 cents per day, or over $180 dollars per year,
above and beyond their regular Internet costs. Note that
this would be money paid directly to the U.S. Postal
Service for a service they do not even provide. The whole
point of the Internet is democracy and noninterference. If
the federal government is permitted to tamper with our
liberties by adding a surcharge to email, who knows where
it will end. You are already paying an exorbitant price
for snail mail because of bureaucratic inefficiency. It
currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered
from New York to Buffalo. If the U.S. Postal Service is
allowed to tinker with email, it will mark the end of the
"free" Internet in the United States.
One congressman, Tony Schnell (r) has even suggested a
'twenty to forty dollar per month surcharge on all Internet
service' above and beyond the government's proposed email
charges. Note that most of the major newspapers have
ignored the story, the only exception being the
Washingtonian which called the idea of email surcharge 'a
useful concept whose time has come' March 6th 1999
Editorial. Don't sit by and watch your freedoms erode
away!
Send this e-mail to EVERYONE on your list, and tell all
your friends and relatives to write to their congressman
and say 'No!' to Bill 602P. It will only take a few
moments of your time, and could very well be instrumental
in killing a bill we don't want. (E-mail from Kate Turner,
Assistant to Richard Stepp, Berger, Stepp and Gorman,
Attorneys at Law 216 Concorde Street, Vienna, VA)
Please pass this on.
Remember if you don't do it it won't get done. So do it now before its
to late.
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