To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com, dj AT delorie DOT com, linux-guru AT gcfl DOT net
Subject: More Gov't intrusion
Message-ID: <19990914.083025.10279.3.vmccar@juno.com>
X-Mailer: Juno 1.49
X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 2-62,64
From: Vince McCarthy <vmccar AT juno DOT com>
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 11:30:21 EDT
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

   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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