Date: Wednesday, June 09, 1999 9:28 AM
Subject: USPS Wants $$
>Subject: USPS Wants E-mail $$!
>
>Read the following and please pass it on to everyone you know:
Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and
>continue using email:
>
>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 bilk 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 non-interference. 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 bureacratic 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 email to all Americans on your list and tell your friends
and>
>relatives to write to their congressman and say "No!" to Bill 602P.
>
>KateTurner
>Assistant to Richard Stepp, Berger, Stepp and Gorman Attorneys at
>Law
>216 Concorde Street
>Vienna, Va.
>
>It's the action, not the fruit of the action that's important. You have
to do the right thing...You may never know what results come from your
>action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result. (Gandhi)
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