To ALL: OT and Scary:Very Important: Copied from AOL Board--
<<OFF TOPIC--but important>>
Subject: Legislation that will affect your use of the Internet.
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 bureaucratic efficiency.
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 who's 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.
Kate Turner
Assistant to Richard Stepp, Berger, Stepp and Gorman
Attorneys at Law 216 Concorde Street, Vienna, VA |
