Theos-Talk Archives (October 1999 Message tl00329)

  Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 07:13:15 PDT

Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt. to charge
a 5 cent charge on every delivered email.

Please read the following carefully if you intend to
stay online and continue using 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.

Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt. to charge a
5 cent surcharge on every E-mail 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 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 magazine 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 writet 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.

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Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com