astrid and rene (hellhexx@netscape.net)
Thu, 20 May 1999 14:47:03 -0400 (EDT)
Hello everyone......
I'm a fourth year photo student. Forgive me as this does not pertain to the
alternative issues we discuss but I feel that it will affect our list if this
course of action is not stopped. I was passed this email by my boss today and
I think it will be of interest to all of you who rely on electronic mail to
discuss our livlihood. Please take a moment and read this and if you can
respond to as many people as possible and tell them what the government wants
to do with our FREE e-mail. Once again, please forward this letter to as many
people as you can!!
Subject: Fw: don't delete read this please ... charging for email
Dave Briggs
pullmandave@juno.com
DON'T DELETE THIS ONE
> STOP OUR GOV 'T FROM TAMPERING WITH OUR
> FREE E-MAIL !!!!
>
> Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online
and ontinue 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 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, V
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu Oct 28 1999 - 21:39:34