[ltp] FW: Surcharges on Email

[Heru Ra Walmsley]

FYI

-----Original Message-----
From: JWolfe9512@aol.com [mailto:JWolfe9512@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 9:40 AM
To: aulbacha@afotec.af.mil; WLB19@aol.com; brookiej@afotec.af.mil;
yusen@erols.com; ERB@newmex.com; JOHNSONL@zianet.com;
rkubasek@doeal.gov; grjmlark@juno.com; lettog@worldnet.att.net;
Lutz63@aol.com; ANNIENM@aol.com
Subject: Surcharges on Email


Have you heard about this?
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Subject:    Surcharges on Email


SUBJECT:  Shame on the Post Office

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 DC 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 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 ®
has even suggested a "twenty to forty dollars 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 email to all
Americans on your list and tell your friends and relatives to write to their
congressman and say "No!" to Bill 602P.

Kate Turner
Assistant to Richard Stepp, Berger, Stepp and Gorman
Attorneys at Law 216 Concorde Street, Vienna, Va.