Re: E-Mail Postage

This sounds like a slightly different version of a hoax that was going
around a few months ago.  I suspect you can find it on one of the urban
legend websites.

Jeanne Ross

----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Keilholz <Joe.Keilholz(at)paceco.com>
To: <hwg-business(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 6:42 AM
Subject: E-Mail Postage


| Hello all!
|
| I'm not sure if this is exactly the right place to ask about this or not
but
| I figured it wouldn't hurt. Does anyone know the reality behind the bottom
| article. I have no idea if this is true or not but I think it would
| undoubtedly cause a lot of people to become very unhappy across the world
if
| it is true. If anyone knows if this is happening please let me know. I am
| curious about it.
|
| Thanks in Advance,
| Joe Keilholz
| Web Developer
| Pace Communications
| (336) 383-5443
|
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
| --------------------
|
| We Knew this was coming!! 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. Under proposed legislation the US Postal Service will be
| attempting to bill E-mail users out of "alternate postage fees."
| 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 DC lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay
| to prevent this legislation from becoming law. The US Postal
| Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the proliferation
| of e-mail is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue per year.
| You may have seen their recent ad campaign "There is nothing
| like a letter." Since the average 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 US Postal Service for a service they do not
even
| provide.  The whole point of the Internet is democracy & non-interference.
| If the federal government is permitted to tamper with end.  You are
already
| paying an exorbitant price for snail mail becauseof bureaucratic
efficiency.
|
| It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter  to be delivered from New
York
| to Buffalo. If the US 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
| 602-P.
| 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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