From: Jerald Hellemeyer <bippie-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Fwd: Pay the U.S. Postal Service for E-Mail?
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 12:26:43 CDT



Does anybody know if this is true?  Have any of y'all heard anything about 
this?  My brother sent it to me, and seeing as how most of what he sends me 
are jokes, I'm suspicious. But with the recent "crackdown" by the U$ postal 
service on private mailboxes, I have to wonder if there is a grain of truth 
in it.  Comments?


>	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 bill 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
>


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