I believe I have seen this before and it turned out to be a hoax.
My searching turned up nothing to varify this email that I received today, not even on the "Washingtonian Online" site.
There was a site that listed email hoaxes, but I have lost the book mark.
Bill 602P does not exist on http://thomas.loc.gov/ .
I received the following:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Subject: Stamps for email?
Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay on-line 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 US. 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 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 inefficiency.
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 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 whose time has come"
(March 6, 1999 Editorial).
Don't sit by and watch your freedom 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[/quote]
------------------
John/az
"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
[This message has been edited by John/az2 (edited October 16, 1999).]
My searching turned up nothing to varify this email that I received today, not even on the "Washingtonian Online" site.
There was a site that listed email hoaxes, but I have lost the book mark.
Bill 602P does not exist on http://thomas.loc.gov/ .
I received the following:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Subject: Stamps for email?
Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay on-line 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 US. 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 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 inefficiency.
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 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 whose time has come"
(March 6, 1999 Editorial).
Don't sit by and watch your freedom 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[/quote]
------------------
John/az
"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
[This message has been edited by John/az2 (edited October 16, 1999).]
