THOUGHT YOU ALL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS...............
 
 
Subject: Fwd: Congress to allow email charges
 
Dear Friends and Family -
 
Please pass this on to all you know since many of us use e-mail for
business and to keep up with friends and family, I thought you'd like
to know the following. Please jump on it right away and forward this
to others.
 
CNN has reported that within the next two weeks Congress is going to
vote on allowing telephone companies to CHARGE A TOLL FEE for
internet access.
 
Translation:
Every time we send long distance e-mail we will receive a long
distance charge. This will get costly. Please visit the following web
site and file a complaint. Complain to your Congressperson. We can't
allow this to pass. The following address will allow you to send an
e-mail on this subject DIRECTLY to your Congressperson.
 
http://www.house.gov/writerep
 
 
Pass this on to your friends. It is urgent! I hope all of you will
pass this on to all your friends and family. We should ALL have an
interest in this one.
 
WAIT, THERE'S MORE. IN ADDITION, 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
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 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 6, 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.
 
PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO USES EMAIL REMEMBER THESE ARE
TWO SEPARATE ISSUES THAT EFFECT ALL OF US ONLINE. LET YOU VOICE BE
HEARD NOW, NOT AFTER