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 a 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. 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 bilk email
users
out of alternate postagefees".
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 isworking without pay to prevent this legislation
from becoming law.
The U.S. Postal Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the
proliferation of e-mail 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 willmark 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 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.
PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO USES EMAIL REMEMBER THESE ARE
TWO
SEPARATE ISSUES THAT EFFECT ALL OF US ONLINE.
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