Received this by email. Do you think it's another hoax or is there something to it? My apologies if the formatting is not right.

Dear Internet Subscriber:

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 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 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 bureacratic 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 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.

It's the action, not the fruit of the action that's important. You have to do the right thing...You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result. (Gandhi)

-- mb (mdbutler@coastalnet.com), May 31, 1999

Answers

mb

Do you have a URL? In Canada the same E topic came up and it was a fake.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), May 31, 1999.

Check my Bilderberger thread - their intenetion is a worldwide e- commerce tax!!!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 31, 1999.

Greetings. First time poster after lurking for quite a while.

Don't know whether this is a hoax, but I'm always suspicious of any unsolicited email I receive. But, I checked out www.house.gov and looked up bill 602P. No such thing. There was also no HR602. I tried to look at their database of recent bills. Can't access the database. I tried to look at bills my rep (Ed Markey, MA 7th) has sponsored. Can't do it. Hmmm...

It's nice that the Government has sites and all that...but if we can't get data from them...

Their Y2K *really* begins October 1st, 1999. (Never did understand why fiscal years don't always begin on 1/1/YYYY) Could this inabilty to access data be Y2K rearing its ugly head, or just usual government *ahem* efficiency?

Hmmm....

-- Gregory Roger Wright (grw@world.std.com), May 31, 1999.

There is no "Bill 602P" being considered by Congress; a search a www.congress.gov gives the result "602P is an invalid bill number." There's no member of the 106th Congress named "Tony Schnell(R)" listed in the roll, and "Berger, Stepp and Gorman, Attorneys At Law" doesn't appear in any listing for Vienna, VA or the Washington, DC area.

This is a hoax that has been circulating for a few months now (I got the same identical email a few weeks ago) -- probably written by a hacker who was getting bored with writing viruses for Word(tm) or Outlook(tm). :)

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 31, 1999.

Gregory,

It was probably just a temporary glitch. I was able to access everything I wanted to about 20 minutes ago.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 31, 1999.

Thanks Stephen. Just received this:

Postal Hoax

-- mb (mdbutler@coastalnet.com), May 31, 1999.

Good. Glad to hear it's a hoax.

Unfortunately, it's also believable.

You may like or dislike him, but this is the kind of internet issue that Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) reporter for Wired, et. al. likes to cover. If concerned, turn the story lead over to him.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), May 31, 1999.

NO! It is no joke or otherwise. The USPS has already the power to collect postage on E-mails.

Lon

-- Lon (Lon1937@aol.com), May 31, 1999.

When faxing first started, the Post Office was trying to collect on that.

This could be a hoax in the sense that it probably won't become effective, but that doesn't mean that, as a government granted monopoly, the USPS hasn't had wet dreams about the possibilty.

BTW, they have started cracking down on private mailbox providers (Commercial Mail Receiving Agents -- CMRAs) to get two pieces of ID (on form 1583), and all mail by November to private boxes will have to have a "PMB" designation. This is going to foul up receipt of mail, expense in redoing stationery, notifying senders, updating address lists, etc. All because your USPS is a government monopoly.

The Consitution authorizes a government postal service, but does not authorize a monopoly. Thank your corrupt legislative and judicial branches for that. Helps maintain a list (computer file) of the wherabouts of every person in the country. All in the name of "crime prevention" and "saving the children -- sniff, sob".

-- A (A@AisA.com), May 31, 1999.

Add all the events up. virus + hacking + terrorism = a "well regulated internet". Legislated extensively by congress, of course.

can u say propoganda?

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@hotmail.com), June 01, 1999.

It is a hoax

-- c weidemann (weideman@pldi.net), June 01, 1999.