Vote NO -- MIDRANGE-L


Subject: VOTE NO!!!!!!!!

You are not planning on charging you 5-cents for each email you send and
give it to the US Post Office to compensate them for business lost!

VOTE NO ON Bill 602P!!!!

I guess the warnings were true. Federal Bill 602P will charge you 5 cents
per E-mail Sent. It figures! No more free E-mail! We knew this was coming!!
Bill 602P will permit the Federal Government to charge a 5-cent charge on
every delivered E-mail. Please read the following carefully if you intend to
stay online and continue using E-mail.

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 our use of the Internet. Under proposed legislation, the US Postal
Service will be attempting to bill E-mail users out of "alternative postage
fees". Bill 602P will permit the Federal Government to charge a 5-cent
surcharge on every E-Mail delivered, by billing Internet Service Providers
at source. The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP.
Washington DC lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this
legislation from becoming law. The US Postal Service is claiming lost
revenue, due to the proliferation of E-mail, 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 person received about 10 pieces
of E-mail per day in 1998, the cost of the typical individual would be an
additional 50 cents a day - or over $180 per year - above and beyond their
regular Internet costs.

Note that this would be money paid directly to the US Postal Service for a
service they do not even provide.

The whole point of the Internet is democracy and non-interference.
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 coast to coast. If the US Postal Service is allowed to
tinker with E-mail, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in the
United States. Our congressional representative, Tony Schnell (r) has even
suggested a "$20-$40 per month surcharge on all Internet service" above and
beyond the governments proposed E-mail charges Note that most of the major
newspapers have ignored the story - the only exception being the
Washingtonian - which called the idea of E-mail surcharge " a useful concept
whose time has come" (March 6th, 1999 Editorial). Do not sit by and watch
your freedom erode away! Send this to E-mail to EVERYONE on your list, and
tell all your friends and relatives write their congressional representative
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 do not want.

  Please forward!

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