Intresting email i recieved

[2strokepwer]

> > &lt;< Guess the warnings were true. Federal Bill 602P charges 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 on-line
> > 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. &amp;n bsp;
> > 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 noninterference.
> > 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. 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 who's time has come" (March 6th, 1999
> > Editorial). Do not sit by and watch your freedom erode away!
> > Send this E-mail to EVERYONE on your list, and tell all your
> > friends and relatives to
> > 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.


> >
> >

[tecatecrazy]

great maybe ill stop getting spam, I rarely send emails

[roofinggun]

That would be great for the spam, but that would get spendy. The post office never ceases to amaze me. They raise the price of stamps and then repaint mailboxes with a new logo to justify it. Now a nickel an e-mail? I guess we need to fund the Iraq rebuild somehow.

[2strokepwer]

i posted this on teh org and scottzj posted this link.http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/bill602p.asp

turns out that this is old and a hoax. i'm glad but if it were true it would really suck.

[TimSr]

This particular email is, was, and has always been a hoax, however there is some truth fueling it. I dont remember the specifics, but there has been a moratorium in place concerning taxing internet usage, and that moratorium has just expired or is about to. There was discussion in the House about extending the moratorium, and of course you immediately had the left wingers whining it wasnt fair that people using the internet werent paying their share of taxes blah blah blah , and I dont even need to name names. You should know if your congressman would embrace additional taxation or as they call it "tapping into an untouched revenue source" as though they were drilling for oil. I dont remember the final outcome, but I believe the plan was to allow it to expire, while your left slanted politicians can try to find a way to institute yet another tax in such a way that you wont fire them in November. It wont be an email tax. that would be too obvious. It will likely be surcharges from internet providers ultimately paid by you, when your interent bill starts to look like your phone bill. That way, you wont know your getting taxed, and youll blame it on the internet provider. I thought my local phone service had nearly doubled in 15 years, until I looked closely and figured out it had hardly been raised at all. Only a crapload of useage taxes and mandated surcharges were added leading most pople to believe the evil "big phone lobby" was reaming them, when in reality it was the government.