GOV IMPOSE ON E-MAIL

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

GOV IMPOSE ON EMAIL YOU SEND

Just received this E-mail. Just thought this forum should know!

Tommy

"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. 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 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 what Socialistic ideas they will dream up next or 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 (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

The Internet has given us freedom of expression never before enjoyed. This freedom may be restricted in more ways than a tax on E-mail if we stand by and allow the Gov't to begin taxing any part of it.

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), October 04, 1999

Answers

Urban legend. Move along--nothing to discuss here...

-- Don (whytocay@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.

This same message has been going around for about a year now. I have contacted my representative and he assured me that this is a hoax. Have you contacted your representative??

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.

Very long-standing hoax.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), October 04, 1999.

>>Tony Schnell<<

A tipoff that this is a hoax (if you even needed a tipoff): There is no such Congressman named Schnell. Duh.

Rgds, Ted Bridis, technology writer The Associated Press Washington, DC

-- Ted Bridis, AP (tbridis@ap.org), October 04, 1999.


While we are on hoaxes, can anyone shed any light on the allegation made at a site called "Dredged Report" http://www.urbanlegends.com/people/dredged.html that claims the urban legends sites are actually CIA operated. The Dredged Report itself looks a bit shakey to me. Has anyone else seen this thing?

gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), October 04, 1999.



* * * 19991005 Tuesday

While there have been hoaxes about e-mail taxes, this Yahoo! news item re Utah charging and annual fee of up to $250,000/MILE/YEAR on lines running along Interstate highways, could be the REALITY foundation for this latest "scare."

How else would telecomms recover these exorbitant levies, but through Internet traffic tarrifs of some sort? Consumers _will_ pay through the nose!

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

< http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/19990927/tc/19990927222.html > Monday September 27 12:27 PM EDT

Will You Pay Internet Tolls? John Moore, ZDNet

In a new take on Internet taxation, Utah and other states plan to charge access fees to companies laying cable for Internet and other telecommunications services along interstate highways. Utah's Rights of Way Task Force earlier this year recommended a one- time $500-per-mile charge for telecom firms installing cable along right-of-way strips bordering interstates. But Utah governor Michael Leavitt has rejected the recommendation and has publicly suggested an annual fee of $1,000 per mile. Still, some observers in Utah say fees under consideration run as high as $250,000 per mile.

Telecom companies argue they have traditionally compensated governments for the health and safety costs involved in ripping up city streets, for example, to lay cable. Telecom deregulation, however, has numerous competitors lined up to wire cities and states. State and local governments have responded by charging, or devising plans to charge, above cost for the right to install cable.

Mike Wendy, director of government relations at the United States Telephone Association, says member companies are for "fair and reasonable" compensation for the government's cost of administering rights of way. "But once we start seeing value-based assessments for the use of rights of way, when we start seeing [fees] above cost, question marks begin to arise. It makes our products more expensive." In addition to Utah, he points to Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky and Minnesota as access hot spots.

While telecom execs view the above-cost fees as a tax, other observers believe governments should charge for the right to use public property. Miles Fidelman, president of the Center for Civic Networking and director of the municipal telecommunications strategies program, says carriers have no problem paying private property owners for access rights. In the case of railroad rights-of- way, he says the access costs can be exorbitant. As for government charges, "I would expect my local government to get fair market value for any property it leases out."

In Utah, Leavitt plans to use the access fees to provide next- generation Internet services, according to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune. But Nancy Gibbs, executive director of the Utah Rural Telecom Association, says the per-mile charges will make it "cost prohibitive" to build out networks into rural areas. She met with Utah legislators last week and notes that the proposed access fees are in a state of flux. Some proposals run as high as $250,000 per mile in urban areas, she says.

[END TEXT]

< http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/19990927/tc/19990927222.html >

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus1@yahoo.com), October 05, 1999.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ