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"Virus Hoax:
Urband Legend Example"
Virus Hoax Warnings: Page 5
of 57
E-mail Tax (602P) Hoax
May 1999
Here's a rewrite of the internet charge hoax.
The U. S. Postal service has published a disclaimer on their website.
This one includes a disclaimer by 'The Washingtonian' at
http://www.washingtonian.com/about/emailhoax.html. If you search the U.
S. House of Representatives Web site
http://www.house.gov/house/searchall.htm you get hundreds (thousands?)
of links addressing this hoax.
******** Dear Internet Subscriber: 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
your use of the Internet. Under proposed legislation (Bill 602P) the
U.S. Postal service will be attempting to bilk email users out of
"alternative postage fees". Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt. to
charge 5 cents surcharge on every email delivered, by billing Internet
Service Providers at source. The consumer would then be billed inturn 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 the 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
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-inerference. If the Federal Govt. is permitted to tamper with
our liberties by adding a surcharge to e-mail, 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 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 whose 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 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. ********
Copyright 2004 by Jay Jennings
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