So why should we care?Because You are the victim! Let's have a look at the following example:
Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and use
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 DC 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 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
payingan exorbitant price for snail mail because of bureaucratic 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 e-mail on & encourage those you know to write to their
congressman 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.In addition to your congressman, please write to:
Kate Turner,Assistant to Richard Stepp, Berger, Stepp and Gorman,
Attorneys at Law, 216 Concorde Street, Vienna, VA
Here is an email rumor that tells people to contact a specific address. Imagine millions of people flooding your phone lines and your mailbox just because someone was mad at you and decided to send out an email like this.
Don't underestimate the damage that these rumors can have; several weeks after this message began to circulate, the
put a notice on their web page saying that it was untrue. Imagine how many complaints they must have received!
People lose valuable time and money due to email rumors. Whether they go out and buy a new virus software package because of receiving a virus warning, write long letters to their congressman over legislation that doesn't exist, or send off money to get some impossibly good deal that never materializes, email rumors should be stopped!
What can you do? Here's a 5-step program to campaign for accuracy on the Net.
1. Treat any emailed information with skepticism.
2. Do a web search for key words and see what you can find (takes 2 minutes on
3. Hit the reply-all button on your email and let them know that the story isn't true.
4. Delete the dirty little message from your Inbox.
5. Never send on any forwards of questionable origin or level of truth.
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