is this fake or what?

["piLL" <pill@atomic3d.com>]

[: hacktivism :]

sorry if i sound lame, but is this for real??

i almost dont believe it...

>US stamps for e-mails... Please read the following carefully if you
>intend to stay on-line and continue using 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 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
>noninterference.
>
>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 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 freedom erode away! Send this email to all
>Americans on your list and tell your friends and relatives to write to
>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



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