E-MAIL SURCHARGE

Another one of our freedoms being taken away…

Subject: E-MAIL SURCHARGE

The Liberals have decided to tax e-mails to pay for their baby sitting program they are using to buy votes.

Internet Subscriber:
Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and continue using email:

The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the Government of Canada attempting to quietly push through legislation that will affect your use of the Internet. Under proposed legislation Canada Post will be attempting to bill 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. Toronto lawyer Richard Stepp QC is working to prevent this legislation from becoming law.

The Canada Post Corporation is claiming that lost revenue due to the proliferation of email is costing nearly $23,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have noticed Canada Post's 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 Canada Post for a service they do not even provide. The whole point of the Internet is democracy and non-interference. If the Canadian 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 exhorbitant price for snail mail because of beaurocratic inefficiency. It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered from Mississauga to Scarborough.

If Canada Post Corporation is allowed to tinker with email, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in Canada. One back-bencher, Liberal Tony Schnell (NB) 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 Toronto Star that 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 email to all Canadians on your list and tell your friends and relatives to write to their MP and say "No!" to Bill 602P.

Kate Turner
Assistant to Richard Stepp QC
Berger, Stepp and Gorman
Barristers at Law
216 Bay Street
Toronto, ON
MlL 3C6

Don't forget, Bill Gates reads your e-mail…

             HELP STAMP OUT THE GULLIBILITY VIRUS
             ____________________________________
 
    WARNING, CAUTION, DANGER, AND BEWARE!    Gullibility Virus Spreading over the Internet! **************************************************** 

WASHINGTON, D.C.-The Institute for the Investigation of Irregular Internet Phenomena announced today that many Internet users are becoming infected by a new virus that causes them to believe without question every groundless story, legend, and dire warning that shows up in their inbox or on their browser. The Gullibility Virus, as it is called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly hoaxes relating to cookie recipes, e-mail viruses, give-aways from companies like Microsoft and Disney, taxes on modems, and get-rich-quick schemes.

"These are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery tickets based on fortune cookie numbers", a spokesman said. "Most are otherwise normal people, who would laugh at the same stories if told to them by a stranger on a street corner". However, once these same people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe anything they read on the Internet.

"My immunity to tall tales and bizarre claims is all gone", reported one weeping victim. "I believe every warning message and sick child story my friends forward to me, even though most of the messages are anonymous."

Another victim, now in remission, added, "When I first heard about Good Times, I just accepted it without question. After all, there were dozens of other recipients on the mail header, so I thought the virus must be true". It was a long time, the victim said, before she could stand up at a Hoaxes Anonymous meeting and state, "My name is Jane, and I've been hoaxed". Now, however, she is spreading the word. "Challenge and check whatever you read," she says.

Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the virus, which include the following:
– The willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking.
– The urge to forward multiple copies of such stories to others.
– A lack of desire to take three minutes to checkto see if a story is true.

T.C. is an example of someone recently infected. When told about the Gullibility Virus, he told one reporter he would stop reading e-mail, so that he would not become infected.

Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately. Experts recommend that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet users rush to their favorite search engine and look up the item tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends, and tall tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet community.

Courses in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is on-line help from many sources, including:

– Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html

– Symantec Anti Virus Research Center at
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html

– McAfee Associates Virus Hoax List at
http://vil.mcafee.com/villib/hoax.asp

Lastly, as a public service, this is one email you should forward to your friends - to help stamp out the Gullibility Virus, especially to those who forward you a hoax. Then you get the last laugh :)

sigh…

why do i get the feeling we're about to have to wade through an email about an urgent plea from Craig Shergold?…

My gosh for sure I will be writing my MP to say (NO) to the bill 602P…..on the other hand maybe I should email my MP………….. :-)