🚀 go-pugleaf

Sigh.  Don't fly off the handle, folks.  It appears that this is a false
alarm.

To quite from comp.dcom.telecom article <2412@accuvax.nwu.edu> submitted
by Fred R. Goldstein:

------ begin quote ------

Cripes.  This again.  It's becoming the new Chain Letter.
 
It popped up in comp.unix.wizards last month and I think I had it
squashed there, but alas, this moderated group has allowed it to
surface.
 
Here's the poop.  When the new FCC chair Alf Sykes was being
confirmed, he was grilled on this topic by Congressman Markey, who
chairs the House subcommittee that oversees the FCC.  Sykes was made
to swear on a stack of bibles, so to speak, that this "enhanced
service provider" (not modem, btw, though the two often overlap)
surcharge was dead.  Markey made clear that a congressional LAW
preventing it was being put on the back burner only out of courtesy to
Sykes.  If Sykes hadn't been so docile, the law would have been
passed; Congress doesn't like this crap any more than we do!  And
Markey does have power over Sykes to hit him where it hurts in case he
is lying: His subcommittee oversees the FCC's budget and appropriations.
In government, that's everything.
 
I do have a copy of the appropriate Congressional Record article (Nov. 6,
1989) quoting Markey on this, and Markey's press release on the subject.
So I'm not rumormongering.  Someone on Fidonet is.
 
Fred R. Goldstein   goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com
                 or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com
                    voice:  +1 508 486 7388

------ end quote ------

-- 
Dave Platt                                             VOICE: (415) 493-8805
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