From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 16:25:33 +0800
To: Andrew Loewenstern <andrew_loewenstern@il.us.swissbank.com>
Subject: Re: e-mail forwarding, for-pay remailers
Message-ID: <199512140742.XAA06927@ix13.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>E. Allen Smith writes:
>>         There's one problem with this in regards to the "no necessary
>>  connection," and that 's the governmental requirement for mail
>>  forwarding. MBE and any legal other one will want to see at least
>>  two forms of ID including one photo, and have a form that they fill
>>  out using that and send to the local post office. Anyone have a
>>  way around this problem?

There are two different sets of relevant rules in the US - Post Office and
state.
The PO's primary interest is making sure you don't mind if they don't
forward your mail once you stop using the Commercial Mail Receiving Agent
(CMRA) and secondarily that you aren't committing fraud by using the mailbox,
sending people change-of-address notices, ripping off your creditors, and
skipping town.  California has a hopelessly dishonest law that just went
into effect in 1995, which pretends to be designed to protect consumers from
fraud by the 7 million small businesses in CA that uses mailboxes,
and actually requires that _anybody_, business or not, who wants to rent
a mailbox must fill out the Post Office form and also appoint the PO or CMRA
as their agent for service of process and give them up-to-date True Addresses.
The PO, meanwhile, "usually wants" a California Driver's License plus another ID
to rent a box from them.  (I didn't have such a thing when I last rented a box,
and the PO hassled my mailbox company into asking for one when the new law
came out.)  After many attempts at calling the PO to get anybody
who knows the _official_ rules for what ID is required, I found a PO lawyer 
who told me the rules are in the "Domestic Mail Manual", which any
Postmaster has,
so my next step is to look up one of those before I next get a mailbox.

So maybe a random photo ID will work, such as your FooBar Consulting
Employee ID,
and maybe it won't, depending on what state you live in and how clueless
your local Post Office bureaucrats are.

At 05:29 PM 12/13/95 -0600, Andrew Loewenstern 
<andrew_loewenstern@il.us.swissbank.com> wrote:

> I believe C2.org already offers non-dialup access accounts, paid for  
>with ECash, that do not require a valid snail-address or phone-number.  
>I am sure that there will be many more to come.

I suspect Sameer would be happy to open an account paid in advance in
small unmarked bills.  AOL probably wouldn't.  Fortunately, the government
hasn't really caught on to the importance of email, so they aren't requiring
that email providers know where you really live.  I predict 1997 for that.
#--
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# Phone +1-510-247-0663 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281