From: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei@securitydynamics.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 11:55:27 -0700 (PDT)
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: I'm from the government, and I'm here to control your email....
Message-ID: <D104150098E6D111B7830000F8D90AE8017958@exna02.securitydynamics.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9808064usps

Clinton backs universal E-mail plan
By Tom Diederich

The Clinton administration wants all Americans to have an E-mail
address to go along with their street address and is asking the
U.S. Postal Service to deliver the project's backbone. 

The idea is to connect physical and electronic addresses using the
nation's Internet "country code" -- the top-level ".us" domain. Then
a company or government agency, for example, could send bills or
bulletins to your electronic mailbox as well as your home. 

The administration said the move would "accelerate and
universalize the growth of electronic commerce," according to the
Postal Service. 

[...]

The Postal Service sent a proposal to launch the .us domain
initiative to the Commerce Department on June 1. The department
on Monday said it would accept comments from the public, based
on 11 questions 
(http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/usrfc/dotusrfc.htm, 
until Sept. 3. )

Responses will be posted on the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration's Web site (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/).

- end of quoted section -

There is an utter cluelessness here which assumes that there
is and/or should be a strong corrospondence between an individual, 
a physical location, and an email address. This is not suprising, 
considering that this is from the Post Office, which is mired
a 19th century concept of what constitutes 'mail'.

I suspect that the PO will want to be able to charge for 
all mail sent to these addresses. The miserable failure 
of the USPS to generate any interest in their offer to 'frank'
email (for a price) may play into this.

Once everyone has an government registered email address, it
will be a simple matter to forbid the use of uncontrolled email
addresses (for either sending or receiving) at least within the 
US. It's to be expected that government agencies will refuse to
send to any other address.

In my opinion, the proper response of the USPS to competition from
email and parcel delivery services would be to wind down USPS 
operations. There is no longer a critical need for a protected 
monopoly in postal delivery.

Peter Trei

Disclaimer: The above represents my personal opinions only.