From: Stephen Sprunk <spsprunk@paranet.com>

Actually, the USPS is almost 100% postage-funded; the only "subsidy" they receive is that it's a felony to mess with US Mail (which courts will go crazy over), whereas messing with FedEx/UPS packages is barely a misdemeanor.

Stephen

Don't forget their license plates all say U.S.Gov, which I think makes then tax exempt. The USPS also provides passport services, something VERY specific to the Fed.Gov functioning. Now back to the issue of SPAM: Any law that requires the ISP on the RECEIVING side to take action simply plays into the hands of the spammers. There is already judicial precident (Earthlink vs. Cyberpromo) that the SENDER is responsible for theft of services and such. That precident, that someone is responsible for the email that they send, needs to be expanded upon, not erased by legislative fiat. Curt-