-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi Jim! Could you please tell me where I could find more about it? Is there a URL presenting the story? Did you broadcast the story to other groups? On 21 Oct 96 at 14:34, jim bell wrote:

Further recall that the so-called "Bit Tax" idea, the one most recently proposed by that Belgian (?) Luc Soete, would apparently require that any data transmitter keep account of any data it sends, in order to collect some sort of tax, and thus any mistake in the count (either as a result of misinterpretation of the rules, or a disk crash, or a power surge, etc) would presumably turn a minor error into "tax fraud," or maybe they'll call it "bit fraud."

There is one other thing that you probably saw but did not point out: At least here in North America, networks and cables are *privately* owned. A bit tax would thus tax the use of private property by it's ownner. That is going a bit far! Also, the only one who could file for fraud is the owner. Otherwise, I could file a complaint and charge you for fraud that there are too much fart marks in your underwear... Or maybe they could institute a spoon and fork tax. Or a comma or alphabet tax, why not since it is in the same line? This is absolutely absurd and anybody planning such a scheme has *much more* than innocent intentions in mind. Ciao jfa - -- Jean-Francois Avon, Montreal QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Finest of Limoges porcelain and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants physicists and engineers, LabView programing. PGP encryption keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 ID# 5B51964D : 152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i iQEVAgUBMmu/r8iycyXFit0NAQEePQf/TPFiji22lXaInCLXlYXJcJL+e8sHgk+r JXJ6n+54R81rJMTCOh6pSI/KzckXoBVpu8YEUTh46XcZICldzJGF1C5wHca9uJy9 MebhB+ccAAwxjELTbbSTUTYh/1cIHyJiucY6h3Vy/q3TAu3tJx5H248EAOvr21wc pfBp9nqAsC+WlHku1uhmOj9JbErGIhxW9rISYHNOQiCfIl1z1DPxVtac0zptG0Br Z8WDRQsOdXB6Efo8/n9oEdpJt5MaUgZdW1Ocz+bLsvQ6LdmfG5KenGYd4vW2nn2y 8tDdB9BOW5FMUFBatw7vfANOhT3O52paZ0qDJRAsJRG069MgfcrRdA== =ROpW -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----