On 1/8/98 3:26 PM, Robert A. Costner (pooh@efga.org) passed this wisdom:

At 10:45 AM 1/8/98 -0800, David Miller wrote:

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An interesting feature of the digital postmark is that the USPS was making the claim that if you receive an email that the USPS send to you that was not meant for you, then you have committed a federal crime when you read it.

I'm not so sure about this, Robert. I've heard the rumor that it is a crime, but I have also heard that if something is delivered to your box, it is yours and you are not required to send it back unopened if it is not addressed to you. I tend to believe the latter, as it is the side of the story shared by USPS employees.

I wasn't commenting on the legality, but on the fact that the USPS web page was making the claim that it was a crime. Apparently whoever wrote the legal disclaimer felt that email could be misdelivered in the same fashion in which postal mail could be misdelivered and was making this claim. I found the claim to be nutty and made me think they didn't know what they were doing.

Maybe they are confusing an electronic mailbox with a snailmail box ... the USPS has always contended that they (the USPS) "own" your mailbox and use that criterion to prosecute people who drive around putting things like circulars etc in mailboxes. Maybe they we on a role thinking that if they got into the e-mail business they would 'own' that piece of your hard drive so to speak. Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> The Windows PC Versus Macintosh Buying Decision: "If you want to encourage your kids to color outside the lines, think creatively and zig when the other kids zag, get the Mac. On the other hand, if you want to teach your kid that life if full of frustration and that anything worth getting takes plenty of patience and hard work, a Windows machine should do quite nicely." - David Plotnikoff in the San Jose Mercury News