[109176] in Cypherpunks
No subject found in mail header
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (remailer@funlaw.com)
Fri Mar 12 20:55:15 1999
From: remailer@funlaw.com
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Date: 13 Mar 1999 01:46:47 -0000
X-MDaemon-Deliver-To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: remailer@funlaw.com
NEW BILL THREATENS NSF INTERNET FUND
Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) has proposed legislation that would dismantle the
controversial $60-million Intellectual Infrastructure Fund administered by
the National Science Foundation. The fund, which from 1995 to 1997
received
$15 for each Internet domain name registration, was the subject of dispute
last year when critics called the $15 fee a tax in disguise and argued it
was being illegally collected because Congress had never authorized such a
tax. Congress then authorized it retroactively, and at the same time
authorized NSF to spend the $60 million that had been collected. Terry's
Homepage Tax Repeal Act would overturn the 1998 provision ratifying the
collection of the fee. If the Act becomes law, NSF will have to repay the
$23 million it's already contributed to the Clinton Administration's Next
Generation Internet project. "We'd be left eating it," says the head of
Congressional affairs for NSF. (Chronicle of Higher Education 12 Mar 99)
"we have to yet really seriously debate the constitutional issues and
whether or not we're willing to give up more freedom in order to have
more security" -- U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen, 3 Feb 1999
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Ben Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
