DSS as a stamp tax

[Mark Seecof <marks@wimsey.latimes.com>]

Many people raised in the U.S. are unfamiliar with general stamp
taxes.  We know about excise taxes (e.g., liquor) with payment
evidenced by stamps, and tax stamps to validate specific
documents (e.g., hunting licenses).  But (to my perhaps
inadequate knowledge) the U.S. hasn't had a general stamp tax
since the War of Independence.  England had one years ago...
most signatures on receipts for money or bills of sale were
invalid unless scrawled across postage stamps.  England still
imposes stamp taxes on some business transactions, e.g.,
transfer of real property.

NIST's proposal to "license" the DSS to PKP, forcing "the rest
of us" including all who wish to transact business with the U.S.
government to pay PKP every time we sign something digitally
amounts to the imposition of a general stamp tax.  Worse, it is
a tax imposed by the government for the benefit of private
persons (those who are paid by PKP).

Attempts by George III's government to impose various stamp
taxes on American colonists 200-odd years ago fueled
revolutionary sentiment among them...