Please take the time today to write a letter to your Senators, your Representative, the President, the Vice-President and the Secretary of Human and Health Services. Addresses at the bottom of this e-mail. This is so important to all genealogists! The rate increase will be effective July 1st, so we don't have much time! Please write today, it will only take a few minutes to compose a letter and send it off. Copied from a post to another list: I have just discovered that the SSA is raising the price by 286% for the most valuable tool that genealogists request, the SS-5 form, Original Application for SS Number... It is going up from its present $7 to $27, effective 1 July 2001. Reference: <http://www.ssa.gov/foia/foia_guide.htm#_Toc517745431> This is untenable, since many people who do genealogy are older retired folks on fixed income... and this large increase appears to be intended to discourage the public from access to documents under the Freedom of Information Act. How can it cost $27 to receive a request, then make and mail a copy of the one page document??? ...Government is not intended to be making a profit... The $7 seems high, when you actually evaluate the task...and Researching costs more...Could it be that they have some awfully high paid clerks...and/or interns...??? Since anything can be proven by statistics, I don't believe their "analysis" but you might want to make your representatives in Congress aware of this... Senate Addresses <http://www.senate.gov/> House Addresses <http://www.house.gov/> President George W. Bush: <president@whitehouse.gov> Vice President Dick Cheney: <vice.president@whitehouse.gov> Assistant-Secretary for HHS: <Sandra.Eubanks-Brown@hhs.gov> Notify all your Genealogical buddies, too??? We all need to write...