That letter is likely the only copy in existence. I write a letter to you, I drop it in the mailbox, it remains sealed until a USPS worker delivers it to you. Mail sent the old-fashioned way uses a more direct, explicit system. You could argue that enforcing any kind of regulation would be impossible because of the volume of email messages exchanged daily, or because technological advancements dramatically outpace the speed at which our federal laws are created.
Because these were corporations and educational institutions, they weren’t subject to federal law in the same way the postal service was. Tomlinson’s communication vehicle was used first by universities, then commercial entities like Pegasus Mail, AOL, Excite, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
Unlike Franklin’s postal service, email itself wasn’t a government-created system.
