Politech mailing list archives
FC: Politech members reply to Scientology's copyright paper
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 00:50:13 -0400
Previous Politech message: "Scientology says it's threatened by 'unadulterated cyber- terrorism'" http://www.politechbot.com/p-03917.htmlAnd, showing that in seven years little has changed, here's an article I wrote in 1995:
http://www.eff.org/ftp/Publications/Declan_McCullagh/focus.scientology.and.cmu.1095.articleIt begins: "A flamewar raging on the Internet over the Church of Scientology's attempts to halt the distribution of its bizarre secret scriptures has spread..."
-Declan --- From: Dave_Touretzky () cs cmu edu To: declan () well com Subject: latest Scientology snow job Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 01:27:34 -0400 Declan, I imagine your readers have found much amusement deconstructing the execrable nonsense the Church of Scientology lobbed into your mailbox under the guise of a "position paper" on copyright. After fumbling the facts on the Google/DMCA debacle, this pile of PR fluff veers off into irrelevant, melodramatic hand-wringing about "haters" and violent lunatics -- at least two of whom were ex-Scientologists, by the way. What is this completely unsubtle attempt at emotional manipulation doing in a position paper on copyright and the DMCA, anyway? To help set the record straight on Scientology's copyright thuggery, here is one of the very first lies in Ms. Hight's document. She writes that "An author has the right to determine whether his words will be published, by whom and to what extent." Wrong. An author does not have absolute control over the rights of another to quote his work. The "fair use" provision of US copyright law, as set forth in 17 USC 107, lists a number of contexts in which this may be done, such as for purposes of comment or criticism, without the author's permission. The doctrine of fair use is backed by extensive case law, as you well know. But you will never hear a Church of Scientology spokesperson use the phrase "fair use", except perhaps to deny that such a thing could ever apply to THEIR material. If you look at the specific pages from www.xenu.net that Google was asked to delist from its search engine (see the chart at http://images.chillingeffects.org/notices/232-xenu_chart.html) you will find this page listed as item number 63: http://www.xenu.net/archive/disk/OTIII/index.htm This is a mirror of a web page of MINE, at Carnegie Mellon. You can find the original here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/OTIII I am the author of this page. It contains fair use quotations from a Scientology document known as OT III, in which the story of Xenu the evil space alien is told. (This is Scientology's biggest spiritual secret; their "wall of fire".) It also contains a scan of the first page of the actual OT III document in L. Ron Hubbard's own handwriting. The original is 20 pages long, so I'm quoting only 5% of it. And according to the courtroom testimony of Scientology official Warren McShane, under oath, this first page does not even contain any of the really secret stuff! (McShane's testimony is quoted on my web page.) When Scientology complained to my university about this web page, they were told that the document was considered "fair use", and that it would not be removed. Scientology took no further action -- because they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on. Yet several years later, the same document shows up in a DMCA complaint to Google, alleging a copyright violation by xenu.net. Scientology had made no attempt to delist my own copy of the page from Google. It would be pointless, since I'd immediately file a counter-notification if they did. But Andreas Heldal-Lund, the proprietor of xenu.net, has no wish to subject himself to the jurisdiction of US courts, so he cannot counternotify. Items 64-86 in that same list of "infringements" are various versions of an anti-Scientology leaflet that includes just a *portion* of the first page of OT III. Again, this is clearly fair use. What's going on here? Why would an organization that claims to have put up 140,000 web pages' worth of information about itself object to someone reproducing half a page of a 20 page document? You know the answer: Scientology doesn't want people talking about Xenu. It reveals the organization as a nutty UFO cult. It lets the great unwashed in on what John Travolta and Tom Cruise are really up to when they visit the Scientology Celebrity Center in Los Angeles: they're communing with their space alien ghosts, through a Scientology process called "auditing". Such disclosures are bad for business. Hence they must be suppressed by any means available. Remember, this is the same cult that once sued the Washington Post for quoting a mere 46 words from their secret scripture! The judge in that case, Leonie M. Brinkema, wrote that ... the Court finds that the motivation of plaintiff in filing this lawsuit against the Post is reprehensible. Although the RTC brought the complaint under traditional secular concepts of copyright and trade secret law, it has become clear that a much broader motivation prevailed--the stifling of crticism and dissent of the religious practices of Scientology and the destruction of its opponents. See http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/NOTs/legal/brinkema-washpost.txt for the full text of the judge's decision. Judge Brinkema awarded legal fees to the Post, and for good measure, in a subsequent opinion (Religious Technology Center v. Lerma) she retold the Xenu story in her own words -- causing Scientology to try, unsuccessfully, to get the opinion itself sealed! For another example of Scientology making legal threats against me personally to try to prevent revelation of their "spiritual trade secrets", see here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/NOTs/legal/milgrim-analysis.html If the Church of Scientology wants to have a debate about copyright issues and the Internet, let them start by explaining what they think "fair use" means, and why it doesn't apply to them. -- Dave Touretzky --- Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 03:08:52 +0200 (MET DST) From: Paul Wouters <paul () xtdnet nl> Reply-To: Paul Wouters <paul () xtdnet nl> To: politech () politechbot com, Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>, <mediarelationsdir () scientology net> Subject: Re: [declan () well com: FC: Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated cyber-terrorism"] Hi, I'm Paul Wouters, co-founder of Xtended Internet, the ISP that is currently hosting http://www.xenu.net/ and has been threatened, called to court, faxed, lied to, got its suppliers lied to, and was pushed into either violating its customers freedom of speech or get completely cut off the net. For a more elaborate story on this, please see: http://www.xtdnet.nl/paul/PriorityTelecom-Xenu.html I have some comments and questions for Linda. (I'm not on politech, please CC any responses to me as well. > CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL STATEMENT > REGARDING COPYRIGHT INFRINGERS AND GOOGLE > Scientology churches have always supported the Internet. The Church > uses the Internet in its dissemination of the Scientology > religion to the people of the world. Sadly though, this attitude of "support" happened only after The Internet proved the first (and only) resistant medium for voicing critical opinions about Scientology. Please remember that it was Scientology who tried to cancel alt.religion.scientology. Please remember that Scientology members tried to spam the group into oblivion. Please remember that up to this day, cancellations of articles is still exercised regularly into wiping out all "resistance" to Scientology. This is not limited to battling (illegal or not) copyright violations (illegally or not). > We recognize the Internet as a > brilliant technological advance in the field of communication; its > benefits far outdistance any down sides. I wish that you (or at least your Organisation) really believed this. If they truly believed this, they would never try to force ISP's to break national (and international) law, as Scientology has done in the past. Unfortunately, the above statement is just a meaningless credo of your organisation. > The latter are not inherent in > the Internet but are the result of abusive or unlawful misuse of the > Internet by particular individuals. Your church (or some members at least) have an at least equal reputation of performing illegal acts against its opponents. So we can leave individuals breaking the law out of this discussion which is the real interest here, namely the position of independents ISP's in a conflict of third parties, and their responsibilities and obligations. > The Church has established a significant multimedia Internet presence > since its launch in 1996 of one of the largest and most > technically advanced web sites. That seems like unfounded boasting. Unless you mean the religious scriptures of "Advanced Technology" (aka the notorious/famous OT works and others), I do not believe the Scientology web presence has any innovating, outstanding or distinguished technical merits. As has been shown at: http://www.operatingthetan.com/google/ this "largest" cluster of "web sites" are just part of a big linking scheme. Members of your church are encouraged to use special "kits" that whips up a "web site"in a few minutes. But in the end, it's just cloning the same content everywhere.
In fact, Scientology's fear of uncontrolled information about them has resulted in one major achievement that is indeed unheard of. If one starts aweb harvester on a Scientology, and one instructs the spider to download each and
every link it encounters, the spider actually finishes downloading, instead ofendlessly trying to retrieve the whole internet. Obviously, information Scientology
links to, is strictly mandated and under full control and censorship of the organisation. The "largest and most technically advanced web sites" is in facta big farce, a blown up bubble waiting to burst. The fight over Google's listing of www.xenu.net, a critics site, demonstrated this. But a diagram says more then
a thousand words: http://www.operatingthetan.com/google/googdmozmore.jpg > Our sites comprise more than 140,000 individual pages of material generated by a special website kit builder. Create instant websites positively and approved by Scientology. Just add your name. > The potential of the Internet to link individuals from all corners of > the world and unify diverse cultures and nationalities makes it a > priceless resource for improving understanding among peoples. You are suggesting that people "freely link". Your members don't freely link, or else one member, somewhere, even if only once, would actually link to some non-scientology approved side (and the web harvester would spend an eternity downloading the whole internet). Your opponents who link to materials, even if done legally, in accordance with national (eg Dutch and/or US) and international law (eg Bern convention based laws) get either sued, sued again, or get their ISP severely threatened (or dragged to court) The internet has been the one and only medium that has kept Scientology criticism alive. For the first time ever, people have been able to combine knowledge and publish without (high) costs. If you would truly want to "unify diverse cultures" and "improve understanding among peoples" over the Internet, then you wouldn't want to sue (or harass) every single critic. If you truly believe that people can have different opinions, then please point out one single web page on the Internet that speaks out against your religion, and which you haven't tried to silence. That,and only that, would convince me that you indeed see the "potential of the Internet".
(And I'm not even asking you to link to this criticism site!) > The freedom provided by the Internet is open to abuse, as the > experience of the last decade has shown. Technology has no opinion, only uses.> Unless certain rules are applied on the Internet, our desired global freedom > to communicate and exchange information will be corrupted by cyber-terrorism
> that often masquerades as free-speech activism. There should be no "certain rules" that need applying to a new technology, suchas the internet, that have no special bearing on new issues and possible conflicts of such a new technology. There were enough laws for all the conflicts surrounding issues such as copyright violations, fair use, publishing, libel, terrorist organisations, discrimination, telecommunications (common carrier principle) and even about abusing the law as a tool (SLAPP). From a legal point of view, the only thing the Internet can be said to have done, is to make the above mentioned possible (ab)uses faster.
The DMCA tried to fix this problem, but sadly introduced more problems then it fixed. It has degraded into a tool to use against legitimate users and ISP's. > Thus, limitless "tolerance" of abuse > will inevitably bring on over-regulation if a few dishonest > individuals are allowed to flout the law and corrupt this communication > medium for everyone. In any event, those who were victimized or saw > their rights violated will sooner or later rise to defend themselves and > lawfully restore their interests. If only that was the complete picture. Unfortunately, some of those who were "victimized or saw their rights violated" have no money to fight against a big money machine such as Scientology, which can afford sue someone into oblivion. They have even trademarked the term for this, "Dead Agenting", and informed one of my clients (and my former upstream provider) that mentioning "fair gaming" is infringing on their rights. To quote you, "Thus, limitless 'tolerance' of abuse OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM will inevitably bring on massive violations of normal copyright law if a few dishonest corporations/religions are allowed to BUY the law and corrupt this legal framework against everyone. > 1. Violations of the Church's intellectual property rightsAs long as your church purposefully keeps misrepresents these alleged violations,
hardly anyone will take these allegations seriously. And it's not that some things are so incredibly difficult to understand. Why are Scientology lawyers continuously trying to "proof" that non-Us based ISP's and individuals are violating "Federal law"? Why is Scientology continuously claiming the ownershipof certain texts or photos by "proving" it was published in one of their magazines?
Don't they know federal from national and international law? Don't they know publishing something doesn't mean a thing as to who owns the copyrighted? Yes of course they do. Your lawyers willfully misrepresent the entire situation by issuing heavy duty letters to anyone they can find. Sadly, this bullying practice has been rather effective. > 2. Hate speech that advocates violence against the Church or its > members Pots, kettles, black? I'd say http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/ is one of YOUR hate speech sites. In fact, if that site was really trying to be so objective, why did it never publish my response to their "Corporate Appeal" page: http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/appeal.html I've submitted a response numerous times, but no one ever bothered to reply.not even to tell me why they didn't remove their "hate speech request" towards our
company, nor publish my "corporate defense". > While these are separate issues, they do have one notable factor in > common: neither one involves ~protected~ free speech. How ironic, > therefore, that more often than not, when a Scientology church moves to > remedy such a wrong, these unlawful infringements are immediately > redefined as "free speech" issues.Just as you just redefined "fair use" to "violations intellectual property rights"
Again, I find it extremely unlikely that every Scientology critic is violating the law. Please point out one side that you've encountered that was negatively of Scientology, quoted your church in a legally "fair way", which even though you didn't like the content, didn't find illegal. Please. Just one site on your lawyers list of authors that "legally criticized" Scientology. > The determination to protect copyrighted works from unlawful > copyright violation has nothing to do with whether the infringing work is > critical or laudatory of Scientology. There are exceptions of course, as the recent changes of a government's policy has made clear. Germany finds the religious believes (in particular the parts where they believe the Scientology religion can and should do anythingin its power (legally or not) to overthrow the current governments and religions
in favour of a complete Scientology domination, and that anything is allowed, even breaking the laws of the government they would work for) too dangerous to allow your members inside the government. Indeed, this part, if true (and which the German government thinks is true) would redefine your "religion" into nothing more then a terrorist organisation. > The same holds true for the second phenomenon: hate speech that > advocates violence. If you would only sue the users who advocate such hate speech, instead of the providers, then I might believe this is indeed your true goal. Unfortunately, I've personally experienced this is not the case. Your church has justified all means for its goal, again like a terrorist organisation. Our company has been called to court, and had its US based supplier terminate our contract "without reason, but nothing to do with Scientology" while our customers, known with full name and address by your church, has not even bothered to sue them. Why? I have clearly shown the pattern by now. Scientology is not untested in free speech. Not from its members nor from its critics. Scientology strives for a complete Totalitarian entity that is state, religion and corporation blended into one. And just like all totalitarian (wannabe) regimes, they are doomed. > Threatening speech or expressions calculated to incite hate enjoy no > protection under the Constitution. I agree. I do not agree that as an ISP, we should be the judge of what is hate speech or not. We, as an ISP, are not capable of such judgments. The DMCA was supposed to fix this. A party who wanted some content removed could send a DMCA notice to the ISP, which would then temporarily censor the questionable material, creating a time-window for a normal lawsuit to resolve the issue. The resulting ruling could then simply be applied by the ISP, who would have then stayed neutral throughout the entire conflict. Unfortunately, practice differs from theory. US based ISP's thought they would be better of putting a 'catch all' clause in all their contracts, giving them supreme power over the legal system. "We can immediately cut you off, without reason, in our sole discretion" is a clause that's in every contract I've seen so far. Over and over again, have I explained that the ISP is better of not having the choice, and the responsibility that comes with it. It's far better to have an official policy of "we are not capable of ruling in your conflict, bring us a court ruling, so we can act". So first individuals were cut. Now a few ISP's have been cut. And those ISP's are moving up the food chain, now that telecommunication prices are falling dramatically in the post dot.com era. There is no upstream ISP to cut anymore, since even the small ISP is now at least peering nationally with all other ISP's. The RIAA/MPAA has recently sued the Tier-1 ISP's, the biggest of the backbone ISP's. If the music lobbying industry wins, we're in for some great surprises. Massive censorship is technically next to impossible and too expensive to be feasible. There will either many ISP's (partially) cut off the net, or the big Tier-1's, already in massive financial problems to begin with, will die out. If the latter happens, the backbone will scatter into many baby ISP's. Suing will become more difficult. The result will backfire. > Robust critical speech should > always be sheltered by the First Amendment, as long is it does not trample > the boundaries created by law and jurisprudence in an effort to > protect the people from improper verbal abuse and its adverse consequences. I already pointed out that ANY criticism against your church is always labeled by you as "improper". Please show me a side with "Robust critical speech" against your church. > The Church's own creed states that "all men have inalienable rights > to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and > to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others." The time, money and effort I've spend as an ISP to try and stay a neutral common carrier, have most definitely not been honoured by this Credo of your church. > Enshrined in the United States Constitution, and preceding the First > Amendment, [ ... ] > The Constitution authorized Congress [ ... ] > The Digital Millennium Copyright Act [ ... ] Please. There is a world outside the United States as well. > When it became obvious during the last decade that copyright owners' > determination was being tested When the printing press was invented this was the case. When the Xerox machine was invented this was the case. When the copier and printer was invented this was the case. Now, when the hyperlink has been invented, this is the case.There is nothing new, except for the speed of the possible violations. Hopefully,
a fixed version of your DMCA law, and a fixed version of the EUCD (The European version) will one day address these issues correctly. > landmark lawsuit brought by two Scientology-affiliated organizations, > the US District Court for the Northern District of California agreed with > their contention that ISPs may be liable for contributory copyright > infringement once they are made aware that infringements are maintained on > their systems. This is exactly what I've been saying here as well. However, note that we differ on the "once they are made aware that infringements are maintained" part. Your church sending me hundred's of pages of faxes of mostly masked apparently copyrighted texts does not constitute "made aware". In fact, when we faced your Church with our defenses over time, and showed you that we couldn't act on your believes and your (biased) interpretation of law your church has always chosen to drop the issue with us instead of suing our customer and present us with a ruling we could act upon. Instead, your church always went for our suppliers. Sadly, it actually worked once, and not only one of our customers freedom got infringed, but ALL of my customers freedom, including our own, and my personal freedom got infringed upon. And what worries me most is not your church being trigger happy with lawsuits and being successful. My biggest worry is that our company got censored, not for a belief, not for a religion, not for a valid legal reason. But for profit. > This notice-and-takedown procedure became an important aspect of the > Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It provides the copyright owner > with a remedy and absolves ISPs from responsibility for content and > liability if they remove infringing materials, while depriving the > violator of the means to perpetrate his unlawful activity. It has also brought, as can be seen in the Scientology-Google case, a safe heaven for censoring any non-US citizen by putting down a DMCA notice on a US based ISP/company. As is common with the US, they try to dictate law to other countries, outside international treaties. So to counter a DMCA notice, you have to agree to submit to US law, even if the alleged offense itself is happening in a non-US country, and is not even a crime in that non-US country, and worst of all, is not even a crime in the US. Simply the fact of needing to come to the US to "surrender" under US law violates a non-US' citizens rights. It reduced the DMCA to a tool of the right and powerful. It reduced the freedom of US based ISP's and through that, it reduced the freedom of its citizens. > IV. GOOGLE CHILLS > > In March 2002, acting according to the provisions of the Digital > Millennium Copyright Act, the Church asked Google to remove their links > to certain specific copyright infringements. The DMCA which you seem so fond of EXCLUDES using the DMCA on "search engines". Google should have dismissed your DMCA notice, and instead you should have served that notice to the ISP hosting the material in question. However, that company was our company, and is located in the Netherlands, and is (as long as the EUCD has not been accepted, approved and ratified, which in its current state it should never be) not violating any applicable Dutch or international law. > However, this time the often unpredictable currents of the Internet > pushed Google out of the routine and into a storm of protest. Taken > aback by this reaction, Google rapidly moved to put the Church's cease and > desist letters up on a public website. If the intent of this action > was to appear "politically correct" or to chill the Church's dedication to > defend the copyrighted works of the Scientology religion, no adverse > affect has been created. So why are you mentioning this here? Of course something was achieved by mirroring all of their DMCA notices on a public website. It means you can search for the link of the questioned and censored and/or alleged documents WITHOUT their search engine. It puts you back to where you should legally go. In the US, that means sending a DMCA notice to an ISP, and not a search engine. For outside the US this mostly means suing the actual user and bringing the ruling to the ISP in question, provided you win your case. And as our defense on the xenu.net case (and your church's unwillingness to sue the user or his ISP) showed, you have no clearcut case at all, and according to people with more legal knowledge on these matters, not much of a chance to win. > We are scarcely alone in utilizing the DMCA to protect our > intellectual properties. Considering that hundreds of cease and desist > letters are generated by copyright owners every day, it is oddly > disproportionate that so much attention has been focused on the handful > sent out by Scientology churches. It's a lot more then a handful. It's also filled with inaccuracies, falsehoods, dubious claims, and intensionally misleading claims (see the aforementioned link on the xenu.net case to get some crystal clear examples of this). > Record companies have used copyright law to halt the pirating of > Digital Video Discs. And withheld the rights of people to play the music they legally bought on their own devices, such as mp3 players, Linux, etc. > V. FREE SPEECH VS. HATE SPEECH > > It has long been an established legal principle that open incitement > to violence against another is not protected by the First > Amendment, neither on nor off the Internet. So is your church then committing an offense with "Dead Agenting"? Do remember that in your church's last letter to us, they claim copyright on that. This makes your church either the same thing it loathes so much, or they hand in bogus copyright claims (which is getting pretty damn close to perjury) Which of the two is it? > If an individual shouted from his rooftop that he was going to throw > a bomb through his neighbor's window, no one would accuse the > intended victim of attempting to stifle free speech when he called the > police. If an individual shouted from the pub, when drinking his 10th pint of beer that evening, that he was going to throw a bomb through his neighbor's window, no one would him seriously. Keith Henson joked about a "Cruise Missile",obviously referencing your member Tom Cruise in a joke on an internet newsgroup. Your church "called the police". As a result, this American has now been granted
political asylum in Canada. I would say that America should demolish their Statue of Liberty, as it has clearly been replaced by the God of Profit, but I fear that such a joke might now be called Terrorism by you. > It has been necessary to take legal action on several occasions due > to threats and actual violence against our churches. Hate speech and > extremist propaganda on the Internet have repeatedly driven unstable > individuals to commit felonious acts against Church members and Church > property, as in these examples: [ 6 examples without any context quoted, making verification of these claims impossible ] For similar statements of violence by your church see: http://www.scientology-lies.com/investigation.htmlThis page provides links to reports alleging that Scientology is breaking the law. The links are grouped by type of allegation:
false imprisonment 25 reports 1968 - 1996 assault 14 reports 1978 - 1998 practicing medicine without a license 5 reports 1975 - 1995 threats 5 reports 1978 - 1995 fraud 18 reports 1975 - 1998 extortion 9 reports 1978 - 1996 invasion of privacy 11 reports 1975 - 1994 child neglect 8 reports 1975 - 1991 coerced abortions 2 reports covering several cases 1975 - 1993 weapons violations 1 report 1991 conspiracy to murder 2 reports dates unknown but probably 1970s commission of criminal acts 2 reports one from 1987 interference with the US Mail 2 reports one from 1978 slander, libel, and defamation 2 reportsdates unknown, one from the 80s falsifying information or conditions to deceive inspectors
2 reports 1978 and 1982 obstruction of justice 2 reports 1989 and late 1990's violation of labor laws 11 reports 1973 - 1996And of course the most prominent violation is the murder of Lisa McPherson, see:
http://lisatrust.freewinds.cx/ For a bigger list of alleged murders/deaths see: http://www.b-org.demon.nl/scn/deaths/scientology-deaths.html > If these acts are carried out against U.S. citizens by Al Qaeda, it > is called terrorism. The same applies to your church and the list and url's I just mentioned. > Ultimately, the only guarantee of safeguarding the Internet's > potential resides with all who use it. The Internet is just a tool for communication. Ultimately, the only guarantee of safeguarding our communication resides with all who use it, and those who prevent its abuse. > We share the responsibility of > ensuring that abuses by a largely lawless minority are not permitted to > burden all of us with over regulation. We share the responsibility of ensuring that abuses by large corporations are not permitted to suppress the fundamental freedom of individuals. > We submit that had it not been > for a few lawless individuals, online copyright regulation would not even > have been necessary; ample copyright law already existed. I'd say ample copyright law already existed, and has nothing to do with a few lawless individuals. > It is up > to the law-abiding majority to ensure the Internet remains truly free. It's up to the law to make sure that barratry and other misuses of the law by rich corporations and "religions" are stopped. Paul Wouters Xtended Internet --- Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 19:02:55 -0500 From: scott <scott () nokhockey com> To: declan () well com CC: dst () cs cmu edu, kady <kady () wwwaif net>Subject: Response to Linda Simmons Scientology Internet position paper (updated)
Hello Declan,This email is in response to Church of Scientology Media Relations Director Linda Simmons Hight's email to you seen here:
http://politechbot.com/p-03917.htmlI belive Dave Touretzky replied to some of the other sections, but we've chosen to address a single section, namely, the proviced examples of 'internet hate speech'.
In her email she provides numerous examples of how 'hate speech on the internet' has driven 'unstable individuals' to commmit felonies against the church. Predictably, however, the examples she cites contain no evidence whatsoever that 'hate speech on the internet' (or for that matter even simply 'hate speech') was a responsible motivator for the acts she lists.
In only two examples is the internet even mentioned - in one example, the facts are famously disputed and the other is yet another vague and unverifiable accusation. And even more telling and typical is the fact that at least two of the acts she lists were committed by *Scientologists*.
We dissect the Church of Scientology's examples below in more detail. ###It has been necessary to take legal action on several occasions due to threats and actual violence against our churches. Hate speech and extremist propaganda on the Internet have repeatedly driven unstable individuals to commit felonious acts against Church members and Church property, as in these examples:
(1) A Scientology Church was fire-bombed twice with a dozen molotov cocktails doing extensive damage to the front of the church.
Response:There was a recent case of vandalism of a Palm Beach Church of Scientology that seems to match this deliberately vague description. Although it is not clear that this was, in fact, the incident described in the piece, if this is the incident in question, it is, at present, still an open investigation. While the Church of Scientology has made every effort to steer the police in the direction of some local critics, there is no evidence whatsoever that the vandalism was anything more than unrelated youthful hijinks, entirely divorced from anything that might occur on the Internet and to suggest otherwise is disingenuous at best, but more likely a craven attempt to exploit the still prevelant skittishness towards terrorism that is part of the American psyche.
(2) A staff member was stalked and shot at. Response:This is impossible to verify without more information, such as the date and location that the alleged incident took place. The contention that this attack, if it did, indeed, occur as described, was in any way related to "hate speech" on the Internet is entirely without foundation, and given the propensity that the Church has already demonstrated to attempt to exploit genuine tragedy in an effort to attack its perceived enemies, it cannot be given much credence.
(3) A crazed gunman went into a church and shot a pregnant staff member whose unborn child suffered fatal birth defects and later died. The woman is now paralyzed. He then set fire to the building and took another female staff member hostage.
Response:What is disingenuously omitted from this example is that the shooter in question was a Scientologist. From a Portland Oregonian article (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=52hrm8$a06 () news transport com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain) at the time:
"He came form Kenya in 1979 to 'accomplish something in America,' he said, his hopes fueled by high expectations from friends and family. But Jairus Godeka felt his dream fade to 'gloom and doom,' after he was introduced to the Church of Scientology in 1980, he told police.
[...]"They said he and his estranged wife, Christina, met while he was a student. The two married in Vancouver and lived there for three or four months before moving to Portland. About five years into the marriage, they said, Godeka found Scientology. A month after he did, the in-laws said, Godeka sold his belongings, including a stereo the couple owned, and left his wife.
"'The Church of Scientology told him he had to cleanse or purify himself and to leave her,' Christina's mother said. 'He was fine until he got involved with that church.'
Using Linda's reasoning, the rest of the world is responsible for protecting Scientology from the people that they themselves drive insane. Another article on the incident can be found here: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=52f05i$oe1 () dns city-net com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain
(4) Individuals became inflamed by venom spewed online and then sent out death threats.
Response:Again, this is a vague claim, and one that is, one suspects, deliberately worded to be nearly impossible to disprove. However, it must be said that the notion that "venom spewed online" can "inflame" otherwise stable, well-adjusted and peaceful individuals to commit acts of violence and aggression is one that does not correspond with general societal theories on responsibility, legal or moral. To put it more simply, if someone reads a webpage on environmental destruction, and takes this as an impetus to go out and shoot employees of the corporation responsible for said destruction, this is a tragedy that, while regrettable, cannot be "blamed" simply on the mere availability of critical information online. There were unstable individuals who resorted to violence before there was an Internet, and it is sophistry to blame the medium, or, indeed, its users, for the actions of any and all individuals who make use of it.
(5) An individual was convicted for threatening and intimidating Scientologists through the Internet. He then fled the country to avoid sentencing.
Response:The individual in this case, Keith Henson, has been profiled at length both on this list, and by mainstream media outlets. A page detailing exactly what occured in his case can be found at www.operatingthetan.net. As is extensively discussed on this website, which provides up to date information on Henson's situation, the "threats" in question were ambiguous at best, and in no way should have resulted in his conviction. Henson has also never been found to have committed any violent act against any individual, Scientologist or otherwise. In fact, the Church of Scientology has engaged in considerable direct harassment of both Mr. Henson and his family both before, during and after the incident that led to his flight to Canada.
(6) Police intercepted a man with explosives in his van, who, it was discovered by the officers, was enroute to assassinate the president of a Church of Scientology.
Response:This incident, which occured in Bakersville, California in 1996, in fact involved yet another disgruntled former Scientologist, Jim Enteman, who had been a fulltime staff member at the Washington DC Church of Scientology during previous years. In June 1996, Enteman pleaded guilty to three felonies related to both the explosive material in the van and a subsequent standoff with police that occured after Enteman was stopped by police.
While it was never made clear exactly why Mr. Enteman, a resident of Oregon, was driven to take such potentially violent action against his former church, it was never implied, by either the prosecution or the defence in the case, that it had anything to do with outside influence. In fact, in a story that appeared in the Bakersfield Californian quoted a former girlfriend of Mr. Enteman, who said that Enteman "felt that (church members) were involved in the programming and deprogramming of his mind." It would appear that in this case, the impetus that led to Mr. Enteman's attempted action was internal to his relationship with the Church, and in no way related to outside criticism of Scientology, whether on the Internet or anywhere else.
(7) A man constructed a mail bomb and hid it in one of our churches. It was detected and defused before it went off.
Response:Although there are few identifying details given here, an incident that meets the description was reported by Reuters News Agency in March, 1997. According to the news report, which was based on French 'police sources,' a "member of the Church of Scientology found and defused a powerful bomb Friday in a church in the western town of Angers." No one was ever arrested for this crime, and no group or individual ever claimed responsibility. It is, clearly, a leap of logic for the author of this list to suggest that this in any way implicates anyone engaged in online criticism.
As can be seen seen through even a cursory analysis of these claims of "cyberterrorism", in most incidents involving violent acts towards Scientologists or Church property, the perpetrator is, in fact, far more likely to be a disgruntled Scientologist with a personal grudge than an individual somehow inspired to violence solely by the existence of online criticism.
In fact, you could even argue that disgruntled ex-scns are *less* likely to become unstable and violent if there is a critical community in which they can participate because it channels that resentment and hostility into positive efforts. Also, if you look at the timeline, the most violent incidents occured relatively long ago by netstandards - 1996 & 1997 - which does not support the assertion that online forums for scientology criticism provoke such incidents.
#### thanks.. Scott Pilutik and Kady O'Malley (mostly Kady O'Malley in this case ;) --- From: Tim Meehan - OCSARC <tim () ocsarc org> To: declan () well comSubject: Re: FC: Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated cyber-terrorism"
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 01:36:02 -0400 Organization: Ontario Consumers for Safe Access to Recreational Cannabis > The freedom provided by the Internet is open to abuse, as the >experience of the last decade has shown. Unless certain rules are >applied on the Internet, our desired global freedom to communicate and >exchange information will be corrupted by cyber-terrorism that often >masquerades as free-speech activism. What a pantload. I would respond by saying that unless certain rules are applied to the tax-exempt status of groups formed by really bad science fiction writers intent on parting people from their wallets for nefarious purposes, our desired global freedom to communicate and exchange information will be corrupted by terroristic cults that often masquerade as some kind of "church." -- Tim Meehan, Communications Director Ontario Consumers for Safe Access to Recreational Cannabis tim () ocsarc org * http://www.ocsarc.org --- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 14:52:20 -0700 From: Don Marti <dmarti () zgp org> To: Linda Simmons Hight <mediarelationsdir () scientology net> Cc: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>Subject: FC: Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated cyber-terrorism"
Dear Ms. Hight, Following Google's removal of xenu.net from their index, I led the Mountain View, California Xenu Independent Study Group in a personal visit to Google HQ in Mountain View. I have a question regarding the DMCA statement that you recently submitted to Declan McCullagh's Politech mailing list. > In March 2002, acting according to the provisions of the Digital > Millennium Copyright Act, the Church asked Google to remove their links > to certain specific copyright infringements. Google responded by > eliminating the links. These actions on both sides were routine and > carried out pursuant to the DMCA. This "routine" letter included the URL of the xenu.net home page, not just the URLs of excerpts from Scientology documents. Google promptly admitted that their action in removing the xenu.net home page was a mistake. The home page contains no potentially DMCA-actionable material but only a summary of views critical of the Church. See "Google Restores Church Links" at http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,51257,00.html What is the Church of Scientology's current position on this attempt to censor the xenu.net home page? Was this a mistake or a deliberate attempt to use the takedown provision of the DMCA to make criticism less visible? (By the way, congratulations are due to your webmaster for taking back the number 1 spot in a Google search on "Scientology", which xenu.net has held for most of the time since the March censorship controversy.) -- Don Marti http://zgp.org/~dmarti Help spread accurate information dmarti () zgp org about Xenu and the Church of Scientology. <a href="http://xenu.net/";>Scientology</a> on your web site. --- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 14:00:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Bryan Taylor <bryan_w_taylor () yahoo com>Subject: Re: FC: Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated cyber-terrorism"
To: declan () well com Two responses to the Scientologists... First, the abhorent part of the DMCA is the anti-circumvention provisions. The notice-and-takedown provisions, while they are easily abused and could definitely be improved to prevent this, are nowhere as draconian. So long as a user is truly commiting copyright infringement, I don't think there is any problem with the law . Second, is the legally inaccurate characterization of "hate speech". There is, in fact, a big distinction between "hate speech" and "incitement to violence". In fact "hate speech" IS protected free speech in the US. A famous example of this is Brandenburg v Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) in which an arrest of a KKK leader who advocated illegal acts was struck down. The court held: "Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=395&invol=444 Similarly in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (505 US 377), the Supreme Court struck down an arrest for cross burning as facially invalid under the First Amendment. http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-7675.ZO.html . Yet another example is the recent Yahoo case where a US judge refused to uphold France's punishment for selling Nazi propaganda on Yahoo's auction site. Linda Hict states that "Hate speech and extremist propaganda on the Internet have repeatedly driven unstable individuals to commit felonious acts against Church members and Church property." The fact that acts of violence have been perpetrated against some of its members, while it does warrent criminal prosecution for the perpetrators, does not provide exception to the above standards. The KKK is the epitome of "hate speech and extremist propoganda", yet their speech has repeatedly been ruled protected, even while racist violence has plauged society. The key word in her statement is "driven", which implies a Charles Manson like influence over another. I am highly skeptical this leader-follower relationship actually exists here. The First Amendment cannot tolerate scape-goating critics for the actions of others when there is not a personalized intent to incite the attacker's violence. --- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 11:39:15 -0700 From: Lizard <lizard () mrlizard com>However, if one wishes to prove fraud, one has to be able to quote the fraudulent documents. Scientology is attempting a Catch-22 on its critics:
If you criticize Scientology w/out ny backing from their own 'scriptures', Scientologists will just claim you're "making stuff up". If you criticize Scientology by quoting their scriptures, Scientologist claim 'copyright violation'.
--- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 15:56:12 -0700 From: "Da'ud X Mohammed" <webmaster () ocnsignal com> Reply-To: webmaster () ocnsignal com Organization: Oregon Coast News Signal Hullo Declan, Re: Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated cyber-terrorism"Perhaps in the Scientology case we're talking a matter of privacy rather than free speech, copyright protection and/or "cyber-terrorism"; just as in the White House making their case FOR war in the name of any "terrorism" you name rather than keeping secret a not-so-secret plan for White House-blessed (U.S.) corporate control of oil (and water) world wide...
Don't cults have a privacy rite, uh, right? Maybe they can't function without privacy and secrecy. See the priveleged uppards insiders (inside the White House) that seem hell-bent on secrecy and making war somewhere in the name of anti-terrorism instead of making peace somewhere, even domestically. (Also see: Portlanders protest Bush policies on cutting down all the trees as a means of preventing forest fires).
Peace is a more complex matter than war. In war all you hafta do is go out and kill a bunch of people and take their control of their oil away from them. In peace you hafta develop real alternatives to dependence on (whoevers') oil in the first place. Human dependence on water is a different matter.
In (so-called) "religious" cults, developing follower dependence on the cult is THE secret. Again, no matter if it's power (control) or money they're after, don't they have the right to privacy? And while (I say) the cult does, (I also say) at taxpayer expense the war mongrels in the White House don't.
For their own secret agenda(s), both Scientology and the White House opportunistically use and abuse what is at the very heart of true terrorism and/or true freedom fighting in order to perpetuate the status quo.
wa-salaam dxm --- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 13:59:29 -0500 From: host () cyber-line com To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com> Hi Declan, Well I must say I am TOTALLY confused?I am assuming the COS is considering itself a religion. So, if they believe in free speech, why are they hiding behind copyright?
If someone wants to make thier case, they would state it and use whatever publication or document as a reference point. That, I think, is a reasonable thing.
It would be no different if somene quoted an article from The New York Times provided they gave due credit. If they were copying and selling their literature for a profit, I could see the COS's point. (Just as much as if the NYT had an issue as well.)
But let me point out again, they are a religion, right? I guess COS will go down in history as the first COPYRIGHTED religion then.I mean, I don't see catholics and other religions suing atheists over DMCA issues because they qouted the bible to prove their points.
Nor Jews or Muslins suing over DMCA issues because the Talmut or Koran were qouted or posted on the net.
I think personally the COS needs to get a life. It is either a religion or not. If it is, then it should have to follow the same fair use rules as everyone else. If not, declare yourself a business, renounce your 501c3 status, and let the marketplace rule and sue into the stars whoever crosses their paths.
(OOps! I forgot, they do that already don't they?)Or other groups might have to be allowed to make Jihad every time they are quoted on the net. And if that still stands, maybe Christians can sue Italy for all those unfair attacks from those nasty lions!
Mick Williams Host/Executive Producer Mick Williams' Cyber Line http://www.cyber-line.com --- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 12:00:45 -0700 From: "James J. Lippard" <lippard () discord org> To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>Subject: Re: FC: Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated cyber-terrorism"
A few quick comments on the Church of Scientology's position paper.
1. The Church of Scientology has clearly made some major mistakes in its
campaign to protect its secrets. These include:
* Attempting to remove the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup from
Usenet on January 10, 1995.
* Raiding the private property of individuals twice in 1995, using
copyright
and trade secret law (RTC v. Netcom and RTC v. Lerma; the Church's
Religious
Technology Center ultimately prevailed in both cases, the former being
settled out of court). What I characterize as a mistake here is the
excessive
over-reaction of raids.
* Sending out legal threats against individuals for quoting two lines from
the OT7 materials. These two lines were eventually quoted in the New
York
Times and the Washington Post. The Washington Post was a defendant in
the RTC v. Lerma case, but won on all counts.
See
http://www.discord.org/~lippard/skeptic/03.3.jl-jj-scientology.html
for a contemporary account of these events that was published in
_Skeptic_ magazine. The events were also chronicled in Wendy
M. Grossman's book _net.wars_ (NYU Press, 1997).
The Church of Scientology also used other measures to try to disrupt the
alt.religion.scientology newsgroup. These included a plan (attempted,
with little success) to flood the newsgroup with pro-Scientology postings,
to flood it with anti-psychiatry postings, and according to ex-Scientologist
Tory Bezazian, the Church was behind the "sporgings"--mass posts of gibberish
forged in the names of the regular contributors to the newsgroup, which
greatly reduced the usability of Usenet archives like DejaNews.
(See Tony Ortega's story on Tory Bezazian from the Los Angeles New Times
at http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/2001-09-27/feature.html/1/index.html)
2. Linda Simmons Hight gives a list of threats and attacks on the Church.
Some of her descriptions leave something to be desired.
> o A crazed gunman went into a church and shot a pregnant staff member
> whose unborn child suffered fatal birth defects and later died.
> The woman is now paralyzed. He then set fire to the building and took
> another female staff member hostage.
This was Jairus C. Godeka of Kenya, who engaged in this assault
against the Portland office of the Church of Scientology in September
1996. Godeka was a disturbed individual who stated that his problems
began when he started taking Scientology courses--the crazed gunman
was himself a Scientologist.
> o An individual was convicted for threatening and intimidating
> Scientologists through the Internet. He then fled the country to avoid
> sentencing.
This was Keith Henson--many believe that, in context, the Usenet postings
which led to his conviction were not threats. He regularly picketed the
Church of Scientology's Hemet, CA location. The specifics may be found
online at http://www.holysmoke.org/kh/kh.htm
--
Jim Lippard lippard () discord org http://www.discord.org/
GPG Key ID: 0xF8D42CFE
---
From: "Joel J. Hanes" <joel554 () attbi com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Scientology "threatened"
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 21:49:15 -0700
Ahhh, Scientology.
The most litigious organization on the planet.
As an excercise, I invite you (or someone you know
with Lexis/Nexis access) to look up Scientology's
legal history in the US -- literally tens of thousands
of lawsuits over the last 25 years.
Allow me to deconstruct for you two of the points
in Ms. Simmons-Hight's lovely letter. (You _did_ notice
that she carefully left out all specifics of names, dates,
places, etc. that might allow you to independently verify
her claims, right?)
---
o A crazed gunman went into a church and shot a pregnant staff member
whose unborn child suffered fatal birth defects and later died.
The woman is now paralyzed. He then set fire to the building and took
another female staff member hostage.
[ This would be Jairus Godeka, in, I think, Seattle.
Godeka was mentally ill, and was at that point a failing member
of the "Church". There is no detectable connection between his
acts and the Internet. None. ]
o An individual was convicted for threatening and intimidating
Scientologists through the Internet. He then fled the country to avoid
sentencing.
[ This is Keith Henson, a founding member of the L5 society.
His "threatening and intimidating Scientologists" consisted
of first peaceful picketing, then making a joke on the Usenet
newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, and more peaceful and
legal picketing. The conviction was a travesty. A little
Googling on the keywords Henson Scientology should be enough
to acquaint you with the actual specifics of the case.
EFF's site has some Henson background material.
It is true that Henson fled to Canada before sentencing. ]
Anyone concerned with copyright law and the Net ought to read a little
about how Scientology was able to use the pre-DMCA copyright laws to
sue and harass former high-ranking member Dennis Erlich.
Defense work by EFF and Morrison-Foerster (before Erlich settled for
undisclosed damages) left a fine set of legal documents.
See
http://www.xenutv.com/legal/erlich.htm
http://www.eff.org/IP/IP_SLAPP/Scientology_cases/
and, of course, you should know that Scientology lies about everything,
as policy, and is frequently caught at it.
See the Bonnie Woods case in the UK
http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/woods.html
or the Casey Hill case in Canada
http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/pub/1995/vol2/html/1995scr2_1130.html
in which Scientology paid the largest libel judgement
in Canadian history.
enjoying your blog
Joel Hanes
Santa Clara CA
------------------
Here's an admittedly one-sided but factual backgrounder on Scientology
that I wrote some years ago, during the five-year span that I followed
alt.religion.scientology every day. The links have rotted, but at one
time they substantiated every claim made.
---
To the best of my knowledge, every statement in this post is factual.
If any person, Scientologist, critic, or bystander, can provide
evidence that any of these statements are false, I will retract and
change this article before (someday) reposting.
Scientology started out as pseudo-medical quackery, and only
incorporated as a "church" to evade regulation
by the FDA and taxation by the IRS.
Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, stated
initially that Scientology was _not_ a religion;
that it was instead a set of precise scientific
techniques discovered through research.
Only after Hubbard's grandiose claims for medical and
psychological benefits were show to be false, and with
fraud prosecution by the U.S. Federal government
looming, did he reorganize Scientology as a church.
Scientology breaks up families.
When a Scientologist's family members or friends express
concern about the personality changes that are often seen
in new members, or about the extreme amounts of money
suddenly being "donated" to Scientology, the member's
Scientology "case supervisor" often strongly advises
"disconnection" from "suppressive" family and friends.
Disconnection means complete cessation of contact.
Many parents, brothers, sisters, and ex-spouses tell
of spending years, even decades, with no communication
whatsoever from a loved one ensnared in Scientology.
Scientology explicitly teaches its representatives to lie.
Scientology has an official training routine,
"TR-L", that is used to teach its public
spokespersons to lie convincingly, and without
remorse.
Lying defamation of enemies is standard policy in
Scientology, and is termed "dead agenting":
In 1995, the "Church" of Scientology Canada paid the
largest libel judgement in Canadian history,
$1.8 million, to the Hon. Casey Hill, because their
official spokesmen continued to maliciously "dead-agent"
Hill when they knew their claims to be lies.
http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/malice.htm
In 1999, British courts awarded 155,000 pounds
to ex-Scientologist Bonnie Woods after she was
libeled in a leaflet distributed to her neighbors
by a Scientology organization. Scientology's lawyers
were compelled to read in court an apology and
acknowlegement that their clients had knowingly
and maliciously lied.
http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/woods.html
In 2001, a Berlin court awarded 100,000 Deutschemarks
to Bob Minton in a suit brought against the Church of
Scientology in Germany and German OSA head Sabina Weber,
after Minton was libeled in "Freheit", the German-language
version of Scientology's "Freedom" magazine.
Scientology has several times publicly announced a "religious"
crusade to destroy the psychiatric profession, and
to remove psychotherapists of all kinds
(except Scientology's own "auditors")
from "the face of this planet".
Yet Scientology itself refuses to offer help of any
kind to persons suffering from schizophrenia,
autism, bipolar disorder, depression, or any other
mental or emotional disorder.
Scientology strongly condemns all medication taken for
psychiatric conditions (such as Prozac, Zoloft, Zanax,
lithium, Paxil, Ritalin, Wellbutrin, Luvox, Tegretol,
Celexa, Lorazepam, Effexor, Serzone, Anafril,
Klonopin, Valium, etc.).
Through its front-group CCHR, Scientology seeks
to make these medications unavailable to anyone.
Scientology maintains dossiers ("PC folders") of potentially
damaging admissions confessed by adherents, and uses
them as a threat to control members, and to smear
ex-members.
During "auditing", the person being audited ("the PC")
is hooked up to a crude lie-detector (the "E-meter"),
and is asked a long series of detailed and intensely
personal questions about their sex life, illegalities
they may have performed, anything they may regret or
be ashamed of.
All responses are carefully recorded in the PC folder.
Persons attempting to leave Scientology have been
threatened with public disclosure of the contents
of their PC folder; ex-members who have made trouble
for Scientology have had these threats carried out.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/mpoulter/scum/culling.html
Scientology has a secret police.
The Office of Special Affairs ("OSA") is the current
Scientology organization chartered for intelligence,
propaganda, and covert operations.
These covert activities were formerly the job of the
Guardian's Office ("GO"); the GO was reorganized into
today's OSA after eleven top GO officers were jailed
in U.S. federal felony convictions.
http://www.entheta.org/entheta/go/go.htm
http://members.tripod.com/German_Scn_News
Scientology has a gulag.
Scientology's paramilitary elite, the "Sea Org",
maintains re-education camps, known as the "RPF",
at several locations. The lowest levels of RPF have
all the characteristics of a gulag work camp --
involuntary confinement at hard labor; psychological
manipulation; continual harassment; inadequate
food, sleep, and sanitation; gross overcrowding.
http://www.scientology-lies.com/imprisonment.html
Scientology pressures some female members to have abortions.
According to a written policy known as "Flag Order 3905",
women joining the Sea Org must make that work their
absolute priority, and must not become pregnant.
If they do conceive, they are pressured, and have
in some cases been coerced, to terminate the pregnancy
through abortion.
http://www.scientology-lies.com/abortions.policy.html
http://www.b-org.demon.nl/scn/deaths/index.html#csa
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/aff/aff_mt.html
Scientology has repeatedly fostered felonious conspiracies.
* Operation Snow White
In 1978-81, eleven high-ranking Scientologists were
convicted of felonies, fined, and sentenced to terms
in US Federal penitentiaries for their roles in
"Operation Snow White", a conspiracy to infiltrate
and burglarize U.S. Federal government offices,
to steal and destroy government files documenting
some of the ugly facts about Scientology.
http://www.skeptictank.org/cagmsh.htm
http://www.holysmoke.org/grand-jury.htm
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology,
was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in this case.
http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/kember.htm
Faced with overwhelming evidence, the Scientology
defendants agreed to stipulate in advance that they
had in fact committed a long list of crimes:
http://www.wwwaif.net/GO/GOstip/toc.html
The convicted include Jane Kember, the "Guardian"
(head of the Guardian's Office, then the second-highest
office in all of Scientology after Hubbard
himself), and Hubbard's third wife Mary Sue.
Despite Scientology's claim that these criminals have
been ousted, several of the convicted felons,
including Duke Snider, Henning Heldt, Mo Budlong, and
Dick Weigand, are still active in Scientology.
http://www.wwwaif.net/GO/new.html
Kendrick Moxon, senior attorney for Scientology,
was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in this case.
Today, the bankrupt California Scientology organization
maintains its offices within Moxon's law firm; Moxon
was the lead attorney in Scientology's successful
campaign to sue the Cult Awareness Network ("CAN")
into bankruptcy and receivership.
In July 1992, the Church of Scientology was found guilty
of infiltrating the Toronto Police, and the offices of
Revenue Canada, the Ontario Attorney General, and the
Ontario provincial government.
Thousands of files had been stolen.
http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/toronto
* Scientology's Guardian's Office criminally harassed
Paulette Cooper, author of the early critical book
_The_Scandal_of_Scientology_, by stealing her personal
stationery with her finger prints, forging bomb threats
to themselves, and then reporting the "threat" to the
FBI; by stealing and making public the confidential
patient records of Cooper's psychotherapy; by spreading
false and discreditable information about Cooper among
her neighbors; by instigating fourteen separate lawsuits
against her; and much more.
http://holysmoke.org/pc/pc.htm
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/cooper/index.html
* In "Operation Keeler", just one of a long list of
"ops" against Gabe Cazares, then Mayor of
Clearwater, Florida, the GO damaged Cazares'
political career by staging a faked hit-and-run
accident, and then "leaking" the incident widely
just before the next mayoral election. (Cazares
had opposed the virtual occupation of his town by
Scientology's "Flag Land Base".)
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/docs/cazares.html
http://www.xenu-city.net/
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/timeline.html
In 1977, in the enormous FBI raid of Scientology sites
that led to the Snow White convictions in Canada and
the United States, documents were seized that planned
for future criminal activities by the Guardian's Office:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/canada2.html
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/docs/index.html
Operation Snapper: A plan to discredit California
Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Tapper, and to
force him from public office, by fabricating
circumstantial evidence that Tapper was trafficing
in drugs and had fathered a child out of wedlock.
Operation Juicy Clanger: A plan to pressure the IRS
into granting Scientology tax-exempt status, by
threatening to disclose information gleaned from
individual tax records stolen from IRS files.
Tax records found among the seized documents
included those of singers Frank Sinatra and
Doris Day, California Governor Edmund Brown, and
Los Angeles mayors Tom Bradley and Sam Yorty.
Operation PC Freakout: planned further harassment of
author Paulette Cooper: sending forged bomb threats
to Arab consulates in Washington DC, and to Henry
Kissinger.
Operation Quaker: a plan to spirit material witnesses
out of the country.
Operation Street-man: a deep background investigation
of Clearwater mayor Gabe Cazares, with the intent of
finding discreditable facts or material suitable for
blackmail.
Heber Jentzsch and Warren McShane were officials in the
Guardian's Office, under whose auspices these felonies
were planned and carried out.
Today Jentzsch is the president of the "Church"
of Scientology International, and McShane is the head
of the Religious Technology Corporation ("RTC"),
which presses "copyright" lawsuits against journalists
and critics on behalf of Scientology.
* Greece: all Scientology organizations have been
ordered closed by the courts, in the aftermath of
a 1995 raid that found the Greek branch of OSA in
possession of classified Greek military documents,
and exposed evidence that Scientology operatives had
penetrated the Greek Secret Service, KYP, between
1993 and 1995.
http://w4u.eexi.gr/~antbos/COSDOCUM.HTM
* France: in 1979, L. Ron Hubbard was convicted
(in absentia) of fraud, sentenced to four years in
prison, and fined 35,000 francs. Three other
principals of Scientology in France were given lesser
fines and sentenced to terms from 1 to 3 years.
In 1996, 14 Scientologists were convicted of fraud
in a Lyon court; the former head of the Lyon Scientology
organization, Jean-Jacques Mazier, was found guilty of
manslaughter, fined 500,000 francs, and sentenced to
18 months imprisonment, and an 18 month suspended sentence.
In 1999, Xavier Delamare, former head of Scientology's
branch in Marseille, and five other Scientologists were
convicted of fraud in a 10-year-old case. Delamare was
sentenced to two years in prison.
* Spain: in 1988, Spanish police raided a Scientology
conference and nineteen Scientology offices in seven
cities, eventually resulting in thirty-seven arrests.
Scientology President Heber Jentzsch was one of
seventy Scientologists initially held on suspicion of
coercion, fraud, tax evasion, forging of public documents,
and embezzlement. Jentzsch was soon released (as were
fifty-nine others, including all non-Spaniards). Eleven
Scientologists, deemed "undesireable aliens", were ordered
to leave the country. In 1994, Jentzsch and twenty
Spanish Scientolgists were finally indicted on twelve
different felony counts, and were required to post a bond
of about 1.1 million dollars.
Scientology has systematically stolen and destroyed library copies
of critical books, magazines, and newspapers, including:
_A_Piece_of_Blue_Sky_, J. Atack
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/atack/index.html
_The_Road_To_Xenu_, M. Wakefield
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/xenu.html
_Bare-Faced_Messiah_, R. Miller
http://www.discord.org/~lippard/bfm/
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/bfmconte.htm
http://xenu.phys.uit.no/books/bfm/
_Religion,_Inc_, S. Lamont
http://pweb.netcom.com/~seekon/lamont.html
_L_Ron_Hubbard,_Messiah_or_Madman_, B. Corydon
http://www.xenu.org/factnet/GEN/FILES/BOOKS/CORYDON.TXT
_The_Scandal_of_Scientology_, P. Cooper
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/cooper/index.html
_The_Road_To_Total_Freedom_, R. Wallis
"Scientology Unmasked"
Boston Herald, March 1, 1998
First Prize, Investigative Reporting 1998
New England Press Association
http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/
"Do You Want To Buy a Bridge?", Mark Ebner
SPY Magazine, February 1996
"The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power"
Time Magazine, May 6, 1991 page 50 (cover story)
http://www.xenu.net/archive/media/time91605.html
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/time-behar.html
"The Scientology Story" (in six parts)
Los Angeles Times, June 24-29, 1990
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/dst/Library/Shelf/la90/
"The Prophet and Profits of Scientology"
Forbes, October 27, 1986
http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/lron-info1.htm
"Scientology: The Sickness Spreads"
Reader's Digest, September 1981
http://www.skeptictank.org/readdig2.htm
http://www.xenu.org/factnet/GEN/FILES/MEDIA01/METHVIN2.TXT
"Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult"
Reader's Digest, May 1980
http://www.skeptictank.org/readdig.htm
"Scientology Brings Four Years of Discord"
and thirteen other related investigative articles
by Charles Stafford and Betty Orsini
Winner, 1980 Pulitzer for national reporting
The St. Petersburg Times, December 1979
http://www.holysmoke.org/cw.htm
"Scientology: A Long Trail of Controversy"
and six other related investigative articles
Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1978
http://www.rpi.net.au/~marina/latimes/index.htm
"Scientology -
A Growing Cult Reaches Dangerously Into the Mind"
and "Scientology. A True-Life Nightmare" by Alan Levy
Life Magazine, Nov. 15, 1968 pages 99-100 and 100B-114
Scientology is enormously litigious.
The "Church" of Scientology has an in-house legal
department, and has amassed an incredible history
of lawsuits:
- Against legitimate news media, such as _Time_,
The Readers' Digest, and the Washington Post,
in a partially-successful attempt to stifle accurate
reporting of its history, actions, policies,
and beliefs.
- Against individuals or organizations that use any
part of Hubbard's "technology" outside the
auspices of Scientology.
- Against ex-members who seek to make public
Scientology's systematic and continuing abuse of
its members, its critics, and of the courts.
- Against the US Internal Revenue Service, when
that organization originally (and quite
rightly) ruled that Scientology was *not* a
non-profit charitable organization, and was
thus not entitled to tax-exempt status.
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~cowen/essays/irs.html
Scientology is legally structured as a bewildering tangle of
dummy corporations and shells, which serve as a shield
against legal accountability.
Scientology kills.
On December 5, 1995, dedicated young Scientologist
Lisa McPherson was pronounced dead on arrival
at a hospital north of Clearwater, Florida.
According to the coroner's report, Lisa's body was
severely underweight and exhibited numerous bruises
and insect bites; the cause of death was listed as
a blood clot caused by extreme dehydration.
http://www.lisamcpherson.org/
On November 13, 1998, the Church of Scientology's
Clearwater "Flag Service Organization" was indicted
on 2 felony charges in Mcpherson's death.
Lisa's family has brought an additional civil suit
for wrongful death. The family claims that
Scientology's "technology" damaged Lisa's mental health,
and that after she attempted to escape Scientology
control, Flag Service personnel recaptured her and
confined her, sometimes drugged, for seventeen days
without adequate food, water, or medical care.
Konrad Aigner, Patrice Vic, Noah Lottick, and Susan
Meister are four other young people whose lives were
tragically cut short by their involvement in Scientology.
http://cisar.org/konrad.htm
http://www.rickross.com/reference/Art54.html
http://www.lermanet.com/cos/noah.html
http://davel.www.cistron.nl/susan.htm
http://home.wxs.nl/~mike_gormez/deaths.html
http://www.scientology-kills.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------
A few WWW sites for the beginning researcher:
Critical introduction to Scientology:
http://www.modemac.com/cos/
Index to Scientology's own web site:
http://www.scientology.org/search/indxmstr.htm
Well-researched, documented, and well-written essays
about Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard:
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~cowen/essays/
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/LRH-bio/lrhpaper.htm
First person narrative of one person's career in Scientology:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu
The first critical Web page, and still good:
http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/index.html
More detail, well organized:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/mpoulter/scum.html
http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/audit/index.html
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/
A fine example of Scientology dead-agenting on the Web
http://www.parishioners.org/Intolerance/
Operation Clambake, the all-round best critical site:
http://www.xenu.net/
The Sekret Skripchurs
http://cleartech1.chat.ru/
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/
http://www.xenu.net/archive/secret.html
Canonical list of all Scientology Web resources:
http://www.altreligionscientology.org/
http://www.xenu.net/archive/arsweb/
---
From: "ßobÇat" <bob.cat () snet net>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>
Subject: Freedom Magazine Church of Scientology Int. edition - The Internet
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 03:58:23 -0400
The position paper from Linda Simmons Hight mentions Freedom Magazine, the
CoS zine. Politechers might like to read what they have to say about
hijacked IP and free speech, and other horrors of the Net.
http://www.freedomontheinternet.org/freedom-internet.htm
A fairly-used quote from "A Crime by Any other Name":
"The child pornographer who seeks new children to exploit, the prodigious
criminal who "fixes" a radio contest, the child and wife abuser who turns to
misappropriating copyrighted works - all have shown continuing flagrant
disregard for the law and have simply moved their activities onto the
information superhighway in their mistaken belief that they would not be
held accountable."
---
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 11:29:19 -0400
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
From: Arnaldo Lerma <alerma () bellatlantic net>
Subject: Re: Arnie Lerma replies to Scientology's Internet position
paper
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20020828015048.0256b7c0 () mail well com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Also... you may use this [ there are so many lies and half-truths in that
thing, I know other folks are pointing those out to you....] this is my
recent letter to Senate Judiciary cmte:
Open letter to Members of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and DrugsThere is an organization that, that regardless of which corporation its members work in, encourages and supports the following:
1) A plan for the best apparent performance monetarily on a weekly basis, compare to planning for the next quarterly report versus planning for the long term...
2) Saying publicly that its members must obey the law, while turning a blind eye if those members manage to accumulate vast sums of money. - Example - Reed Slatkin, the perpetrator of a 1/2 billion dollar ponzi scheme.
3) That hold's its goals above those of law, and whose operating headquarters, being tolerated and allowed to flourish in the United States is by our toleration of it, causing distrust and consternation amongst allies around the world.
4) An organization which extorted the IRS to give them tax exempt status under a sealed, secret settlement, by the filing hundreds of nuisance lawsuits.
5) An organization that has forced its own members to have abortions6) An organization that was party to the largest conspiracy to infiltrate and burglarize government offices and whose leaders were convicted and went to jail in 1982.
7) An organization that has been convicted of "breach of the Public Trust" in Canada.
8) An organization whose founder has been convicted of FRAUD in France.9) An organization whose members are encouraged to "Make it go right" without reservation, to bring in money.
10) An organization who is represented by the same law firm that once represented both the USSR and the American Communist Party.
11) An organization that to this day lies about its own founder's military record as part of its plot to deceive young people and minorities who do not have access to the voluminous documentation on the world wide web.
12) An organization with a long documented policy of abuse of our court system, specifically, "The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly." (as quoted by Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema in RTC Vs Lerma)
14) An organization with an immutable and totalitarian policy to infiltrate, influence, and dominate American communities and government.
15) An organization the breaks up families with a written policy of disconnection from troublesome sources of information.
16) An organization that runs veritable gulags for the disaffected so that they might never be witness against them.
17) An organization whose founder states "Someday, someone, will say this is illegal.. let's make sure that by that time we are the ones who say what is legal or not."
Would you not be motivated to ACT? Now what if this organization were called Scientology, would you lose your will to act? There are those who have not, and we desperately need your assistance. Sincerely, Arnaldo Lerma alerma () verizon net 703-241 1498Founder: Citizens Against Corruption, 6045 N 26th Road Arlington Virginia 22207 WWW.LERMANET.COM
exposing the con ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?qÞclan CNET Radio 9:40 am ET weekdays: http://cnet.com/broadband/0-7227152.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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