Volume 0, Issue 23 vom 24. 09. 1995
Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review
Volume 0, Issue 23
09/24/95
by Rod Keller [rkeller@netaxs.com]
copyright 1995
Contents
- I-Net
- The Big Story
- Church Appeal
- FACTNet Update
- From the Denver Post:
- Harlan Ellison
- Institute for Historical Review
- Scamizdat
- CancelPoodle
- DA Packs
- Dissemination Course
Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review summarizes the most significant
postings from the Usenet group Alt.religion.scientology for the preceding
week for the benefit of those who can't follow the group as closely as
they'd like. Out of thousands of postings, I attempt to include news of
significant events, new affidavits, court rulings, new contributors,
whatever. I hope you find it useful. Like many readers of a.r.s, I have a
kill file. So please take into consideration that I may not have seen some
of the most significant postings.
The articles in A.r.s Week in Review are brief summaries of the articles.
Many include an excerpt, and all include message IDs for the articles I
cover. This may or may not be useful to you, depending on how long your
site stores articles in the newsgroup before expiring them.
Free A.r.s Week in Review subscriptions are available, just email me at
rkeller@netaxs.com
It is archived at:
http://remarkable.amazing.com/scientology
http://users.aimnet.com/~jdiver
http://www.thur.de/religio/publik/arsfaq.html
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/ars-summary.html
#####
I-Net
I-Net, the company hired by the cos to search Arnie Lerma's computer for
alleged copyright violations, has been reluctant to discuss the work done
on their behalf. Shelley Thompson (aka Biased Journalism) reports her
attempts to interview Ken Bajaj, the president of I-Net. She was met first
with refusals and then threats. Sounds familiar.
"We telephoned the company and asked for the president, Ken Bajaj. We were
connected with his secretary, a friendly and helpful woman, and explained
our purpose. She was taken aback by the concept of a news magazine
published solely on the Internet. She suggested that we call back in a few
minutes to talk to Mr. Bajaj, and we did. We were not allowed to talk with
him, however.
"A week later we called again. The secretary, now sounding distinctly
frightened, said that the interview had been refused but declined to say
anything further. She offered to connect us with the legal department. We
agreed, hoping at least to find out why they did not want to talk to us,
but were first disconnected and then told that everyone was in a
conference. We left our number, but no one called us back.
"Bereft of news, we suborned a mouse in the I-NET conference room. The
mouse alleged as follows: our contact was promptly reported to the I-NET
department handling c of s matters. The client's lawyers were asked
whether they minded if I-NET gave an interview. The lawyers responded that
they certainly did mind; and furthermore, additional legal actions were
under consideration which could involve Biased Journalism."
Shelley also reports on what Arnie found when he tried to pick up his
seized property, as ordered last week by Judge Brinkema.
"He was given a large box of floppy disks. He fished in the box and
discovered that they represented only 1/2 to 1/3 of his disks, mostly
commercial material. A 540 meg hard drive which had been part of his
business inventory was returned, together with a very old scsi drive which
I-NET had been unable to read. He had expected to find his own computer,
pursuant to Judge Brinkema's order. It was not there. Instead he was
offered a 386 with an I-NET sticker on the back and a hard drive labeled
'duplicate Lerma C Drive 8/21.' Lerma refused to accept the 386, but
removed the hard drive and took it with him.
"Lerma left his 20" monitor at Ross Dixon because Plaintiffs did not
return its cable with the BNC ends. He also left his scanner because the
scsi interface was missing."
Message-ID: <sthomsonDF4pCM.Fzn@netcom.com>
#####
The Big Story
Alison Braund, the investigator who infiltrated the cos as part of The Big
Story broadcast in the U.K. about the cos was cleared of charges brought
against her by the church. The Australian AAP reports:
"An Adelaide journalist was cleared today of charges of theft brought
against her by the Church of Scientology following an investigative report
into the church.
"Chairman of the bench, Hinda Style, said there had been an abuse of
process and awarded Stg15,400 ($A31,448) costs against the prosecution.
"'It's a great decision,' Ms Braund said outside the court. 'It's a real
victory for journalists doing their job in the interest of the public and
a victory against pressure groups like the Church of Scientology who
harass people through the courts. I shall carry on investigating."
"'We consider there has been an abuse of process because the actions of
the prosecution in bringing this particular prosecution pre-empted the
decision of the Crown Prosecution Service and that taking out the summons
was oppressive,' Mrs Style said in delivering her verdict."
Message-ID: <43sapp$gik@utopia.hacktic.nl>
#####
Church Appeal
Dick Cleek reports on the legal developments in Arnie Lerma's case.
"After Judge Brinkema's decision Friday, the CoS filed an immediate appeal
with the 4th Circuit Court. It was heard at 6pm that night. Judge Ludig
granted a temporary stay of Judge Brinkema's decision until Judge Ludig
received the written decision from Judge Brinkema. This has nothing to do
with the merits of the case.
Message-ID: <43ku9u$tsa@uwm.edu>
#####
FACTNet Update
Developments in the cos vs. FACTNet case.
"The judge ruled that no harm was done to Co$ -- only to the defendants
Wollersheim, Penny. He ruled no on their preliminary injunction to seize
FACTNet computers. He gave a preliminary judgment that the Co$ case had
little or no merit.
"Further he stated that much of the material may not be copyrightable. It
appears that when the Church filed with the Library of Congress they
blanked out significant portions of the OT material they deemed secret.
Unfortunately for the Co$ for a copyright to be valid, true and complete
copies must be filed with with the Library of Congress. So in their
attempt to keep certain teachings secret they may have voided their
copyrights."
The full text of Judge Kane's ruling was posted this week. Some excerpts:
"With regard to the copyright infringement, on the evidence before me, I
find there is no probability of plaintiffs succeeding on their copyright
claim because the evidence which has been presented shows that the
defendants' use of the copyrighted works constitutes a fair use under
Section 107 of the Copyright Act in that it is for the purposes of
criticism, comment, or research, and as such is not an infringement.
"With regard to the trade secrets violation claim, the plaintiff has not
shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the materials in issue are
secret or within the definition of trade secrets under Colorado law. The
evidence shows the materials are in fact in the public domain, and I am
not persuaded by the evidence presented here that they entered the public
domain only through unlawful means."
After this decision, the church pursued a series of appeals. First to the
10th Circuit Court of Appeals, then to the Supreme Court. From the FACTNet
Board of Directors:
"10th circuit court of appeals in Colorado just refused cult motions for
stay! All equipment must go back immediately!
"This refers to computer equipment seized from Lawrence Wollersheim and
Bob Penny. We assume that Judge Kane's original order will stand: all
computers and peripherals, along with seized documents, are to be returned
immediately, in precisely the same condition as when seized, and in
precisely the same location where seized."
From the Denver Post:
"A US Supreme Court justice yesterday denied an appeal by the Church of
Scientology to stay a district court order that it return computer
materials to a man the church has accused of stealing church secrets, an
attorney said.
"The stay was denied late yesterday by associate Supreme Court Justice
Stephen Breyer, according to Natalie Hanlon-Leh, an attorney for Lawrence
Wollersheim of Boulder.
And from UPI:
"Justice Stephen Breyer refused without comment Wednesday to enforce a
federal judge's order authorizing the seizure of Church of Scientology
materials published on a computer network.
"A federal judge in Colorado had authorized the seizure, but that order
was vacated, or thrown out, by a senior judge. According to papers filed
Tuesday with the Supreme Court, a director of F.A.C.T.Net Inc. posted 64
pages of the church's 'confidential material' on the Internet in early
August. The church sued the director and obtained an order seizing the
material on Aug. 12.
Message-ID: <4355e8$5oq@light.lightlink.com>
Message-ID: <sthomsonDF51H3.JLF@netcom.com>
Message-ID: <43hlrd$69i@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
Message-ID: <43rmtu$cmn@ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <43sajj$ggj@utopia.hacktic.nl>
#####
Harlan Ellison
An interesting description was posted this week of Hubbard from Harlan
Ellison in his intro to Angry Candy, a collection of his short stories.
"Ron Hubbard and Emily went in January of '86. I hadn't seen Ron in
decades, but we'd exchanged a few letters; and despite the looneytunes
scene his Dianetics and Scientology had become, he was always still just
Ron Hubbard, who'd written 'To The Stars' and 'Final Blackout' and 'Fear'
and 'Type- writer in the Sky' and 'Slaves of Sleep', all of which great
pulp fiction I can still reread with pleasure; and he was not some sort of
mysterious recluse with a worldwide following of dippy 'clears' who are so
scared someone will let light into their cultish religion that they sue
people who talk in their sleep, one supposes, rather than suffer any
negative comment. He was just Ron, and I kinda liked him, mostly because
he wrote well, and I never felt he took all that Scientology nonsense
seriously but knew how to make a good buck, and he liked me, and ... well,
he was a friend who died. As Emily was a friend who died."
Message-ID: <43gokn$o5k@cougar.vut.edu.au>
#####
Institute for Historical Review
Jim Lippard posted a response from Greg Raven to the suggestions that he
is a member of the cos. The connection between the Institute for
Historical Review (Holocaust revisionists) and the cos has been discussed
on a.r.s off and on for months.
"The rumor that I am a Scientologist comes from Willis Carto, who in his
effort to 'rule or ruin' the IHR has embarked on a smear campaign against
everyone who opposes him. Many months ago in a deposition, Carto asked Tom
Marcellus if I was a Scientologist. [H]e answered, 'I don't know.'
"The way Carto interpreted this is a great example of how his brain works.
In Carto's mind, Tom is one of the big cheeses in the COS. Because he is
so high up, powerful, important, etc., there is no way he could NOT know
whether or not I was (or am) a Scientologist. Therefore, Tom was lying
under oath, in Carto's twisted world, which meant that I was a
Scientologist.
"Some months later, Carto finally got around to deposing me, and guess
what? He asked me if I was a Scientologist. I told him that I am not,
never have been, and never will be a Scientologist. For Carto, this
apparently was the last piece of the puzzle. Now he KNEW I was a
Scientologist because I was LYING about not being one!
"For the record, I am not, never have been, and never will be a
Scientologist. It's not that I don't like Scientology, per se, I just
don't find it to be any better or worse than any other religion, and I
don't have anything to do with them, either."
Message-ID: <43gokn$o5k@cougar.vut.edu.au>
#####
Scamizdat
The Scamizdat materials, including the full text of the OT materials, are
probably still available on the World Wide Web. This week, D'Van Geely
placed them on his web site, but removed them when he received mail from
the cos' chief legal terrorist, Helena Kobrin. D'Van posted to a.r.s:
"Hmms, I think I'm gonna remove it from my site,
http://huizen.dds.nl/~dvgeely, because today I've got the following mail
from the management of the dds, which they in their turn received from
Helena :
"To the Attention of DDS Management
Dear Sir:
"I represent Religious Technology Center ("RTC"), the owner of the
confidential Advanced Technology of the religion of Scientology, and the
holder of the exclusive rights under the copyrights applicable to the
Advanced Technology materials. Among these copyrighted and confidential
materials are the Advanced Technology materials of various levels known as
'Operating Thetan' or 'OT' levels.
"I am writing to register a complaint against one of your users, an
individual identified as Jean-Pierre Deckers (dvgeely), who posted a
portion of these confidential and trade secret materials on your system."
You know how it goes from there. The materials continue to be available,
but transient, as another poster reported:
"It seems like the complete Scamizdat series and the Fishman affidavit are
available from ftp://ftp.aeinc.com/web/"
Helena apparently sees an increase in availability of the information
recently. She posted this terse message this week.
"The issuance of various orders in courts in Alexandria, Virginia and
Denver, Colorado in two copyright infringement and trade secret
misappropriation cases brought by my client, Religious Technology Center,
appears to have generated a flood of misinterpretations amongst allies of
the defendants in those cases that is unwarranted and, potentially,
foolhardy. Please be advised that the Religious Technology Center will
continue to safeguard and enforce its intellectual property rights, both
copyright and trade secret, and that nothing in either the Virginia or the
Colorado orders diminishes those rights or limits that intention. Indeed,
both judges were very clear that there is to be no copying --
electronically or otherwise -- and no distribution of those materials by
any defendant in either case. They, and everyone else, proceed at their
legal peril should they disregard those courts' orders.
Message-ID: <43v7om$a4o@tuegate.tue.nl>
Message-ID: <43e76f$5hn@mn5.swip.net>
Message-ID: <hkkDF4FE2.Azs@netcom.com>
#####
CancelPoodle
The rash of forged cancels of articles on a.r.s continued this week. The
cos has established a pattern of creating expendable accounts on Netcom
for the purpose of canceling articles until the account is suspended by
the efficient Margaret.
Cancels were posted this week from:
icecube@netcom.com (Bob Wallert)
keywest1@netcom.com (Bill Keyes)
aggy@netcom21.netcom.com (James Parker)
chipman@netcom.com (Alex Munchnik)
Margaret confirmed the suspension of the keywest1 and aggy accounts. I
assume the other two are also suspended by now.
Tilman Hausherr reported this week that the Kaiwan system has finally
closed the hole that allowed cancels to be made there.
"I just got e-mail from a Kaiwan user that IHAVE is no longer possible on
Kaiwan. Since the e-mail was friendly and logical, I have reason to
believe it. Someone who tries to enter IHAVE gets 'Transfer permission
denied'.
"So Luke has close his security leak, but has done this silently (because
acknowledging it publicly == face loss). This must have happened already a
few days ago, probably shortly before the netcom cancels started again.
Message-ID: <43bpp1$f77@kalypso.cybercom.net>
Message-ID: <nc0022DF6AIz.HA8@netcom.com>
Message-ID: <nc0022DEv8yu.820@netcom.com>
Message-ID: <43gjfv$i38@unlisys.unlisys.net>
#####
DA Packs
Tom Lasher added to the Dead Agent packs of Vaughn and Stacey Young this
week. He accused them of selling testimony in the FACTNet case. He
provided a document purporting to be their petition for bankruptcy.
"The following is a court document which explains why Robert Vaughn Young
has to distort the truth, try and smear the Church and pretend to be an
expert use all manner of subterfuge to support the criminals in FACT Net.
"The answer is simple: he is broke and must do so to continue to survive.
Young gets paid for supplying negative testimony and this is how he makes
a living (no matter how unsuccessful it may be).
Message-ID: <43g22d$605@mach3.directnet.com>
#####
Dissemination Course
William Barwell posted portions of the Hubbard Dissemination Course this
week. Some excerpts from the list of drills:
"Handling attacks. Handling attacks by staying in control.
The coach cuts into the conversation and says, 'Well isn't Scientology a
cult?' or some similar antagonistic question. The student is to
immediately look away at the other students with surprise, then look out
the window and say to one on the students sitting next to the coach, 'it's
nice weather we are having', or something similar. The Student just shifts
the conversation, ignores the coach and continues to talk in an
undisturbed manner about something else that the other persons may be
interested in.
"Handling attacks by being kind.
The student maintains a tone scale 2.0 tone and evades all questions. When
the coach gets down to apathy, the student invites him to church for a
free film and lecture.
"Discussing health and longevity.
Purpose: To teach a Scientologist how to disseminate Dianetics to somebody
even though they are fixated on bodies."
"Basic dissemination drill.
Purpose: To enable one to contact, handle, salvage and bring to
understanding another being. To prepare a Scientologist so that he won't
be caught 'flat-footed' when being attacked or question by another."
Message-ID: <43ics9$d8@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>