Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review Volume 0, Issue 48 04/07/96 by Rod Keller [rkeller@voicenet.com] copyright 1996
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@voicenet.com
It is archived at:
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/ars-summary.html
http://www.eecs.nwu.edu/~mallen/scn/arswr/ars-summary.html
http://www.amazing.com/scientology/ars-summary.html
http://users.aimnet.com/~jdiver/scieno.htm
http://www.thur.de/religio/publik/arsfaq.html
"The Court, after reviewing the filings by the parties and hearing the statements of counsel, hereby ORDERS:
"The Courts November 27, 1995 Order directing the return of Mr. Lerma's computer materials remains in effect. Mr. Lerma's computer materials shall be returned by Kaman Sciences Corporation to Mr. Lerma's Counsel so that Mr. Lerma can use documents other than the copyrighted works at issue in this case for completion of his taxes and other business unrelated to this action. Until further order of the the Court, the materials shall remain in the custody of Mr. Lerma's counsel. Mr. Lerma shall not use any of the alleged copyright infringements in this case, including specifically Exhibits 1 through 33."
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Grady Ward had a preliminary hearing this week. Grady is accused by the cult of being the author of the Scamizdat series of anonymous posts containing confidential processing levels. Shelley Thomson reported the proceedings in her Biased Journalism newsletter.
"Thomas R. Hogan undertook to speak for the plaintiffs. Grady Ward presented himself pro se. He wore a tweed sport jacket and a red tie, the type of thing a country businessman might wear; this contrasted sharply with the smoothly tailored RTC lawyers, who seemed to have bought their gear at Spare No Expense, Inc.
"Judge Whyte asks if he has any connection to SCAMIZDAT. Grady Ward firmly denies that he is behind SCAMIZDAT. 'Do you know who is doing it?' the Judge asks. 'No, I do not,' Grady replies.
"A discussion of the TRO ensues. Grady does not mind being enjoined from doing things he had not planned to do anyway, but he is unsure of the scope of the proposed order.
"Judge Whyte states that he wants to enter a Preliminary Injunction, enjoining Grady Ward and anyone acting in concert with him from the publication of the Exhibit C documents listed in the Order on the net. The RTC (Whyte says) can take Ward's deposition at a mutually convenient time within ten days, for a time not to exceed, say, four hours. 'But if you want counsel before I make it a final decree, or want to file something further, let me know.' 'That sounds eminently fair, Your Honor,' Ward replies.
"Grady continues. Church attorney Helena K. Kobrin has been threatening people on the net. She has been using your order [he tells the Judge] to intimidate. 'That's typical,' Judge Whyte says calmly.
"She should not be able to intimidate other people, Grady states. 'The Order doesn't apply to persons not acting in concert with Grady Ward,' the Judge says firmly. Grady won't give it up. 'Fear of litigation has infringed free speech on the net.' Judge Whyte: 'I will see that is taken care of.'
"Hogan has a request. With reference to the proposed order on discovery, six hours is not enough. He wants Grady to submit records and documents in advance. Grady Ward responds that this 'may be the prelude to a very abusive discovery process. I deny possessing any SCAMIZDAT material.'
"The judge limits the deposition to one day. He informs Ward that the Plaintiffs can ask him to bring specified records to the deposition. Then if [during the deposition] you feel it is abusive, say 'I think this is abusive' and stop it. Call the magistrate, whose number I will give you [and ask for a protective order]."
Grady subsequently received a list of things to be produced at his deposition. It appears more like a list of things to be acquired in a raid than a list for disclosure. Grady's response to the list was not posted, but is available on the web. Selected items are listed below.
"DOCUMENTS AND THINGS TO BE PRODUCED
"1. All copies of the OT III documents which were posted to the Internet in or about February, 1995 under the header attached hereto as Exhibit 1. NO DOCUMENTS POSSESSED
"2. All copies of NED for OTs Series 1 which was posted to the Internet in or about February, 1995 under the header attached hereto as Exhibit 2. NO DOCUMENTS POSSESSED
"3. Any and all documents relating to posting, reproduction, distribution, or display of works of L. Ron Hubbard, including but not limited to, the Works. NO DOCUMENTS POSSESSED
"9. Any and all documents relating to postings made by you, whether under you own name, a pseudonym, or anonymously to the USENET newsgroups entitled alt.religion.scientology, alt.2600, alt.activism, comp.org.eff.talk, or any other newsgroup relating to the Advanced Technology. NO DOCUMENTS POSSESSED
"11. Any and all documents relating to postings of Advanced Technology
materials, including, but not limited to, actual postings or discussions
of such postings, whether actual or planned, made through the following
servers:
a. freezone.remailer
b. nately.ucsd.edu
c. penet.fi
d. replay.comm
e. utopia.backtic.nl
NO DOCUMENTS POSSESSED
"13. Any and all documents relating to communications with the following
individuals relating to the Advanced Technology:
a. Alex DeJoode
b. Dennis Erlich
c. Steven Fishman
d. Johan Helsingius
e. Jeff Jacobsen
f. Keith Henson
g. Tom Klemesrud
h. Arnaldo Lerma
i. Peter Mante
j. Ron Neuman
k. Robert Penny
l. Felipe Rodriquez
m. Karin Spaink
n. Shelly Thomson
o. David Touretzky
p. Lawrence Wollersheim
OBJECT BECAUSE OF 18 U.S.C. 2700, et sqq. (E.C.P.A.)
"17. Any and all documents relating to the licensing or customer agreement between you and any Internet access provider. OBJECT BECAUSE OF NON-RELEVANCE; any event it would be identical to the customer agreement currently in force as on file with the provider.
"27. All documents relating to your attempts to discredit Helena Kobrin as an attorney acting on behalf of Religious Technology Center in protecting its intellectual property rights. OBJECT BECAUSE OF INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF QUESTION and, without prejudice to the first objection, OBJECT BECAUSE OF NON-RELEVANCE
"28. All documents relating to telephone records from July 1, 1994 to the present. OBJECT BECAUSE OF NON-RELEVANCE
"29. All documents concerning the use by you, or anyone acting directly or indirectly under your control or in concert or participation with you, of storage facilities away from your primary residence. NO DOCUMENTS POSSESSED
"32. All documents relating to software programs which you use regarding any of the following: anonymous remailers, USENET news, Internet access, scanning of documents onto computer media, uploading or downloading of documents onto computer media, encryption of computer transmission or files, lexicons, Scientology materials, or copyrights. COMPUTER MANUALS, BOTH ELECTRONIC AND PAPER WILL BE PROVIDED ON FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 1996 FOR INSPECTION, AS PER APRIL 3, 1996 HOGAN CONVERSATION
"34. All shredders. TO BE PROVIDED FOR INSPECTION; WILL BE PROVIDED ON FRIDAY APRIL 5, 1996 FOR INSPECTION, AS PER APRIL 3, 1996 HOGAN CONVERSATION
"35. All scanning equipment. TO BE PROVIDED FOR INSPECTION; WILL BE PROVIDED ON FRIDAY APRIL 5, 1996 FOR INSPECTION, AS PER APRIL 3, 1996 HOGAN CONVERSATION
"36. All locks which you place on any cabinet or other container in which you have placed Scientology materials. NONE SATISFY REQUEST
"37. All documents relating to procedures for shredding documents, either hard copy or in electronic form. EXCEPT FOR USER'S MANUAL, NO DOCUMENTS POSSESSED"
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H. Keith Henson wrote a letter to Judge Ronald White expressing concern that the Temporary Restraining Order he issued against Grady Ward could be applied to people across the Internet.
"In the company of perhaps 100,000 other people (the readers of the Usenet newsgroups alt.religion.scientology, alt.activism, alt.2600, comp.org.eff.talk, and misc.legal), I read the TRO against Mr. Grady Ward and 'all persons in active concert.' Was it your intent for this order to apply to random persons on the Internet such as myself? If so, I believe the TRO is a violation of my First Amendment rights to discuss the criminal activities of the cult of Scientology.
"Upon reading the TRO you approved, I sorted the list of documents attached and ran a text search on the news spool on one of my accounts to see if any of these documents were there. Assuming this is real, I can see why the 'Church' of Scientology is trying to suppress this material. If carried out, the instructions in this particular bulletin amount to *criminal* acts, to wit, the practice of medicine without a license. I reproduce this widely available document in its entirety for your edification."
Keith then quoted the entire NED for OTs Series 34 document.
"Please note that point 4 states that this process of 'blowing BTs' cures illness. The phrases 'cease to read' and 'no longer read' refer to 'auditing' with an E-meter. The 'Church' of Scientology is under Court orders stemming from FDA actions in the early 1970s against making such claims involving the use of E-meters. This bulletin (assuming it is real) is written evidence of the level of contempt the 'Church' of Scientology has for the Courts.
"Forbidding discussion of this particular document, including quoting it entirely, is clearly against the public interest as well as a violation of my First Amendment rights. Unless, of course, copyright law can be used to prevent disclosure of instructions for criminal activity."
The post of this article to a.r.s has been canceled twice by the cult. Keith wrote a second letter to Judge White this week, expressing concern that the request for email in the cult's deposition list to Grady Ward may be illegal.
"I have written a *great deal* about Scientology and the 'AT' materials in the past 14 months. Most of it has been public postings, but some has been private email--some of that to Scientologists. At times I have quoted parts of this in very private mail to others critics such as Mr. Ward. It would do a great deal of damage to my reputation if this material were to fall into the hands of the RTC, and cause pain to or possibly even endanger some of my Scientologist correspondents-- since they are largely forbidden to communicate with outsiders.
"Now, having settled an Electronic Communications Privacy Act suit with Riverside County for a substantial sum of money, and having followed the Steve Jackson vs The United States Secret Service case, I know that lawful access to stored electronic communications requires a court order or warrant. (See section 2700-2707 of Title 18 USC.) As a matter of fact, there are 100-200 individuals who may have cause to sue RTC and its law firms under section 2707 due to the unauthorized access to electronic mail.
"I believe that RTC should be required to show cause as to why they should have an order to violate the privacy of the stored electronic communications of each of these people. Since these people are publicly identified, it would seem appropriate for them to be permitted to argue in your court, perhaps by mail, against the exposure of their private stored electronic communications (if any)."
Keith has apparently made himself the target of a separate suit for posting the NOTS materials.
"Apparently the Criminal Cult, in trying to hide their crimes, have now sued H. Keith Henson. Keith was asking for NOTS that related to criminal activity of the Cult, particularly the NOTS that deal with curing physical ailments through auditing, something that the FDA jumped them for back in the '70's, I believe."
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Karin Spaink, recent victor in court in The Netherlands when the legality of her Fishman Affidavit web page was upheld, also posted a letter to Judge White. She is protesting the inclusion of her email in the Grady Ward deposition list.
"I am a Dutch citizen, a writer, and I am currently being sued by Scientology (in their personae of RTC, CST and New Era Publications) for alleged copyright infringements. I fail to understand why my name is on the list plaintiffs have presented Mr. Ward with. Mr. Ward and I do not know each other, and to the best of my knowledge the first e-mail I ever addressed to him was sent on March 24, 1996, upon hearing that your court had issued a TRO against him at Scientology's request. I mailed him some advice and later offered him the use of my personal archive of alt.religion.scientology postings, should he need it.
"Under Dutch Law, Grady Ward would not even be allowed to produce any e-mail communications we might have had. The Privacy law in this country only allows him to do so when a court order has been issued. It is my understanding that US law has an Electronic Communications Privacy Act (section 2700-2707 of Title 18 USC), which also states that lawful access to stored electronic communications requires a warrant or a court order.
"I cannot understand why Scientology would expect to find any communication between Mr. Ward and me - if it had existed - to be of any relevance to the pertaining case. I can only assume that Scientology either considers all critics to be linked in some kind of global conspiracy, and thus expects us to be scheming deviously, or - worse - that Scientology is hoping to use the mere fact that my name will be mentioned in your court as a means to thwart legal proceedings here and put me at a disadvantage in their upcoming appeal - for instance, by suggesting that _I_ am a part of Scamizdat or was at some time suspected to be connected with it, or with any other copyright infringing person or group. I must therefore protest to being in any way included in this 'Notice of Deposition'."
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The Cancelpoodle account used to cancel Keith Henson's posts has been disabled, as usual. The account was carlo@netcom.com (Harvey Robertson). Ron Newman posted a summary of this cancel attack.
"As usual, Margaret at Netcom informs me that this account has been suspended for forged cancels.
"This time around, it looks like the Bunny got these 6 postings:
- SCAMIZDAT 6 (gzipped, uuencoded)
- SCAMIZDAT 9 (gzipped, uuencoded)
- SCAMIZDAT 11 (gzipped, uuencoded)
- NOTs 34
- Two postings by Keith Henson of a letter to Judge Whyte, which included
the full text of NOTs 34"
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Steve Fishman posted a series of articles this week, describing his experiences in the cult, and after leaving. On his time spent in a psychiatric hospital:
"From February 13, 1989 to March 20, 1989, I was institutionalized on suicide watch at the Hollywood Pavilion Psychiatric Facility, in Hollywood, Florida. Why did I get put in the Hollywood Pavilion? It was a Court Order by Magistrate Lurana Snow.
"Previously, I had been ordered to do an 'End of Cycle' or suicide by Carol Martiniano of the Office of Special Affairs in September, 1988, and the first I heard about my EOC order was from two terminals at the Miami Org: Flag Banking Officer Leona Littler Grimm and Ethics Officer Frank Thompson.
"Leona told me: 'Take a short term loss on your current lifetime in order to get a long term gain on your immortality as a thetan.' Frank Thompson repeated it.
"In January,1989, Jan Logan, the Senior Sea Org Recruiter at the Flag Land Base promised me that if I carried out the EOC order, I would be GUARANTEED a set of Class XII Sea Org parents in my next lifetime, who would boost me up the bridge to Class XII 'like a rocket.'"
On the "LRH Withholds" documents he stole from church critics:
"Unfortunately I do not know the contents of the overt and withhold write-ups of Hubbard, other than what I was told by Fred Hare, who organized the rescue and retrieve mission, which it was euphemistically called. Hubbard wrote up these O/W's before he published Dianetics. They were from 1946-1948. I don't know the contents, because they were in a brown manila envelope full of dust from an air-conditioning duct. I had ten minutes when I was sitting in the car with the envelope and I could have opened it, and I was indeed curious, but I was too afraid that the others would catch me looking at it and I would be punished.'
"The envelope was thick, containing (my best estimate) of between 30-35 pages of documents. I felt the thickness of the envelope. I did NOT open it or read the contents. I was too intimidated by the idea of being caught doing so by a senior officer.
"Attached to the K/R written up by my senior (whose name I don't want to mention for legal reasons) were the two pages of O/W write ups dealing with McClellan. At the time I knew nothing about the OT Levels and so the data about 'germs' seemed relatively unimportant, harmless and inoccuous, other than the fact that I recall being extremely impressed by LRH's ability to handle the schizophrenic man at the time, and I never forgot the story or Oren McClellan's name.
"I always wondered what the other 28-33 pages contained, since I firmly believe that I was shown the LEAST SENSITIVE of the Hubbard writings, which Fred Hare had later explained orally to me in order to end off on the incident and put it to rest.
"It seemed that the other pages could have contained materials that my seniors in the G.O. did not want me to see or know about, and that possibly they had to do with Hubbard's medical claim that he was blind from World War II or his psychological claim that he had been suffering from mental illness. It would be interesting to research this and to find out how long Hubbard collected these disability benefits, and what percentage he was considered disabled by the U. S. Government."
On one time anti-cult attorney Michael Flynn:
"When attorney Michael Flynn settled with Scientology, he received five million dollars. His clients received very little. The one who got the most was Gerry Armstrong, who was awarded $ 800,000 in the settlement.
"Most of his other clients, including reporter Paulette Cooper, received negligible amounts, some like Lavenda Van Schaick, received absolutely nothing. On top of everything else, Michael Flynn agreed (in the settlement agreement) not to take any new Scientology cases.
"At the very least, the disparity between what the ATTORNEY got out of it and what the CLIENTS received was unethical. At best, it is grounds for bringing a disbarment complaint to the Massachusetts Bar Association against Flynn. Any former client of Flynn's, including Lavenda, would have a right to make such a bar complaint before the Massachusetts Bar Association."
On operations against Psychiatrists:
"Quite often we had new raw meat wogs who were being treated by psychiatrists or psychologists. They were too new in Scientology to demand that they disconnect from the psych, or there was family pressure to keep the preclear in the psych's care.
"First thing I had to do was get a checklist from the Body Registrar or
the Ethics Officer containing the following points:
1. Name and address of the psych
2. Name of the insurance company paying mental health benefits
3. Policy limits, deductibles, psych diagnosis and procedure codes.
4. Days of the week and frequency of psych visits by the preclear.
"Next I obtained an insurance claim form from the DG (Deputy Guardian) of the Miami Org where I was on post, and filled out the form, for two extra psych visits per week. We had people in addresso who were able to sign the forms 'like a psych', (whatever that meant). In other words, they forged the psych's name. However, the money was ALWAYS made payable to the psych.
"The psych received the check in 3-4 weeks, and they ALWAYS cashed the check. Two weeks later, a G.O. Field Agent paid a personal visit to the psych at his office or home and warned him that if he did not release our preclear from treatment, he would be turned in to the Florida Insurance Commissioner for fraud.
"It ALWAYS worked. The psych 'released' his patient from his care, and he was permanently off our preclear's lines."
On operations in Spain:
"I was on a COVERT OPERATION for OSA, having brought forged and backdated corporate resolutions for the TAIM Charity to Narconon Iberia. [T]he original corporate resolutions had been all signed by Narconon Iberia staff members, including the Director of Special Affairs for Narconon Iberia, Enrique Ayasa.
"TAIM was supposed to be an Independent Study which was supposed to IMPARTIALLY evaluate the success or failure of Narconon in Spain. When the Spanish government was questioning TAIM's autonomy, there was a mad rush to take the names of the Narconon staffers from the TAIM charter, and that is why they sent me to Spain, to deliver the original documents which had been phonied up and backdated.
"This fraud upon the Spanish government was one of the many reasons why Cult of Scientology President Heber Jentzsch was indicted in Spain and languished for a while in a Spanish prison, where he remains out on bond to this very day."
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Paulette Cooper corrected Steve Fishman on one of the points mentioned above.
"No Steve, your information was wrong that I was one of Flynn's clients in the final settlement.
"Long before there was that global settlement, I realized that Flynn was the only one who was going to get any real money out of his cases, and that his clients would all end up with some pittance after he took most of it and divided the rest up among all those people. So happily I dumped him and jumped ship years earlier, hiring my own individual lawyer to effect a settlement."
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Keep Scientology Working Network
An anonymous person this week posted the partially recovered contents of a floppy disk he found in Tampa.
"important symbolic step towards Clearing the Planet, the Church of Scientology announced today it has obtained regulatory approval for a new satellite television network. Transmission is expected to begin in the the third quarter of 1996.
"The new satellite service, tentatively called KSWN (for 'Keeping Scientology Working Network'), will broadcast Scientology and Dianetics news and technical programming 24 hours a day on two transponder channels.
"The second, scrambled, channel will consist of Scientology and Dianetics course material and training films, many of them produced by the late L.Ron Hubbard himself. Programming on the scrambled channel will be available to subscribers on a pay-per-view basis.
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According to an April 2nd Dow Jones report this week, Time Warner has sued TIG Insurance over legal fees in the Time Magazine/Scientology defamation suit.
"The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, concerns more than $7.3 million in legal fees and other costs Time Warner says its Time Inc. unit has incurred in contesting two suits against Time magazine.
"The suits arose over a 1991 cover story critical of the Church of Scientology. Time Warner says TIG, the company's liability insurer, should reimburse it for the legal fees minus a $3-million deductible, but that it refuses to do so.
"According to the suit, Time Warner says TIG claims that the two Scientology suits may mean there should be two deductibles, and that the deductible should be $5 million, not $3 million. Time Warner says the $5-million figure is outdated and has been superseded.
"The suits over the Scientology article, one of which was brought by the church itself, are still pending, and Time Warner argues that it will continue to incur legal expenses that should also be reimbursed by TIG."
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