Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review Volume 0, Issue 46 03/15/96 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://www.amazing.com/scientology/ars-summary.html
http://users.aimnet.com/~jdiver/scieno.htm
http://www.thur.de/religio/publik/arsfaq.html
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/ars-summary.html
http://www.eecs.nwu.edu/~mallen/scn/arswr/ars-summary.html
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Note: This issue includes material for the past two weeks. There was no issue of A.r.s Week in Review last week for Basic Reasons.
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The planned protest against the cult at their Flag Land Base in Clearwater was accomplished on March 9th to considerable media attention. Despite Andrew Milne and Woody's descriptions of the even as a failure, one radio station, four TV stations and two newspapers provided advance coverage, footage of the picket itself, and some the subsequent press conference.
"Thursday, 7 March 1996: Radio show on WMNF. Jeff Jacobsen, Dennis Erlich (by phone), Jeff Lee spoke about Dennis' experiences and the reasons for the picket. When the host took calls, the person on the line was Brian Anderson, the DSA for the area. Notable occurrences: Anderson claimed that the 'The law may be used very easily to harass...' had never been a part of church policy, and when the host started questioning him about Dennis being locked in the basement of the Fort Harrison Hotel, he even claimed that there *was* no basement in the hotel."
Jeff Lee's comments in response to Andy and Woody spoke loudest for the protesters. Snips from his response to Andy:
"> After months of boasting about the big international demo they were > going to hold against the Church of Scientology, the 'demonstrations' > organized by the anti-Scientology ringleaders on this newsgroup turned > out to be another monumental flop.
"Hmmm... The Clearwater demonstration got coverage on all four network affiliates and in both major newspapers. OSA had to fly in at least a half a dozen of its top brass because the DSA Flag, Brian 'there is no basement in the Fort Harrison' Anderson, was apparently unable to handle a 'tiny number' of protesters.
And to Woody:
"> The one TV station which > reported on the picket on Friday night
"Why not mention that the demonstration was shown on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates on Saturday evening? Hmmm? Because, it doesn't fit with your intent to show that the picket was a failure.
"All four networks' affiliates ran news stories on the picket -- not to mention the radio stations and newspapers who had media there. You don't often see that much coverage on a picket of -- how many people did you say were there? Ten? Well, that was a lie, but it was a remarkable amount of media attention for such a small picket.
"> Jeff Lee was so paranoid of being recognized (as what?) that he shaved > his beard
"Are you actually attempting to dead-agent me with the fact that I *shaved*?!?! Bwahahahahaha! That is, without a doubt, the second most ludicrous thing I've ever heard in my life!
"> Fishman told his fish stories about his hallucinatory experiences in > the Church but did admit at one point that he had never really had any > auditing and had only read about it.
"The fact that Hubbard was a fugitive from justice for years before his death was a 'hallucinatory experience'? Asking about the whereabouts of Pat and Annie Broeker was a 'hallucinatory experience'? He didn't speak about any of his experiences in the cult -- unlike the _Freedom_ reporters at the press conference, he stuck to the issues relative to the protest."
Dennis Erlich was served with a Temporary Restraining Order, preventing him from coming within 50 yards of a cult owned property. This distance placed Dennis in the middle of the next block from the protest, still within visual range.
"The bogus TRO was requested by Mary Story, the lying b*tch who is the scieno's PR mouthpiece down in CW. She said she had known me since 1991. I have never met the skank.
"The filing contained about 3/4 of an inch of everything from pictures of CAN members (I am not one) to news clippings about deprogrammers. It included the last TRO they filed when I was going to go down to speak at the Baptist Church next to Flag, last year. It contained a bullsh*t affidavit from Robert Lippman about how I'd threatened his life (with hundreds of people around at the CAN conference in 1991, no one witnessed this non-event but Bob's still talking about it years later).
"Throughout the morning the sliemo-lawyer, Moxon and Lippman kept coming up to me, trying to provoke me into becoming violent with them. Finally one of the reporters asked Moxon on video why he was coming so close to me if I was dangerous enough to demand a restraining order. Moxon, with his patented, sh*t-eating smirk responded, 'You must be having a rough day.'"
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The main picket at Flag was joined by companion events around the world. Martin Poulter described the protest in London.
"At one o'clock on Saturday, twenty people picketed the Tottenham Court Road org in London without serious incident. This turned out to be the right number, as we had enough people to hand out leaflets, hold placards *and* video record the event. Roughly one thousand leaflets were handed out. For the record, the placards said: STOP THE HARASSMENT, SCIENTOLOGY, 'CULT OF GREED'- TIME Magazine, 1991. Judged NOT DEFAMATORY, INTIMIDATING OPPONENTS IN A 'MAFIA-LIKE MANNER'- TIME Mag, $380,000 FOR 'SPIRITUAL FREEDOM'? NO THANKS!, HANDS OFF FREE SPEECH, HANDS OFF THE INTERNET, SCIENTOLOGY HATES FREE SPEECH, WEALTH WARNING: SCIENTOLOGY IS A WEALTH HAZARD, SCIENTOLOGY PEDDLES MADNESS
"The Jive Aces, the scientologist jazz/blues band, were set up in front of the org with a PA system, an electronic piano, a double bass, a drum kit, a tenor sax and a trumpet. They were all wearing 'Say no to drugs' t-shirts and a 'No to Drugs' petition was on a table in front of the org for the public to sign.
"The loud music (you could hear the org well before you could see it) had the effect of making conversation with the public very difficult, but on the whole we coped. It also attracted a lot of *attention*. People came towards the org to see what the fuss was about, and of course the first thing they saw was our row of placards."
"Including myself, three people were there initially, with another guy showing up a bit later. We had the usually Scientologist tricks, like getting our pictures taken, cars being parked between us and the street, Scientologists handing out their own leaflets, etc.
"The demonstration was quiet and peaceful, and the Scientologists really seemed inclined to talk with us, although they *did* walk between our signs and the street."
"I had made two signs, one stating 'Scientology stop the harassment', the other a shortened version of the fair game policy. We were asked lots of questions and when the rest showed up, we had 4 people walking up and down the road and were followed by our personal handler. This made the picket look at least twice at large. Since they had a lot of additional people hang out around the front, including a group of children who had just returned from cleaning the park across the street our protest looked 3 times larger than it actually was. We were close to a traffic light and every time a bus stopped we would walk to the bus and let the people read the signs."
"One of their signs said, 'Grady Ward is a copyright terrorist.' Another said, 'Grady Ward can't keep a secret.' I heard some pedestrians say how the $cientologists' signs seemed like propaganda to them and that it made them feel uneasy and distrustful. I'm thinking, 'Great, exactly the kind of comments I like to hear.' Some ability to communicate those signs turned out to be.
"Eventually about half a dozen protesters showed up and we all stayed until about 2:30. About the same number of $cientologists came out and counter-demonstrated so it made the whole demonstration look twice as large. Grady Ward took pictures of the festivities and posted them on his web site at: http://www.humboldt1.com/~gw/index.html"
From Tony McClelland in Australia:
"I handed out 450 brochures and yet again I was surprised at the anti Scientology feeling displayed by those passing by. On one occasion I found it necessary to reprimand a lady for using excessively bad language while expressing her disdain for Scientology to one of the 10 Scientologists placed around me.
"The sign on my sandwich board read 'SCIENTOLOGY IS A SCAM'"
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The cult has lost the case against Netherlands Internet providers and Karin Spaink. They have been ordered to pay the defendant's attorney's fees. From the ruling:
"It is a fact that defendant sub 23 until a short time ago had a number of passages from above mentioned works on her Internet home page. Also it is a fact that defendant, when the plaintiffs - with pression by the defendants - had put their copyright claims on a better basis, has modified her home page drastically. That she still violates the copyright of any of the plaintiffs has not been made plausible. Insofar as she still has literal passages from protected works they are nothing more than quotations that, considering the context in which they are used, fall under the exempt ruling of art. 15A of the law on copyright. Plaintiffs submitted that with respect to the works OT II and OT III there is no case of lawful publication, but this is rejected. It is a fact that (important parts of) these works as part of the Fishman Affidavit where publicly available during a long time as part of a judicial procedure in the United States. There is no way to see why such a publication is not a publication in the sense of art 15A of the law on copyright. Whether art. 11 of the law on copyright is applicable and whether the Fishman Affidavit is part of a judicial ruling does not need an answer.
"With respect to defendants sub 1 up to and including 22 it is to be assumed that they do nothing more than to give place for publication and that, in principle, they have no influence on or even knowledge of what the person who has gotten access to Internet through them will supply. So there is in principle no reason to hold them responsible for wrongful - for instance violating copyrights of third parties - doings of users.
"The foregoing leads to the conclusion that the claims should be rejected. Plaintiffs will, as wrong party, be condemned to pay the costs of this suit.
"Ruled as such by Mr. A.H. van Delden and pronounced in the public seating of March 12, 1996, in presence of the recorder."
In the wake of this ruling, the Fishman materials are being restored on home pages throughout The Netherlands. Govert Jansen:
"Because the church of Scientology has lost their case in the Netherlands i have decided to put the original Fishman affidavit back online,without any changes made to it,and with the disputed OT 2 & 3 documents, at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gjansen
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Tilman Hausherr posted new prices for cult processing and courses, from January 1996 issue of The Auditor.
Student Hat $ 680 Method 1 co-audit course $ 680 Hubbard Key To Life course $ 5,200 Hubbard Life Orientation course $ 2,100 Hubbard New Professional TRs course $ 600 Hubbard Professional Upper Indoc TRs course $ 1,800 Solo Auditor Course Part One $ 2,400 PTS/SP course $ 800 OEC, per volume (there are seven !!) $ 3,120 Hubbard Elementary Data Series Evaluator's course $ 2,560 Saint Hill Special Briefing course SHSBC, individual level (there are 16 !!) $ 1,200 SHSBC (all level paid for at one time) $14,400 Case Cracking 12 1/2 hour intensive $ 3,760 New Era Dianetics 12 1/2 hour intensive $ 3,760 Expanded Dianetics 12 1/2 hours intensive $ 5,600 Clear Certainty Rundown 5 hour intensive $ 1,880 Sunshine Rundown free with CCRD Power (Grade 5) & Power Plus (Grade VA) 25 hour intensive $10,000 OT preparations 12 1/2 intensive $ 3,760 OT Eligibility 12 1/2 intensive $ 3,760 The Expansion of Havingness Lectures $ 240
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Grady Ward received a letter dated March 11th this week from cult attorney Helena Kobrin.
"I am writing to put you formally on notice that the contents of the NOTs pack is copyrighted, confidential, unpublished materials, owned by my client, Religious Technology Center, which constitute trade secrets under the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), as ruled in Bridge Publications, Inc. v. Vien, 827 F.Supp. 629, 633 (S.D.Cal. 1993). That pack has only left the premises of an advanced Church of Scientology through theft. All copies of that pack have been ordered impounded by courts in the United States and Europe. Therefore, any copies which still exist in unauthorized hands are the fruit of that theft and have been made and distributed in violation of court orders. "You are mistaken in your apparent notion that not having signed a confidentiality agreement insulates you from liability for trade secret misappropriation. Under the UTSA and case law interpreting that Act, misappropriation includes acquiring a trade secret of another with knowledge of the confidential and misappropriated status of the trade secret, or from or through a person having a duty to the owner of the trade secret. It also includes innocent acquisition--which yours could not possibly be- -if notice is received afterwards. You have clearly been on notice both before and after any such acquisition of these materials."
Grady replied:
"I presume my anonymous correspondents obtain their documents legally. Relying upon advice form a *proven* liar like yourself would be not prudent, eh?"
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Andrew McPherson reported this week that a new policy has been implemented to give the ubiquitous Student Hat course to each student twice.
"Co$ supposedly is currently promoting to have found why people have difficulties applying what they learn in $cientology. (Co$ would not admit that you cannot 'apply' successfully that which makes no sense in the first place.)
"The 'new' Student Hat course checksheet now has to be gone through TWICE instead of only once. The reasoning goes this way: The only course you do in $cientology without having the student hat course under your belt is - the student hat of course. So you study it one time. Now you have the study tech. And now you study it again, this time WITH the study tech."
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Gabor Dvornik, a Hungarian BBS operator, has placed the Fishman materials on his system.
"I loaded on my BBS the Fishman case, and after 2 weeks, the CO$ phoned me that I have no right making it so. As far as I am concerned, CO$ cannot prove the original OT materials, nowhere, so I believe, they are acting incorrectly. [A]re they right, to ask me to move the materials, or can I keep it for the public? Also, as I read the OT materials, they are so wild, that normal people can think, it's a sci-fi joke.
"If CO$ takes me to court, then it will be a precedent in Hungarian lawmaking, not only because of CO$, but the free information-exchange on IN."
"[A] lawyer-friend of mine told me, that by the means of Hungarian law, you can freely open to public materials, which are: -- Court documents, official notes, affidavits, complete materials, IF: the juridical session in itself was opened for public. As I know, the Fishman case was NOT a closed-for-public matter, so I believe, I did not hurt the law -- here, in Budapest.
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An update was posted on cases involving Bonnie and Richard Woods and Ron Lawley.
"The Master of the Rolls has ordered that there be a separate hearing to determine whether Scott or Lawley have 'locus standi' as they are both now bankrupt. This means that Scott and Lawley will have to first win this hearing which will determine whether they as bankrupts can fight the Appeal for the NOTs documents. If they then win this hearing they will be able to go on to the Appeal hearing and if they win that then they will be given the NOTs documents.
"Still no hearing dates have been set but we are hoping that it should be over in a couple of months.
"In the Bonnie Woods -v- C of S case, this is a libel action brought by Bonnie Woods and a counterclaim brought by the C of S. This case has been going since 1993 and it is expected to come to trial sometime this year hopefully around June or July. Bonnie and Richard Woods are fighting this case themselves without solicitors."
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Dick Cleek reported the demise of yet another Netcom cancelpoodle account.
"The Church's latest criminal canceler, matman@netcom.com has been suspended, so says Margaret at netcom. Another $50 of taxpayer financed money down the tubes."
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David Gerard posted a press release announcing the removal of a radio show critical of the cult of Scientology.
"The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has brought down its first ruling of religious vilification against an Australian radio station. Melbourne's Radio 3RRR-FM has been found in breach of the act after a September 3, 1995, program of The Liars' Club on the Church of Scientology.
"The Liars' Club has subsequently been banned from the station by Triple R management. Management denies this is due to the ruling.
"The ABA found the presenters were in breach of the act by agreeing with a critic of the church in regard to human rights abuse and exploitation of the church's members.
"In four years The Liars' Club has rarely mentioned the group, but when it did, complaints flooded into the station. The amount and intensity of the complaints have always been out of all proportion to the amount of attention paid by the program to Scientology. Scientologists have been given right of reply on the show many times. The church at one point sent a delegation to the station demanding action against the program."
"[G]ot a call back from 3-CR (a public radio station here). They want to do a ten-minute chat with me about the Scientology vs. Internet thing and Adam Joseph's 'The Liar's Club' being taken off air. I'll tape it, but you should too if y'r in Melbourne."
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Tom Klemesrud posted a snippet of a ruling by Judge Whyte in the case against Dennis Erlich, Tom and Netcom.
"1) No impoundment: I don't know if this impoundment was Dennis's private property, or the impoundment of Netcom On-line Services Inc. and the Support.COM BBS. I do remember something long ago that would have shut down the largest Internet ISP in the USA, and one of the smallest BBS's.
"2) No reconsideration: A week or two ago, Attorney Thomas Hogan claimed to have found new case law in a 9th Circuit Court 1996 ruling in a swap meet case; and claimed that 'direct financial benefit' does not have to be had in order for a finding of vicarious liability. My understand of the argument is that every ISP and BBS is naturally vicariously liable for everything on the Internet. This motion was ruled against in a relative flash. But, of course, it cost the defendants a lot of money."
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Capricorn, the anonymous poster sought by the cult in its raids in Colorado, posted again to a.r.s this week. Some excerpts:
"My handle appeared on the 'hit list' used to search Wollersheim's hard drive. (I too was a bit taken aback by the compliment the OSA Gestapo paid me by trying to find me, since I had never made one quote from any copyrighted material. But they are driven by fear, not by logic.) The problem I face at present is how to prove that I am the original. I don't know if that will be possible.
"I originally predicted a RICO suit. That prediction was quite proper, based on information at that time, but matters have changed severely for OSA. The raids were attempts to intimidate and to gather information, in part for the RICO suit. What was not anticipated was the rulings of the judges. I don't mean Judge Brinkema's summary judgment but the rest. Scientology was being chewed up in those cases so severely that they were being threatened (and still are) with losing not only all trademarks but the copyrights to the 'upper level' material. In other words, the blaze that Scientology had started had shifted and was coming back at them. Between that and other legal problems, the recommendation was to park the RICO suit. "Here's more interesting news: Some highly informed sources say the IRS is looking at the relevance of that Wollersheim SLAPP suit ruling to Scientology's tax-exempt status. If the court is correct, that Scientology has abused the courts and harassed critics through litigation, etc., then this is an abuse of tax-exemption. For them to pursue further litigation, they threaten their 501(c)3.
"To end on a more entertaining note, the failure of John Travolta and Nicole Kiddman to get at least one Oscar nomination between them has sent a frightening shock through the Scientology ranks and a delightful ripple through Hollywood. JT is trying to take it in stride but Kiddman is less diplomatic. She pissed at JT and at some of the 'handling' she got to make her 'feel more causative.' Hubby Tom was briefed on how to deal with her and the situation but Nicole tends to be her own person and her feathers are NOT smoothed."
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An anonymous 1992 statement was posted this week, describing the absolute control of David Miscavige over the cult of Scientology, and his direction of dirty tricks campaigns against its enemies.
"David Miscavige conceived, planned and ordered the implementation of the basic strategic and tactical actions of the church against those whom he considered to be causing legal or public relations conflicts against any church or against his personal and absolute control of Scientology. He also ordered the allocation of and made available funding for the financing of these actions, which included the declaring of those whom he considered to be his 'enemies' as Suppressive Persons, the implementation of the policies known as 'Fair Game' against these persons once so declared, the infiltration of private and governmental environments which he deemed hostile to his absolute control over Scientology, the organization of vigilante groups within the organizations of Scientology to be used against those individuals whom he deemed to be his enemies.
"That following Miscaviges' orders, I transferred monies to Spain, and witnessed briefings by Miscavige to Heber Jentzsch, who was in fact the 'puppet' president of the church, but who actually is a camouflage for Miscavige, concerning covert operations taking place in Spain against former Scientologists and concerning false testimony and concerning the attempt to offset a rumored investigation by the Spanish authorities into the activities of Scientology in Spain, the very investigation which resulted in the surprise arrest of Jentzsch himself in November of 1988.
"That the policies known as 'Fair Game' are, as described in the writings
of L. Ron Hubbard, ethics policies, and other organizational policies are
in fact continued as originally written by Hubbard, and that it is the
purpose of the RTC to see that all of his policies are followed exactly as
intended. It was common knowledge that the 'Cancellation of Fair Game'
referred only to the use of the term, since it had obtained bad public
relations for Scientology, and that the same tactics and actions which
referred to those so-called Suppressive Persons were and are continued in
effect."
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