Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review Volume 0, Issue 30 11/18/95 by Rod Keller [rkeller@netaxs.com] copyright 1995
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
Kim Baker Follow-up
Several developments this week with Kim and her OSA-fed declaration. Arnie Lerma wrote that the declaration was not allowed to be entered in his case."Entry was struck down in Lerma case last Thursday [11/9], as was entry of 30 'legal experts opinions' (12' of fluff)."
Some questions have been raise as to the timing of Kim's declaration, various email messages sent by her, and her meetings with the OSA. Previously, it had been reported that Kim underwent 18 hours of interrogation. Joe Harrington clarified:
"She wrote that the day after she resigned from FACTNET, OSA showed up at her residence. She did not want to let them in the house, and instead went to a hotel with them. She spent about 9 hrs there the first day, and another 9 hrs the second day. She signed the statement they had prepared at about 3:30 am on the second day. Since she works at the library at the University of Capetown, I assumed she most likely worked on one or more of these two days that she was 'interviewed'.
"If she felt in anyway intimidated by the presence of these people, or if they used any threats of blackmail, duress or coercion is something I have no direct knowledge of. People are free to reach their own conclusions."
Ron Newman laid out a time line of events.
"She resigned from FACTNET on October 10th, according to both the statement she signed *and* a message she posted to a.r.s. with the following headers:
"Subject: NEWSFLASH: BOMB THREAT - THIS IS SERIOUS Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 07:26:21 GMT Message-ID: <m0t2Y8t-0008swC@uctmail.uct.ac.za> X-Broken-Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 07:33:10 SAST-2"This would mean that OSA visited her on Wednesday, October 11th. Is this correct, Joe? [the OSA meeting] would be early in the morning of Friday, October 13 (ouch), if I understand your time line correctly. Is this correct?"The statement she signed ends with 'Executed this 25th day of October 1995 at Cape Town, South Africa'. Are you telling us that she signed a statement that was dated 12 days later than the date she actually signed it?
"I'll point out once again that Kim circulated her 'Hubbard and Hitler' draft to Bob Penny, me, and a number of other people in a message dated Monday, October 16.
"Also, Kim sent me private e-mail dated 'Thu, 12 Oct 1995 11:08:37 SAST-2' in which she stated: 'I did something extreme(resigning) to protect FACTNet.'"
"The publication Neurology describes a woman's death due to cerebral hemorrhage clearly caused by ECT, yet the magazine pussyfoots around and states, 'It is controversial whether ECT causes structural brain damage.' Leon E. Weisberg, 'Intracerebral hemorrhage following electroconvulsive therapy,' Neurology, Nov 1991."
Diane Richardson, critic and medical librarian, posted an excerpt from the article.
"The article Cory Brennan is referring to was written by Leon A. Weisberg, Debra Elliott, and David Mielke. It is titled 'Intracerebral Hemorrhage Following Electroconvulsive Therapy.' It is a case history, appearing in the peer-reviewed journal 'Neurology,' volume 41, November 1991, p. 1849.
"Four days later [after receiving ECT], she awakened from sleep feeling 'strange,' and she had bitten her tongue. EEG showed left posterior hemisphere slow-wave activity without spike discharges. Anticonvulsant therapy was initiated with phenytoin for a presumed seizure, and no further seizures occurred. One week later, CT showed that the hemorrhage was resolving. MRI showed the hemorrhage with surrounding edema, but there was no evidence of neoplasm or arteriovenous malformation (figure B). Four months later, she had no more seizures and visual field examination showed improvement. Depression was markedly improved, and she had no cognitive or memory impairment. No further ECT had been performed. She now lives independently."
Until now "death" and "living independently" had been assumed to be mutually exclusive.
"I will continue to use dianetics.com for the next 90 days, during that time I will be offering mail service for a flat fee of $90.00 CANADIAN for the set-up of a E-Mail account and an aliases such as 'lron@dianetics.com' or 'brainwash@dianetics.com' this will be an actual valid return address for your E-Mail.
"The funds will go to pay the provider of the E-Mail service and to start a legal fund to fight the attempt to take this domain from me, if I win I will continue to provide the mail service to all Net users.
"My stand on this is, if RTC chooses not to negotiate a resolution to this dispute I would like to challenge the Trademark rights in court, I believe that the current Trademark laws do not effectively deal with the use of a name as a address on the Internet."
"Scientology's raid tactic denied FACTNet and its directors 'due process' under U.S. law and protection from unreasonable and over broad search and seizure. The scope of this seizure was far beyond locating alleged copyright infringements and extremely damaging to FACTNet and Lawrence Wollersheim and Bob Penny and Arnie Lerma as individuals. "The extent of the material Scientology was able to copy and review using its deception of the judge was far beyond the scope of the seizure order and has caused FACTNet far more harm than the alleged infractions Scientology sought to rectify. Scientology did not tell the judge FACTNet was a nonprofit library and preservational archive and we that had obtained and archived the Fishman documents legally. "The real purpose of the raid was not to protect copyrights. The real purpose of the raid was to: a) gather intelligence on approximately 600 million dollars in worldwide ongoing litigation against Scientology and pierce the 'attorney client' and 'work product' privileges associated with FACTNet's work and that litigation, b) gather intelligence on several government investigations on Scientology outside the U.S. that were using the FACTNet library and archive, c) gather intelligence to silence the approximately 8,500 Scientology ex-members and defectors in FACTNet's mailing list. Some of these individuals are defectors from Scientology's own intelligence division and have been helping us gather and verify reports of Scientology's ongoing abuses and illegal activities. d) bankrupt and destroy the FACTNet library and archive by keeping FACTNet off-line and it's equipment and documents tied up in litigation. e) gather intelligence on the approximately 300 reports we have accumulated over the last three years on suicides, attempted suicides and people becoming psychotic because of Scientology processes and tactics, particularly relating to the secret initiations contained in the copyrighted 'Fishman/Geertz documents.'"
Larry is also proceeding with plans to collect his judgment award from the cult.
"7 November 1995 Lawrence Wollersheim's collection attorneys filed their second motion today to place Scientology (CSC) into receivership for non payment of a 5+ million dollar judgment debt. This second motion will be heard by the same judge who heard and denied the first motion about a year ago and said that if they don't pay you through normal collection come back and see me on this motion again.
"The motion will be heard in LA November 30 th. Lawrence Wollersheim will asking the receiver to assist in the location and returning all Scientology assets that were stripped out of CSC."
"Scientology just [11/16] had its Appeal to overturn the accumulated 2+ million dollar interest in the Wollersheim verdict denied by the California Supreme court. Scientology's briefs were prepared by Kendrick Moxon. Furthermore because of the untimely manner of their brief filing the issue is dead and may not be appealed to the US Supreme court. This means that not only is the Wollersheim verdict final but the interest is also final."
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.91.951112014335.8350G-100000@server.nlbbs.com>
"I heard rumours yesterday, but today [11/15] the news was confirmed: Planet Internet, Holland's biggest commercial provider (half owned by Dutch Telecom) is a party in the upcoming lawsuit. OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL - not because they received a writ of summons.
"Yesterday, a representative of Planet Internet phoned our lawyer Bakker Schut to ask whether it was possible that they be added to the writ of summons. Of course Bakker Schut was most amazed on hearing this question - usually, people want to avoid a lawsuit and do not seek one voluntarily - but his conclusion was that it is indeed possible."
Karin also posted the subpoena, which included the RTC's understanding of the Internet.
"Every file on the World Wide Web has its own indication, the 'Uniform Resource Locator' (URL). This URL is a unique 'address' that makes it possible for others to open the file using special pc-software, the so-called 'World Wide Web browser'. Therefore, the URL shows what file is concerned and where it is located. The name and/or address of the user concerned is nevertheless usually not traceable.
"The defendant sub 5, hereafter to be called 'Spaink', uses the services of one of these providers. On her homepage, of which she (partially) defines the contents, she makes information available to others.
"Users (partially) define the contents of their homepages. Third parties who have access to the Internet can open the files and 'download' them. This means that the works mentioned above are being published and/or duplicated by the users, amongst whom is Spaink, thus infringing article 1 of the Copyright law of 1912.
"When the infringing documents are made available to others by a so-called 'hyperlink', e.g. a 'built-in' reference to another document (whether or not on a different system) that, when activated, causes the publication and/or duplication, this must also be regarded as publication and/or duplication by the user and the provider."
"I have just received a copy of the judge's decision in Church of Scientology, International vs. Time Warner, Inc., Time, Inc. Magazine Company, and Richard Behar. Time magazine asked for summary judgment...and got it (mostly.) This means that almost ALL of Scientology's case has been thrown out of court! The only issue remaining is whether or not the following statement, from Time magazine's May 6, 1991 cover story, is libelous: 'One source of funds for the Los Angeles-based church is the notorious, self-regulated stock exchange in Vancouver, British Columbia, often called the scam capital of the world.'
"Scientology will try to prove to a jury that this statement is libelous and was written with malice. All the other libel claims which Scientology had made against Time, for other things that were said in the same article, have been thrown out. The entire case has been reduced to these 29 words (27 if you count hyphenated words as one.)"