Volume 0, Issue 20 vom 3. 9. 1995

Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review
Volume 0, Issue 20
09/03/95
by Rod Keller [rkeller@netaxs.com]
copyright 1995

Contents

  1. Raid Publicity
  2. TRO Rejected
  3. The Words
  4. Libel Fine Paid
  5. Poodle Threats
  6. Pacific Bell
  7. Kindergarden Clams
  8. FACTNet archives
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://amazing.cinenet.net/scientology.html
        http://users.aimnet.com/~jdiver
        http://www.thur.de/religio/publik/arsfaq.html
        http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/ars-summary.html

#####

Raid Publicity

The raids on FACTNet's founders and Arnie Lerma received considerable publicity this week. Biased Journalism reported that ABC aired a segment on the raids. "A brief explanation was followed by four sound bites. The first was Arnie Lerma; there were brief scenes of the search of his home and the removal of disks and files. Lerma looked directly into the camera; "They took my computer, my mouse, my records..." he said, his brown eyes filled with the innocent reproachfulness of a wounded deer. (Fortiori was still thinking about this when the next sound bite started.) Larry Wollersheim expressed indignation about his raid, which was sympathetically described by ABC. Then the raiders had their say, starting with spokes- woman Leisa Goodman. Goodman was tense and unfriendly. She defended the raids as acts to protect the copyrights of the church of scientology. The final sound bite belonged to senior scientology lawyer Earle Cooley. Cooley seemed defensive and ill at ease. His bite was a sentence to the effect that this is not an issue of freedom of speech, but of the protection of copyrighted material. Cooley's body language said Not Happy To Be Here. It was as if he had been caught doing something *really evil,* Fortiori commented." A transcript of a report done by KUSA 9 News in Denver was also posted. "Adelle Arakawa (9 News anchor): Top officials from the Church of Scientology are in Denver tonight. They spent more than 2 hours with Ward Lucas, of our I-Team, answering questions about last weeks controversial raids in Boulder County. The homes of two former members of the church were searched by Federal Marshals and Scientology members. They were apparently looking for secret scriptures which they claim were stolen from the church but they also seized thousands of documents, letters and computer files which have nothing to do with copyrighted secret scriptures. "Scientology is controversial in part because of a history of criminal acts by Scientology officials. Eleven people, including LRH's wife, were sent to prison for wire-tapping and burglary. Reverend Jentzsch, himself, is still under indictment for fraud in Spain but he says the church is changing and no longer commits crimes in the name of religion." KGNU, an FM radio station in Denver aired a show on the raids, and the complete recording is available by ftp. "ftp://eris.uchsc.edu/pub/scientology/kgnu.au "Be Warned!!!! This file is 23 MB in length. And there are some minor errors in the tape, and in my digitization, but the text is mostly complete. The only thing that is cut off is a prerecorded interview with a clam spokesshell." Message-ID: <sthomsonDE5LBp.K1p@netcom.com> <420vdg$ipj@ixnews4.ix.netcom.com> <Pine.LNX.3.91.950901161708.1680A-100000@eris.uchsc.edu> #####

TRO Rejected

A decision by Judge Brinkema rejecting the cos request for a Temporary Restraining Order against the Washington Post. The ruling indicates that he is likely to rule in favor of the Post. "Having performed the analysis required under Blackwelder, this Court concluded that Plaintiff's motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and a Preliminary Injunction; for Impoundment of Infringing Articles; and for expedited Discovery against the Post Defendants must be denied. The balance of harms is heavily tilted towards Defendants, and the Plaintiff's likelihood of success on the merits is insufficient to right the scale. Finally the public interest and constitutional presumption against prior restraint weigh heavily against the Plaintiff. For these reasons, Plaintiff's motion is denied." Message-ID: <sthomsonDE5LBp.K1p@netcom.com> #####

The Words

The list of words that the cos computer experts are searching on Arnie and Larry's hard disks was released this week. The list is being used to identify files that potentially violate their copyrights. I'd be curious to see them defend the list in court. It contains the names of a.r.s posters, lawyers in various cases, and a number of unrelated SPs and enemies. Scamizdat, Unixer, Nobody@replay.com, Fishman, Lerma, Leiby, Erlich, Klemesrud, Vega, Atack, Kim Baker, Berry, Leipold, Young, Ward, Armstrong, Jacobson [sic], Greene, Whitfield, Behar Kisser, Can/Cult Awareness Network, Lawley, Rogue Agent, Capricorn, Ray Russ/Pruss, Damon Chetson, Coates, Abrahms, Caberta, Carto, Cochran, Swearinger, O'Reilly, Thetans, OT, Hubbard Message-ID: <gradyDE3I71.6yC@netcom.com> #####

Libel Fine Paid

Judge Hill this week collected his libel award from the cos. "The Toronto media is mostly abuzz with the verdict in the Paul Bernardo case, but there is a small blurb in the Toronto Star today (9/2/95) about the Scientology case. "Scientologists pay giant libel debt on time By Wendy Darroch "The Church of Scientology handed over almost $3 million yesterday, before the noon deadline, to pay off the largest libel award in Canadian history. "The total award, including damages, interest and costs, was $2,953,624." Message-ID: <42a2h6$1so5_001@dialup.cloud9.net> #####

Poodle Threats

The new Cancelpoodle, Rick Davis, apparently doesn't want anybody investigating his cancels of material the cos doesn't want anybody to see. This threatening message was posted this week from email. "Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 12:30:32 -0700 (PDT) From: rick davis <davisr@kaiwan.com> To: The R R M Tweek <tweek@ccnet.com> Subject: Re: Oh, you are back. "Dear Mr. Tweek, "Your posting of this message is an indication of your involvement of a criminal conspiracy which has been the subject of two federal marshal raids in the past week and other legal enforcement actions. "You are put on notice. "Sincerely, Rick Davis" Poodle hunter Tom Collins returned to the net this week, after being booted off the kaiwan.com system for tracking the CancelPoodles. "After a week, it still remains to be seen whether kaiwan will restore my account long enough for me to read my mail, send out CoAs, download my files, and put in a .forward until the money runs out. Meanwhile, since it has been pretty obvious they would rather have stone and davis on their system than me, I have moved to a new ISP. "This whole situation is not yet over. Kaiwan continues to coddle cancelers and threaten and bluster about those who call attention to kaiwan abuses. And I am still being denied the access I paid for and given something v. different instead." Message-ID: <41qs1b$sis@ccnet3.ccnet.com> Message-ID: <427gkk$1gu@hollywood.cinenet.net> #####

Pacific Bell

Pacific Bell provided Grady Ward with details of the scam run by cos investigators to get Grady's phone records. "Dear Mr. Ward, "I am providing this document as a confirmation of our verbal contact of August 7, 1995. At that time I indicated to you that a caller had contacted Pacific Bell and presented himself as you. The caller had sufficient identification and information about your account to convince us that he was in fact, Grady Ward. Despite the fact that we had attempted to secure your account via a password, the caller was so thoroughly convincing as he described "his recent stroke and the subsequent vision problems and memory loss that he had suffered" that he effectively manipulated us into discussing your account. His act was very well rehearsed including labored breathing and slurred speech which resulted from the "stroke". He seemed most interested in changing his long distance company and confirming the amounts and dates of his most recent payments on both your accounts. Of course he wanted the password removed as well since he was no longer able to remember such things. "It was not until after the close of the contact that my suspicions were aroused as I realized that the slurred speech had disappeared. At that point I contacted you by telephone and the "scam" became apparent. "Sincerely, Douglas E. Waterman Manager" Message-ID: <gradyDE33yG.G16@netcom.com> #####

Kindergarden Clams

Tilman Hauser posted a press release from Renate Rennebach, a member of the German Parliament. In it, he refutes allegations that a Scientology child was the victim of human rights violations when s/he was refused enrollment in a Presbyterian kindergarden. "As expected, an investigation has shown that the repeated allegation of Scientology, that children are expelled of kindergardens because their parents are Scientologists, is not based on true facts. "Correct is that according to a decision the Presbyterium of the Protestant community there, the child (...) has not been accepted in the protestant Kindergarden in (...). The Protestant community, as manager of that Kindergarden, is free in its decision which children it will accept. This decision is made according to the pedagogical concepts that are implemented there. In that case, they had doubts whether if the education targets would be shared by the parents of the child. Besides this, they were afraid that the parents of (...), who are well-known for repeatably promoting Scientology in the public, could influence other parents. Looking at the big differences between the Protestant Church and Scientology, the decision was made. Besides this, the child (...) has found a public kindergarden. "Looking at these facts I cannot find any evidence supporting your allegation that this is a discrimination and a human rights violation, so I do not see any reason to do something about this." Message-ID: <41vreu$9o9@unlisys.unlisys.net> #####

FACTNet archives

Large portions of the FACTNet archive were posted this week, including many of the standard quotes that have been seen on a.r.s for years. The materials documented the history of harassment of critics and judges by the cos. "'In addition to violating and abusing its own members' civil rights, the organization over the years with its "fair game" doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the church whom it perceives as enemies' -- LA Superior court judge Paul Breckenridge in a June 1984 ruling in the Gerry Armstrong case. "'NEVER agree to an investigation of Scientology. ONLY agree to investigate the attackers ... This is the correct procedure: (1) Spot who is attacking us. (2) Start investigating them for FELONIES or worse, using our own professionals, not outside agencies. (3) Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them. (4) Start feeding lurid, blood, sex, crime actual evidence on the attackers to the press ... Don't ever submit tamely to an investigation of us. Make it rough on the attackers all the way ... You can get 'reasonable about it' and lose ... so BANISH all ideas that any fair hearing is intended and start our attack with their first breath. Never wait. Never talk about us -- only them. Use their blood, sex, crime to get headlines. Don't use us.' -- From HCO policy letter of 25 Feb. 1966, 'Attacks on Scientology.' The following suggestions show how to "handle" various type of critics, from materials seized in the FBI raids. "[a government official] 1. Order hundreds of dollars worth of liquor in Jones's name and have it delivered to his home to cause him trouble and make the liquor store owner dislike him. 2. Call up Jones's boss and accuse Jones of being a homosexual. 3. Send Jones's boss evidence of Jones accepting bribes on his job, with copies to police and local FBI. "[a Psychiatrist] 1. Expose his Nazi background to the press with evidence that he still attends local Nazi meetings. 2. Wake him up every night by calling him on the phone and threatening him. 3. Send an FSM in to be a patient of his for a year to disperse the psych during sessions. "[a newspaper executive] 1. poison him while he's asleep so he'll never start another attack. 2. Make known to the paper's owner that McDonald is responsible for the paper's decreasing advertising revenues. 3. Spread a rumor around to the paper's employees that McDonald is a communist. 4. Put itching powder in McDonald's clothes so he'll scratch himself all day, thus preventing him from writing a story. "[a teacher] 1. Cleverly kidnap her and run reverse processes on her while implanting the phrase, "I will never attack ASI again, I love ASI." 2. Get copies of the court records where she was found guilty of child molesting and send a copy to the school principal, board of education, and a few school children's parents. 3. Send a male FSM in on her who, after she falls in love with him, will get her to move out of the country with him. 4. Pay ten of her students to write dirty phrases about her on the schoolroom blackboard. "[a Catholic bishop] 1. Send several FSMs over to the Catholic church to swear at him in confessionals. 2. Connect him up to abortion and/or pornographic activities. 3. Write the Pope an anonymous letter stating that the bishop is really a rabbi under cover. 4. Spread a rumor around town that he's against air pollution." Message-ID: <41u9ld$a3g@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41u9n4$a7i@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41u9pb$a9k@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41u9qt$adc@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41u9s6$afe@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41u9tj$ah9@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41u9uu$akc@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41ua0c$anf@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41ua1i$aq6@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41ua2m$asd@cougar.vut.edu.au> <41ua4v$avq@cougar.vut.edu.au>