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Freedom of Speech ties noose around cult's neck: Scientology's suicide

Recently, the notorious Scientology company cobbled together yet another attempt to defend their attacks against freedom of speech on the Internet. This latest attempt has been motivated by the latest exposures in the media of Scientology's baseless -- and very often quite vague -- threats against both http://www.Google.COM/ and http://www.Archive.ORG/ This time the notorious company is trying to claim that the Internet is responsible for murders of Scientologists and further attempts to equate free speech and human rights activists to Islamic terrorist mass murderers.

For rights activists around the world, Scientology's endless claims and bullying actions are nothing new and for the most part are simply ignored outright. Scientology's actions are strongly opposed by human rights activists and freedom of speech activists around the world and activists have placed a wealth of information about Scientology on the Internet consisting of court transcripts, witness affidavits, and newspaper articles covering child abuse, monetary frauds, periodic law enforcement raids, and endless felony indictments. All of this information shows -- to anyone who cares to bring up a search engine -- what it is that Scientology actually stands for.

It is the truth about Scientology that Scientology wants to put a stop to. The company recognizes the Internet as the vehicle of its eventual extermination. The overwhelming glut of information about the company that's available on the Internet serves to inoculate prospective business clients against purchasing any of Scientology's bizarre products, and as revenues plummet, the company gets ever more extreme in its efforts to squash all that public information to keep prospective clients ignorant about what they're buying.

In the past, quite often when a media outlet published anything truthful about Scientology, the company sued claiming libel. The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, Time Magazine, and endless other outlets were sued by legions of Scientology lawyers simply for the audacity of exposing the truth.

* http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/time-cos.htm

Scientology has never won any of their lawsuits yet -- according to a once-secret in-house policy -- Scientology doesn't sue to win, only to harass people into silence.

* http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/Fishman/Declaration/exhibg.html * http://www.fairgamed.org/

Media outlets that printed the truth about Scientology were -- and are -- protected simply because what they print _is_ the truth and, in all cases, even if something were incomplete or inaccurate, there's no intention of malice. But because Scientology needs to suppress and halt public discussion about them, they use lawsuits alleging libel, copyright violations (which they call "copyright terrorism,") and other groundless claims to cause media outlets and individuals to defend themselves, costing defendants tens of millions of dollars to acquire the Judicial opinions that everyone -- defendants as well as the company -- knew were preordained. Scientology's policy is that the purpose of a lawsuit isn't to win but to harass and in the past that policy has cost magazine and newspapers untold millions, and has driven at least one free speech activist into exile.

* http://www.operatingthetan.net/ * http://www.keithhenson.org/

With the advent of the Internet, much of that changed. Individuals who were targeted, assaulted, harassed, and sued into oblivion by the notorious company used to have to go down alone -- either quietly without a squawk else screaming in vain to newspapers who were too afraid to cover Scientology's abuse. In 1991, however, ex-followers of the business cult created the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup and victims started to network among themselves. More: victims talked of what they saw and did inside of Scientology, talking about what the "secrets" were that Scientology sells to followers only after many years of expensive indoctrination is purchased. Many committed crimes on orders for the corporation and some activists speak out to expose Scientology to try to make up for their actions while they were customers.

* http://www.lermanet.com/ * http://www.torymagoo.org/

As the popularity of alt.religion.scientology grew and more and more ex-followers, newspaper and television reporters, law enforcement officers, and even politicians started reading and participating in the newsgroup, web sites covering the discussions and disclosures started springing up all over the Internet. The ringing Scientology heard in its ears was the death toll of Scientology's secrecy and with it, Scientology knew, would go its very existence. Few -- if any -- would purchase Scientology's bizarre products knowing in advance what they were buying and the Internet was telling anyone who bothered to bring up a search engine what Scientology is really all about.

And that's an important point: Scientology's owners didn't foresee what was going to happen when the Internet became widely available to the average citizen. As more and more verifiable facts about Scientology and its core criminal basis were being reported on more and more web sites, Scientology realized they had no web sites of their own to try to spin and counter the truth. There was a growing body of testable, verifiable evidence getting reported on the network and none of it looked good for the company. The company's eventual response was to launch a search engine spamming effort that's called "cookie cutter spam pages." Scientology created tens of thousands of content-null web pages that are almost identical, changing only the names of individuals they claimed are customers.

Each of these tens of thousands of spam pages has claims that one can send e-mail to individual Scientologists yet anyone who believes the claims and tries to send e-mail winds up sending e-mail straight to Scientology's owners.

* dannyvidislavsky.oursites.org/ * deanblehert.our-home.org/knowmore.htm * paulceberano.oursites.org/myself.htm * karina.our-home.org/myself.htm

The cookie-cutter spam pages idea was quick, cheap, and simple... but it didn't work: Search engines were equally as quick to recognize what the company was doing and weighed their search results accordingly. Scientology saw that search engines were still allowing people to read the truth about their notorious company quickly with no significant impediment.

Since they couldn't spam flood search engines to make them useless to people researching Scientology, they started going after individual web site owners to try to remove the web sites outright. The brought out their usual claims of libel, copyright "terrorism," and even more stupidly, claims of trademark violation. Any web site that had the name "Scientology" in it were threatened and attacked. (Even Cafe Express sites selling anti-Scientology T-shirts and coffee cups were threatened and attacked by claims of trademark infringement.

The people at Cafe Express have always caved in to these baseless threats.)

ISPs were flooded with groundless -- and often vague -- complaints about web sites (the frequency of these complaints being sent to endless Internet hosts prompted the phenomena to be titled "Ava Grams"

in honor of one of the company more notorious lawyers whose job it was to mail them. A parody RFC with a well-known socket number was proposed to help automate Scientology's endless fraudulent DMCA complaints.) Many ISPs who knew about Scientology's history simply saw "Scientology" at the top of the lawyer's letterhead and capitulated in fear, pulling the web sites seemingly without any qualms. ISPs that didn't know Scientology's history and then bothered to check often discovered Scientology's "Fair Game" and "Purpose of a lawsuit" written policies on the very web sites they were ordered to remove thereby simultaneously confirming that everything rights activists say about the company is true while at the same time confirming the validity of the fraudulent threat if they didn't capitulate to the company's demands.

* http://www.fairgamed.org/

Because Scientology's bullying behavior was -- and continues to be -- widely exposed in the media, we end up observing what appears to be a spiraling positive feedback loop, one that will eventually destroy the notorious business yet which will likely take out a lot of innocent people along with it: Scientology's criminal and abusive actions result in web sites and media exposure. Routine and some times massive public exposure drives the business's revenues ever downward.

Lost revenues cause the company's owners to issue threats, demands, and ultimatums to its operators, the gist of which is to some how stop the blood loss. Scientology's operators assault freedom of speech on the Internet, in the print media and elsewhere to try to put a stop to the exposures. Their actions result in even more public exposures, criminal indictments, and lost revenues.

It's a spiral that Scientology can't break out of because the reason they engage in the criminal and abusive behavior in the first place is because they're "following the tech" -- written policies that were cobbled together by the company's insane founder L. Ron Hubbard when he was doped to the gills on illegal drugs which muddled his mind to the point where his thought processes closely resembled Jell-O pudding.

* http://www.cosvm.info/pinks.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/psycho.htm * http://www.nots.org/fbiindex.htm

Since L. Ron Hubbard was never wrong, and since L. Ron Hubbard said to always attack, never defend, Scientology's owners are left having to wallow in the rut Hubbard carved for them.

* www.xs4all.nl/~felipe/cos/translate.html

This brings us to Scientology's latest series of lies where Scientology attempts to side-step their defense of their anti-free speech actions by attacking people who employ free speech. Let's pick through the company's latest claims one by one, offering documents which debunk them as we come to them.

Claims:

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL STATEMENT REGARDING COPYRIGHT INFRINGERS AND GOOGLE

Scientology likes to claim that it's some how a religion however the company is considered to be organized crime by numerous nations and by endless court Judges around the world. In the United States Lt. Ray Emmons of the Clearwater Police Department summarized Scientology as organized crime.

* http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/cwfedmon.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hsd/cosfed2.htm

Certainly the corporation's history shows it to be an organized criminal enterprise which adopted the guise of religiosity to avoid having to pay taxes on its ill-gotten gains. Scientology holds the distinction of being the organization which engaged in the single largest incident of domestic espionage against the United States government in America's history, resulting in the indictments of numerous ringleaders in what Scientology called "Operation Snow White." Indeed many of the indicted and "un-indicted co-conspirators"

named in Snow White are still running the criminal enterprise:

* http://www.raids.org/ * http://www.cosvm.info/ * http://www.cosvm.info/stipofev.htm

No government agency in the United States "recognizes" Scientology as a religion. The company likes to claim that the IRS some how does yet the IRS isn't a government agency, and in any event the IRS has the company fraudulently recognized as a tax-exempt charity organization, _not_ as a religion. Besides, the United States government isn't Constitutionally allowed to dictate what is a religion and what is not.

* http://www.xenu.net/archive/IRS/

A preponderance of all available evidence is likely to yield the undeniable opinion that Scientology is first and foremost organized crime, certainly not some how a religion. Scientology _could_ be turned into something resembling a religion and that's already been done: It's called "the Free Zone."

* http://www.fzint.org/

And, of course, Scientology likes to claim that it's hatred of free speech is some how motivated by going after copyright infringers. In fact Scientology's hatred of free speech on the Internet is motivated by the corporation's recognition that the Internet is killing their company. Some of the most freakishly bizarre claims the company has made over the past 10 years have included the notion that free speech activists are some how "copyright terrorists." Indeed, the company has started to claim that the Islamic terrorist attacks in New York were some how caused in part by Internet activists (the claims are hard to follow; they attempt to link the New York terrorist attacks to human rights and freedom of speech activists in alt.religion.scientollgy using vague, disjointed rhetoric that presumably makes sense to the profoundly insane.)

Claims:

Media reports reflecting partisan opinions and incorrect interpretations concerning Google's decision to remove links to web pages containing copyright infringements have largely obfuscated the real issues. Thus, we are providing this clarification.

Note the use of the logical fallacy known as "begging the question."

Here the company is claiming that some anti-Scientology web sites contain copyrighted materials and that they some how infringing upon said copyrights. The company doesn't mention any specifics because they're lying. The entire Operation Clambake web site was ordered removed by the company claiming that the web site: contained copyright infringements, contained trademark violations, incited hate speech, and incited violence against Scientology's customers.

* http://www.xenu.net/ * http://www.chillingeffects.org/

Operation Clambake has become _the_ most widely known web site that addresses Scientology's notorious activities, past and present. It is the most linked anti-Scientology web site on the Internet and is almost always the first web site result offered by Google when people research the word "Scientology." It's no wonder at all why Scientology has a pressing need to try to remove Xenu.NET from the network and from Google's search engine. If you check the web site out, you'll find that none of Scientology's claims are even remotely true.

Google caved in to the company's threats and removed Xenu.NET from their search results seemingly without even bothering to check into the validity of the claims. (And who can blame them given the overwhelming number of web pages that they would have to examine every time they receive a complaint?) It wasn't until free speech activists around the world wrote to Google that the search engine operators investigated the web site, compared the contents against Scientology's claims, and then reinstated Xenu.NET because they found Scientology's claims were groundless.

Claims:

Scientology churches have always supported the Internet.

No, Scientologists who use the Internet are required to use a filter that's been dubbed the "Scino Sitter" which keeps customers from seeing anything remotely truthful about the company.

* http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/censorship/

Additionally endless Internet web sites cover Scientology's relentless assault against the Internet in all its forms. Companies that actually support the Internet don't _ban_ their clients from using it and they certainly don't try to remove newsgroups from the Internet.

In fact, "Scientology Vs. The Internet" tells the whole story.

* http://www.skeptic.com/03.3.jl-jj-scientology.html * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/rmgroup.htm

Claims:

The Church uses the Internet in its dissemination of the Scientology religion to the people of the world.

Actually no, they don't. The core products that the corporation sells has to do with ways to scrape off invisible murdered space aliens that Scientology calls "Body Thetans." These "BTs," as the company calls them, are responsible for all of humanity's woes, mental, emotional, and physical. It's only after clients have subjected themselves to lengthy and expensive "training routines"

that they are eventually informed that all the previous "training"

and "auditing" that they paid for was "not really" the problem. It takes something like $160,000 or much higher before customers are informed that the _real_ reason is because a Galactic Ruler named Xenu collected citizens of his over populated galaxy, froze them, transported them to Teegeeack (which is now called Earth) chained them to volcanoes, then blew them to bits with fusion bombs.

None of the _core_ "beliefs" sold to clients are covered by any of the web sites that the Scientology company puts on the Internet. The reason is obvious: Few -- if any -- would buy the company's products if they knew what they were really buying before hand. Indeed, the company used to deny outright that flying saucers, Xenu, BTs, fusion bombs, and all the other drug-induced delusions L. Ron Hubbard came up with were part of Scientology. It took numerous media exposures before the corporation grudingly started admitting to what the rest of the world was reading and viewing in the popular press about what Scientology really sells.

Not only does the corporation not "use the Internet in its dissemination of the Scientology 'religion'" to cover the _core_ aspects of what they sell, try telephoning up one of their business offices out in the meat world and asking them about Xenu, Body Thetans, "clusters," "thetan hands," "wall of fire," "incidents 1 and 2..." Ask and you'll be told either that the person doesn't know anything about what you're talking about else you'll be told that these things are "not discussed until parishioners are ready for it." Hubbard claimed that people who found out about Xenu (which is described in the document called "Operating Thetan 3" or "OT3") would get pneumonia. Curiously, after media exposures of these core "beliefs" the company sells were exposed by the media, massive epidemics of pneumonia remained mysteriously unreported.

Just a few years ago if you had called you would have been told that Xenu was a hoax -- or a "forgery" -- being passed around on the Internet to make Scientology look like a ridiculous flying saucer cult. Curiously, now that the truth about Xenu and all is widely available all over the world thanks to the Internet, Scientology _still_ persists in not "using the Internet in its dissemination of the Scientology religion." They still haven't given up trying to stifle free speech, seemingly clinging to the notion that some how Xenu, court transcripts, once-secret in-house documents, and all the rest will some how simply disappear from the public domain if they just sue and threaten to sue everyone on the Internet who covers what Scientology is really all about.

Claims:

The Church has established a significant multimedia Internet presence since its launch in 1996 of one of the largest and most technically advanced web sites. Our sites comprise more than 140,000 individual pages of material and include virtual tours of our major churches, images, multimedia files, and text.

Actually almost all are "cookie cutter spam pages." Of the few that are not, just try finding testable, verifiable facts rather than unevidenced claims. In many cases the notorious organization doesn't even admit that they own and run web sites; the company is so notorious that they have to employ what they call "Suitable Guises" to hide their true identity behind.

* http://www.cosvm.info/guise.htm

Claims:

Unless certain rules are applied on the Internet, our desired global freedom to communicate and exchange information will be corrupted by cyber-terrorism that often masquerades as free-speech activism.

There you have it: The dissemination of _factual_, _truthful_, and _verifiable_ information about Scientology and its criminal basis is some how "cyber terrorism." Lately the company has been trying to jump on to the terrorism bandwagon, claiming that peaceful pickets and protests against Scientology's homicides and abuses is some how "terrorism." Some how http://www.xenu.net/ is "cyber terrorism" to the Scientology company. Bring up Xenu.net and check it out: do you see _anything_ that can even remotely be considered "terrorism"

on the web site? Then ask yourself what the probable sanity is of the individual within the Scientology company that came up with the bizarre notion.

To be fair, Scientology isn't the only unscrupulous business out there in the real world trying to make money off of the terrorist attacks in New York, and trying to advance their money-driven agenda off of the threat of terrorism. Scientology is just one of -- if not the most -- disgusting businesses to so do. Scientology tried to deliberately disrupt relief efforts in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York, facts of which were uncovered in intercepted mailing list e-mails that are widely available on the Internet.

* http://www.cosvm.info/disrupt.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disruptc.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disruptd.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disrupt8.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disrupt7.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disrupt.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disruptc.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disruptd.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/magoovm.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disrupt8.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/disrupt7.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/telavcr.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/jimmail1.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/mjonesad.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/looters.htm

Much of the embarrassing information available on the Internet has been seized in Federal raids or -- like the deliberate disruption attempts in New York -- were intercepted by human rights activists.

Most of the times the corporation claims it's copyrighted to try to remove it from the public domain yet when they do so, they're confirming for the media the validity of the damaging materials. So Scientology is left with no choice but to claim the information is forgeries or a hoax.

One such document recently was claimed to be a forgery in front of a judge. It's a "training routine" which trains Scientologists to lie.

* http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/latey.htm

And there's also "Operating Thetan level 8" or "OT8" which the company also claims is a forgery even after they raided and sued an ex-customer claiming copyright violations for having it. OT8 is extremely embarrassing because it's anti-Christian. It's possibly a forgery or some kind of hoax but that doesn't explain why the company at one time claimed it belonged to them. Regardless, OT8 looks just as crazy, using the same insane rhetoric L. Ron Hubbard was well known for, that there's a good change that it is close to the version of OT8 Scientology eventually sells to its customers.

Claims:

Thus, limitless "tolerance" of abuse will inevitably bring on overregulation if a few dishonest individuals are allowed to flout the law and corrupt this communication medium for everyone.

Looks like Scientology, the Mormons, McDonnald's, Amway, State Farm, and other businesses that have their criminal scams and frauds exposed on the Internet are the only ones trying to "over regulate"

freedom of speech on the Internet. Record companies and music makers are widely evidenced to be violated by people trading music all over the Internet freely. Scientology, Mormons, McDonnald's, Amway et al. are the ones going after _speech_ on the Internet; and it's always been speech that _exposes_ the crimes and abuses of these businesses.

Claims:

In any event, those who were victimized or saw their rights violated will sooner or later rise to defend themselves and lawfully restore their interests.

Scientology is one to talk about the rights of others, huh? Not only did Scientology try to remove newsgroups from the Internet that were -- and are -- read by tens of thousands of people around the world, but the organization maintains a series of prisons for their clients that they call their "Rehabilitation Project Force" or "RPF" for short. Here we have a business that gets routinely picketed and protested around the world for homicides and massive abuses of Scientologists and non-Scientologists alike telling us that they're some how victims of web sites that cover the truth about Scientology.

* http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/brainwas.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/brainwas.doc

The whole point of civil rights activism, human rights activism, and Constitutional rights activism is to put a stop to abuses being conducted by governments, agencies, organizations, and businesses like Scientology. Scientology's claims that activists are against their own ideals is rather like vegetarians who eat meat -- it's a contradiction in terms.

Claims:

Church actions are confined to two circumstances:

1. Violations of the Church's intellectual property rights

Hardly. The organization doesn't subscribe to what they call "wog law" which, according to U. S. Title 17, includes "Fair Use" doctrine which provides for the partial replication and dissemination of otherwise copyrighted materials. More: The notorious company doesn't recognize the fact that all prongs of the Fair Use doctrine allow for the non-commercial disclosure of otherwise copyrighted materials. And for all that, Scientology doesn't recognize the fact that court documents are in the Public Domain.

* http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

The organization threatens to sue any web site owner that uses the name "Scientology" in it, claiming trademark violations. The fact that anyone may use a trademark provided it is non-commercial and is not done to deliberately confuse customers is something that the Scientology company doesn't want to comply with. On the Internet Scientology has lost domain name disputes.

* http://www.freezone.org/news/media/wipo.htm

In their infamous attempt to remove the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup from the Internet, the company claimed that they some how had the right to cancel everyone's free speech rights because the name of the newsgroup contained the trademarked name "Scientology." Does that sound like they're "protecting Church intellectual property rights?" The newsgroup has ex-victims of the business participating in it, covering what they went through while customers of the company.

The newsgroup also had free speech and human rights activists finding out what Scientology is all about. More: The newsgroup has newspaper reporters, television reporters, law enforcement officers, and the odd politician reading the newsgroup.

The need to suppress the free expression of what Scientology is really all about culminated in the business "spam flooding" the newsgroup with forgeries purporting to be from actual participants but containing neo-Nazi text and then later random words. This attack was dubbed "sporgery" and resulted in at least a million sporgeries being injected into the newsgroup to try to make the newsgroup unreadable.

The effort failed for two reasons: automatic sporgery detecting software was employed to automatically remove it even as it was being injected, and a public and open news server was donated by one of the good guys to provide a database free from sporgery. The FBI also interviewed an activist who turned over a pile of documentation three inches thick which gave names, dates, and times of Scientologists who were caught using calling part ID (CPID) and ANI logging at Internet Service Providers.

Years later, a follower of Scientology escaped from the company -- quite literally jumping on a jet airplane while being followed by corporate leaders -- after 30 years of being in the company. She reported what she knew of the sporgery attacks and her web site contains her reports.

* http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/sporgart.htm * http://www.torymagoo.org/ * http://www.skeptictank.org/scan.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/forge.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/sporge.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/compcrm1.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/sprgwng.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/trkmony.htm

Claims:

2. Hate speech that advocates violence against the Church or its members

Threatening speech or expressions calculated to incite hate enjoy no protection under the Constitution. Robust critical speech should always be sheltered by the First Amendment, as long is it does not trample the boundaries created by law and jurisprudence in an effort to protect the people from improper verbal abuse and its adverse consequences.

It's not so very mysterious to note that the organization didn't provide any testable references to back up these claims. Where is this mysterious hate speech on the Internet? Where is anything on the Internet that advocates violence against the notorious business? If the organization knows of any such hate speech that advocates violence against Scientology's customers, why doesn't the company inform their local police about it? Isn't it their civic duty to report such things to the authorities?

And in fact one can't find any web site or newsgroup where there's any hate speech covering Scientology -- and certainly none that calls for or advocates violence against Scientology customers. It's just not done and it's done for a reason: most web sites that cover the company are created by human rights activists, freedom of speech rights activists, and ex-followers of the company. Their motivates are to help keep others from being victimized, killed, swindled, or otherwise abused by the company. Claiming that activists advocate hatred against victims of Scientology is a logical contradiction;

activists are out there trying to _help_ Scientologists learn what it is they're actually buying, and trying to keep other prospective followers from falling into the same trap.

In fact in the entire history of Scientology's assaults against the Internet there has only been one web site that contained an appeal to violence against a Scientology business and that web site was almost certainly posted by the Scientology organization itself to try to use it to back up their unevidenced claim that there's hate speech against their business on the Internet. The web site was dubbed the "Dexter's Laboratory" web site and when activists found out about it they flooded the free web site Internet Service Providers with numerous complaints and the web site was taken down within days of its discovery.

[Add references to dexter's lab]

After that incident human rights and free speech rights activists started to keep a vigilant eye open for any further attempts by the Scientology organization to sneak such things back onto the Internet -- whether Scientology posted Dexter's Laboratory or not, activists make sure that any new attempt will be dealt with likewise.

Obviously the organization would like to pretend that the extensive coverage of their criminal indictments, Xenu, bannings around the world, and all the rest are some how "hate speech." Scientology has a set of mock "laws" that they call "high crimes" and among them is the "high crime" of mocking, ridiculing, or discussing the company in "unfavorable light." The meat world doesn't subscribe to the company's mock "laws" and yet the company sure does try very hard to make the meat world comply with them.

In any event, Scientology, if you'll let us know where there's hate speech advocating violence against your company anywhere on the Internet, we'll take care of it for you, okay? Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

And obviously the claim that "Church actions are confined to two circumstances" is an easily demonstrated lie. Scientology's actions against free speech activists out in the meat world are notorious.

When human rights activist Mr. Keith Henson was picketing and protesting two homicides committed at the hands of Scientology, the organization stalked, photographed, and harassed he and his family for the audacity of pushing for criminal indictments in the two homicides and for the audacity of pushing for criminal investigations.

When the activist exposed fragments of Scientology's quack medical frauds on the Internet, the business sued him claiming that the evidence Mr. Henson had included in an affidavit to a Judge was some how a copyright infringement -- ignoring utterly Fair Use which allows for the non-commercial dissemination, and ignoring the fact that court documents are public record unless they've been sealed by the courts.

* http://www.keithhenson.org/ * http://www.operatingthetan.net/ * http://www.bobminton.org/

Scientology isn't a company with one of the higher body counts out there in the real world but it's certainly the company with the most bizarre ways of killing its followers. Scientology likes to claim that free speech and human rights activists some how endanger its clients yet an examination of Scientologist homicides find that it's always been at the hands of fellow Scientologists.

* http://www.whyaretheydead.net/ * http://www.lisamcpherson.com/ * www.holysmoke.org/sm/stacy-moxon-meyer.htm

Claims:

Since the founding of the first church of Scientology in 1954, Scientology churches around the world have consistently championed all forms of freedom.

Of course not. Scientology's history has been one of totalitarian control over its customers, assaults upon governments, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies, newspaper reporters, any anyone else who exercises their rights. Scientology's history was covered in the book "Bare-Faced Messiah" which details the notorious business's nearly fascist control of its followers at the hands of an insane megalomaniac -- L. Ron Hubbard.

* http://www.nots.org/

After the publication of that book, the organization sued trying to stop its dissemination. Ms. Paulette Cooper's book "The Scandal of Scientology" resulted in the organization framing her for making bomb threats to try to punish her for exercising her rights of free speech. The evidence that Ms. Cooper had been framed was retrieved by Federal agents when they systematically raided Scientology business offices in the United States, uncovering documents that described what Scientology called "Operation Freakout PC."

* http://www.holysmoke.org/pc/pc.htm

Scientology's claim to "championed all forms of freedom" is further evidenced to be a lie when one looks at the business's use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA.) Scientology was one of the biggest advocate of passing the FOIA so that they could find out what the FBI and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies knew of the company's criminal activities. (Federal agents knew quite a bit and also labeled L. Ron Hubbard insane: "Appears mental" being scribed on one of the FBI's internal documents.)

* http://www.nots.org/fbiindex.htm

Scientology also wanted the passage of the FOIA so that they could confirm the blatant lies of their mad messiah L. Ron Hubbard who claimed he was some kind of Navy war hero despite all the available evidence to the contrary.

* http://www.ronthewarhero.org/

With the passage of the FOIA, Scientology found out that the FBI did in fact have all the goods on L. Ron Hubbard and the criminal enterprise he created. Worse: Scientology retrieved Hubbard's Navy records which utterly and profoundly contradicted everything the insane messiah had ever told his followers about his Navy career.

In order to "champion all forms of freedom" Scientology launched an internal operation they called "Operation Snow White" which sought to infiltrate and break into government buildings so that damaging and embarrassing evidence could be stolen or altered, and so that Scientology could insert positive documents into agency files to try to make Hubbard and his company look like it was a legitimate business rather than organized crime run by a mental case.

* http://www.cosvm.info/stipofev.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/cosuics.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/germnw.htm

Claim:

This includes being one of the first to expose the existence of South African psychiatric slave-labor camps during the apartheid era, and the atrocities committed on the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the name of "ethnic cleansing."

Scientology likes to make a lot of claims about thinks that people have no way to verify. Scientology was soundly exposed in Time Magazine's "Scientology: The Thriving Cult of Greed" -- which got them sued by the company because everything Time exposed was truthful.

Scientology lost their lawsuit however they came out with a "rebuttal"

to the massive media exposure and within that "rebuttal" Scientology claimed to have helped to educate 1.2 million African children.

A human rights activist read that claim and decided it was one of the few claims Scientology makes that could be verified. He wrote to an African official and received confirmation that the company had lied again. The African official stated, "I'm afraid that's just another one of their lies."

* http://www.cosvm.info/africa.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/africa2.htm

Claims:

Scientology churches were pioneers in the development of the U. S. Freedom of Information Act and used that law to uncover secret U.S. government chemical and biological warfare experiments that had been perpetrated on the American people.

While it's true that the Scientology company helped pass the FOIA, what the company "forgot" to mention is that after the FOIA passed and they retrieved L. Ron Hubbard's actual Navy war record, they immediately labeled the documents forgeries. Since they proved beyond any doubt that their mad messiah L. Ron Hubbard was a pathological liar who couldn't keep his lies straight, the company labeled the documents they received "forgeries" and then cobbled together the claim that the Navy must have given them some kind of "cover story" since Hubbard was a secret agent.

As for Scientology's claims to have "uncovered" secret medical experiments being conducted against Americans by its government, no, that's another lie. People who knew about these actions -- which included the deliberate exposure of American soldiers to differing dosages of radioactive elements -- wrote books and told their stories to anyone who would listen. Scientology wasn't unique in the fact that it acquired documents confirming what was already being alleged out in the real world.

It's also important to point out that Scientology's "Operation Snow White" program -- which was never ended and by all apparent indications is still going on strong today -- was successfully stealing government documents. Blackmail and extortion were among the most likely uses of such embarrassing documents however it seems almost certain that Scientology had -- and continues to have -- documents covering the government's abuses of its citizens that the company can't make public otherwise they would get raided and indicted again. The passage of the FOIA allows Scientology to legally acquire copies of documents they stole from agencies and buildings they broke into.

Claim:

The Church's human rights journal, Freedom Magazine, has won numerous awards for its journalistic integrity and its courageous work in protecting the rights of minorities.

<laughing> Scientology likes to give itself awards. What's not so funny is the claims that Scientology some how protects the rights of minorities. Scientology's mad messiah L. Ron Hubbard held some ideals about Asians and Negroes that are widely reflected in the actions of its current owners and operators. Hubbard complained that China had too many "Chinks" in it and that they "Smelled of all the baths they didn't take."

* http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/LRH-bio/chinamen.htm * http://www.lronhubbard.org/eng/journal/page46.htm

Scientology so "protects the rights of minorities" that they altered L. Ron Hubbard's writings to remove Hubbard's racist remarks. If you look at original versions of Hubbard's writings you'll find out that Negroes "talk to hats" and that they don't register on simple wheatstone bridges (that is, the Ohm meter the company sells as an "e-meter") because they're too unintelligent.

* http://www.cosvm.info/emeter.htm

Claim:

The Church's own creed states that "all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others."

Which of course only applies to customers in good standing. Which is why the company imposes Internet censoring software to keep its followers from reading anything remotely truthful about Scientology.

If the business really wanted its customers to think freely and for themselves, they would welcome open and public discussions on all subjects, not just Scientology. If Scientology was really interested in free speech, why do they have the notorious history that they do on and off of the Internet? Why do they have a lengthy and well- deserved reputation for suing any newspaper or magazine which publishes anything critical about them?

Face it: If Scientology adhered to this latest claim, they would be on the Internet addressing each criticism point-for-point, knocking back false allegations one by one, doing so easily because Trvth is on their side. That they don't is obvious. That they _can't_ is equally obvious.

As much as Scientology's actions against free speech and freedom of thought are outside of their company, it's worse for followers who are still in the company. Doubt is a crime. Expressing doubt about the effectiveness of Scientology's bizarre products is a "high crime" in the company. Punishments are meted out for thinking contrary to the dictates of "ethics officers" and L. Ron Hubbard as described in the massively altered documents Hubbard wrote that Scientology calls "technology" and "bulletins."

Inside Scientology, if someone expresses an opinion that's contrary to L. Ron Hubbard's writings, her friends are required to write up what Scientology calls a "Knowledge Report" or "KR" for short.

These "Knowledge Reports" get filed in a number of places, one of which goes into the paper files of the person being accused, another in the files of the person informing on her friend, and others which may end up in "case officer's" files or "ethics officer's" files.

Punishment for "wrong thinking" can range from minor to massive -- yet usually punishment always includes having to pay the company yet more money to "clear" the "MU" -- or "Misunderstood." Some of the minor punishments may simply include having to pay for more endless "training" courses which the individual may have already paid for and have taken numerous times before. Some punishments for "wrong thinking" take the form of being assigned to the RPF (which has already been discussed.) For lucky individuals who resist attempts by the company to "correct" their "wrong thinking," expulsion from the company is their "punishment."

Scientology doesn't _want_ people inside to think for themselves because Scientology can't _afford_ to have people think for themselves. Scientology's written policy is to "duplicate" L. Ron Hubbard and follow his "technology" exactly. To not do so is something the company calls "squirreling" and "squirreling" Hubbard's "tech" is another High Crime that's punishable in a number of different ways.

If Scientology really advocated that people have the right to think for themselves, why do they refuse to inform prospective customers about Xenu, Body Thetans, flying saucers, and all the other core beliefs that followers only find out about after they pay in tens of thousands of dollars when it's too late to keep from being swindled?

If Scientology wasn't a bait-and-switch bunco scam that doesn't inform prospective customers of what they're going to have to purchase in the years to come, wouldn't they _inform_ them about "clusters,"

"magnetic ribbons," fusion bombs, and all that?

Claim:

In addition, Scientologists honor free speech as a cherished Constitutional right.

One wouldn't know it by looking at their history. There might be a little bit of truth in the suggestion that religions -- _real_ religions, not just criminal enterprises that adopt religious dressing to avoid paying taxes -- have some kind of right to keep its followers from speaking freely. Were Scientology actually a religion, while it would be abhorrent to non-cultists, it might be a valid suggestion that religious leaders have some kind of right to keep followers in line. The Catholic church does it, and so does the Mormon church, after all. Scientology could conceivably be excused for not allowing its customers to think and speak freely however the company demands that others must not, claiming that doing so is some how "hate speech that advocates violence against Scientologists."

Claim:

But free speech does not mean freedom to perpetrate a crime.

If Scientology knows of any crimes being committed, shouldn't they report that to their local police? Isn't it their civic duty to report their discoveries of crimes to the authorities?

Instead the organization tried to remove newsgroups that discuss the criminal activities and internal workings of the notorious company.

Instead they file endless bogus DMCA complaints against web site owners alleging copyright violations, trademark infringements, hate speech that advocates violence against Scientologists -- things that only Scientology's owners and operators can see.

Claims:

No matter how disingenuously copyright violations are postured as an exercise of "free speech," the unlawful use of protected works was, is, and will continue to be a crime.

"Protected works" are subject to Fair Use doctrine which specifically allows for the partial or the complete replication of otherwise copyrighted materials provided it's for non-commercial purposes and is used in commentary or otherwise to expose or make a point. One may not point at court documents which contain damaging evidence evidence and demand the public documents must not be part of the public record because they're some how copyrighted. If we were to allow any criminal organization the right to claim that evidence is some how copyrighted and as such can't be entered into the public record, we'll have financial records being copyrighted by every criminal organization out there. Scientology wouldn't be the only criminal enterprise to advocate such an absurd notion.

Claims:

If an individual walked into a book store and took away and sold volumes of an author's writings, or simply gave them away as part of a super-communist phantasm designed for a shared-and-equal-wealth Utopia, would any rational person defend this act of theft as "free speech"? Of course not.

They would call the police.

And of course nobody's doing that, on or off of the Internet. What _is_ allowed is that people may extract either whole or in part the otherwise copyrighted works of others and disseminate them freely according to Fair Use doctrine. Here the company is trying to claim that somewhere on the Internet someone is selling or giving away the company's expensive products. The truth of the matter is that the company has sued people for reproducing just six lines of text; text that exposed the company's Xenu bait-and-switch scam; text that was posted by free speech activists who have been thorns in the side of the company for many years; text posted by activists who have picketed and protested against Scientology's homicides and human rights abuses.

The company also tries to label human rights and free speech rights activists as holding some other extreme ideologies -- people working toward "a shared-and-equal-wealth Utopia." What motivates activists is putting an end to Scientology's abuses; abuses against not only innocent people out in the real world, but also abuses that the company heaps upon its own hapless followers. How so easily the company could simply dismiss free speech and human rights activists were they actually motivated by some lower ideal.

Claim:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides a mechanism that helps this coexistence to be peaceful.

Actually, the DMCA is universally recognized as very bad law. The first massive media exposure of this bad law was -- you guessed it -- when Scientology was the first recorded company to abuse it. The DMCA was first used when Scientology filed a bogus DMCA complaint about one of their most hated enemies -- an anonymous individual that went by the name "Mr. Safe." Mr. Safe was a fellow Scientologist who was on the Internet publicly exposing and discussing the company's altering of what is supposed to be L. Ron Hubbard's inviolate "technology." Mr. Safe had been exposing Scientology's "squirreling"

for a number of years yet they had been unable to learn his identity so that they could silence him.

With the passage of the now-infamous DMCA, Scientology was able to force AT&T to divulge the identity of the Scientologist. It is somewhat ironic that the Scientology company filed its bogus DMCA complaint when Mr. Safe posted a copy of Scientology's "Enemies List"

which consists of hundreds of individual's names, churches, and organizations that the Scientology company called its enemies. The act served to confirm that the criminal enterprise maintains an "enemy list" -- something they had previously denied ever since they started trying to pretend they're some how a religion.

* http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/bsafefid.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/dchat1.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/dchat2.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/dchat3.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/handbill.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/fzcos1.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/safe12o9.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/safefrth.htm

AT&T handed over the identity of their customer without blinking, not caring one bit that they were putting the life of their customer at risk. The day after AT&T handed the Scientologist over to the company, Mr. Safe disappeared and hasn't been seen in public since.

There was no counter notification, no copyright violation (the "enemies list" contained no copyright notice and had been disavowed previously) and no adherence to the dictates of the DMCA. The DMCA was used solely to acquire the identity of the Scientologist so that Scientology could silence him -- which they did.

Claims:

In a landmark lawsuit brought by two Scientology-affiliated organizations,

Translation: Brought by Scientology. Scientology employs what they call "suitable guises" and they adopt and discard names and fake fronts as needed due to the notorious reputation of the company. When Scientology informs people up front about who they are, they meet with stiff opposition because most people, it seems, know something about Scientology whether it's a vague "didn't they kill that girl in Florida?" or a strong "yes, we know all about Scientology." To combat their own notorious reputation, Scientology creates "suitable guises" and endless fake fronts to hide their identity behind.

* http://www.cosvm.info/guise.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/cchr.htm * http://www.cosvm.info/cchr3.htm * http://www.xenutv.com/trust/jeff-brick.htm * http://www.lisamcpherson.org/sp_times_4-20-01_brick_bad.htm * http://www.slatkinfraud.com/slaughter.php

Claim:

the US District Court for the Northern District of California agreed with their contention that ISPs may be liable for contributory copyright infringement once they are made aware that infringements are maintained on their systems. The judge's ruling resulted in a notice-and-takedown procedure to remedy copyright infringements.

What Scientology "forgot" to mention is the racketeering activities that took place during this kangaroo court "justice" where money is what decided the case. In one of Scientology's more freakish operations conducted against who the company perceives to be its enemies, a Scientology operative spread blood all over one of the defendant's hotel room. The "miss bloody butt" incident has never made it into the popular press but that's understandable: what Scientology does some times is so bizarre that credulity is stretched beyond the breaking point.

* http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mbb.htm * http://www.cli.org/sysopl/Netcom.html

Scientology sued innocent people to try to stifle other's free speech when said others made public court documents; public documents that could be acquired by anyone visiting a documents division of the Department of Justice in Los Angeles, California. Now the company wants to claim responsibility for getting the notoriously bad DMCA law enacted. Well, okay, if they want to take credit for another abuse of people's free speech, okay.

[Reference company sitting with documents]

Claim:

This notice-and-takedown procedure became an important aspect of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It provides the copyright owner with a remedy and absolves ISPs from responsibility for content and liability if they remove infringing materials, while depriving the violator of the means to perpetrate his unlawful activity. The DMCA has thus brought order to one area of the Internet that was in utter turmoil prior to the Act.

It also allows criminal enterprises who hate free speech to file bogus complaints against their perceived enemies to learn their identities so that they can be silenced. It also turns American law on its ear, making people presumed guilty before a Judge ever hears about it.

It allows any notorious company -- not just Scientology -- to point at anything on the Internet, claim it's some how copyrighted, and get that information immediately pulled from the Internet without the company being held liable for the filing of their bogus complaints. It relieves ISPs of liability at the cost of turning ISPs into Internet cops. More: The DMCA is un-enforceable since the Internet is a world-wide community, much of which recognizes the DMCA as the extremely bad law that it is.

The DMCA could conceivably be salvaged were lawmakers to add some provisions for criminal and financial sanctions against companies who file fraudulent and groundless complaints. Since Scientology doesn't allow Fair Use doctrine, their endless bogus DMCA complaints would result in the company being repeatedly punished until, quite probably, a Judge issued an injunction against them or a Judge recalled the bad law.

Claims:

In March 2002, acting according to the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Church asked Google to remove their links to certain specific copyright infringements.

No they didn't. The facts of the matter can be checked out on the Chilling Effects web site simply by looking at the bogus DMCA complaints that Scientology sent to Google. The company had issued their usual claims of copyright violations, trademark infringements, and hate speech fomenting violence and they listed web pages that did no such thing -- including the main web page.

* http://www.chillingeffects.org/ * http://www.xenu.net/

Claims:

Google responded by eliminating the links. These actions on both sides were routine and carried out pursuant to the DMCA.

Except that Google -- like many ISPs -- apparently didn't bother checking into the allegations before doing so. It's suspected that all Google saw was that the well known -- and extremely notorious -- Scientology company had sent them one of their equally notorious threatening letters causing them to capitulate immediately to their demands apparently without even a cursory examination to see if Scientology's claims were true.

Claims:

However, this time the often unpredictable currents of the Internet pushed Google out of the routine and into a storm of protest. Taken aback by this reaction, Google rapidly moved to put the Church's cease and desist letters up on a public website. If the intent of this action was to appear "politically correct" or to chill the Church's dedication to defend the copyrighted works of the Scientology religion, no adverse affect has been created.

No, what actually happened was that free speech activists from around the world found out about the attempts to stop Operation Clambake's freedom of speech so they _flooded_ Google with timely, accurate, and verifiable documentation covering Scientology's well known history of lies and abuses both on the Internet as well as off. In addition a special envoy of free speech advocates scheduled a meeting with the Google people to discuss Scientology and its war against the Internet.

Google took a close look at Scientology's bogus DMCA complaints and without doubt they took a look at every web page on Operation Clambake that Scientology claimed was some how in violation of copyrights. Google saw that Scientology's claims of trademark violations weren't even covered by the bad DMCA laws. Google also found that there were web pages that the company claimed held copyrighted materials -- such as the main web page -- that damn well obviously didn't. On a few of the web pages there were -- and are -- text that covers L. Ron Hubbard's drug-induced writings covering his flying saucer hallucinations -- something Hubbard called "very space opera." These constituted Fair Use doctrine and have been reproduced and discussed in countless magazine articles, newspaper exposures, and even on television documentaries covering the company.

After Google did their homework, they reinstated their links to the web site and to the cached web pages, and they forwarded to the Chilling Effects organization copies of the bogus DMCA complaints -- presumably to show the world only only just how faulty the DMCA is, but also to add further to the growing body of evidence that shows what Scientology is all about.

Part 2 follows

-- Why did the Scientologist cross the road? - mimus To slug Bob Minton. - Shydavid (See http://www.BobMinton.ORG/ "Rosen probably defames Keith in his sleep." -- Ms. Lucas

From: FRice@SkepticTank.ORG (Rev. Fredric L. Rice)
Subject: Part 2: Freedom of Speech ties noose around cult's neck: Scientology's suicide
Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2002 20:00:01 GMT
Organization: The Skeptic Tank
Message-ID: <upuh9q73r2f1fb@corp.supernews.com>

Continued from part 1

-=-

Yeah. It's a wonder that the company didn't immediately sue Google for copyright violations, claiming that their DMCA complaints were some how copyrighted and that by sending them to Chilling Effects, Google was violating their copyrights. It probably irritates the living shit out of the company to see some of their bogus DMCA complaints getting wide public dissemination. Now the organization is aware of the fact that there's a central depository for their endless complaints that are readily viewable by the rest of the world.

Will that curb their abuse of the bad DMCA laws? <laughing> If you think it will, the Scientology organization also has a Bridge to Total Freedom they would love to sell to you.

Since the organization doesn't mind having their bogus DMCA complaints being made public in yet another massive media exposure, do them a favor and go check them out for yourself. They claim they don't mind, after all.

Claims:

We are scarcely alone in utilizing the DMCA to protect our intellectual properties.

The logic fallacy known as "begging the question." Where, exactly are any of their "intellectual properties" on Operation Clambake's web site? There's a great deal of court documents covering Scientology's felony indictments, affidavits from eyewitnesses about Scientology's crimes and abuses, accounts of Scientology child abuse, assaults against free speech, and a bewildering variety of other information covering Scientology on the Operation Clambake web site, but where are these mysteriously invisible "intellectual properties?" Why did they feel the need to lie, claim trademark violations, and talk about "hate speech" that "advocates violence against Scientologists" in their endless complaints if in fact there's valid "intellectual properties" they're trying to "protect?"

Interestingly enough, there _are_ copies of Scientology's once-secret in-house documents that are widely available on the Internet which might conceivably still be considered "intellectual properties" of this bizarre company. Even ignoring the Fishman Affidavit which was made widely public and which was apparently later sealed, one can find probably all of the once-secret documents on the Internet thanks not only to the Internet, but also thanks to courts and Judges all over the world who have made documents seized by law enforcement agencies part of the public record.

* http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html

Conceivably these once-secret texts might be considered to be "intellectual property" yet the cat's out of the bag. Not only is this information widely available all over the world thanks to a number of factors already mentioned, but much of it covers quack medical fraud, written policies that call for criminal actions against individuals, Judges, police officers, government agents, and entire governments.

* http://www.xenu.net/archive/go/

It's important to point ot that Scientology's "Guardian Office" was later renamed to the "Office of Special Affairs" and that many of the criminals who were indicted and un-indicted are still running things. The GO/OSA is also known as "Department 20" which continues its criminal activities virtually unabated by all external indications.

Anyway, the Scientology company is trying to claim that it's some how the same as a record industry that works to keep people from making copies of their music. Isn't Scientology supposed to be a religion?

They like to claim it is and yet they try to claim they're a company that's the equal to the music industry.

As an aside, the music industry often has a "try before you buy"

policy and, of course, the music that they sell is offered on the radio and on MTV for free. Music companies also have free giveaways of their company's products for advertising and other reasons.

Contrast that against what the Scientology company does. Not only does Scientology not inform prospective customers what they're buying -- Body Thetans and all that other bait-and-switch claptrap -- but everything they sell is sold for money. There's no giveaways in the Scientology company.

The music industry also doesn't break into government buildings and steal or alter documents -- at least not to degree that Scientology did -- and quite likely still does.

* http://www.cosvm.info/stipofev.htm

Scientology is utterly unlike any other company one could care to point at. Scientology is certainly unlike any real religion one could care to point at. Scientology does, however, closely resemble organized crime and it is the coverage of Scientology's history and its current activities is by all external indications what the company seems to want removed from the Internet. Amusingly Scientology's activities committed in pursuit of this agenda serve merely to confirm and verify the public record that the company tries to suppress.

Claims:

Considering that hundreds of cease and desist letters are generated by copyright owners every day, it is oddly disproportionate that so much attention has been focused on the handful sent out by Scientology churches.

Presumably it's a conspiracy. But in fact it's because other companies actually file valid complaints that are also specific rather than vague; complaints that actually cover copyright violations, don't hold bizarre rants about trademarks, hate speech, and violence. Valid DMCA complaints may eventually be submitted and carried on the Chilling Effects web site yet that seems unlikely since _valid_ DMCA complaints are of little to no interest to free speech advocates and human rights activists.

There's not a little irony in the fact that Scientology points out that its own actions almost stand alone as being abusive. While Scientology would like to pretend it's some how being picked upon, visit the Chilling Effects web site and take a look at the other companies that file abusive complaints using the notorious DMCA laws and see if Scientology is in good company.

Claims:

V. FREE SPEECH VS. HATE SPEECH It has long been an established legal principle that open incitement to violence against another is not protected by the First Amendment, neither on nor off the Internet.

And yet Scientology can't point to a single web site which advocates violence -- or which contains "hate speech" -- against their company anywhere on the Internet. Nor can the company point to any of the message postings in the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup which supports their claims. Particularly the notorious company can't point to a single web page on any of the web sites that they lied to about to either Google or to Wayback which contained a single comment advocating violence.

What all of the web sites that Scientology files bogus complaints about contains is _factual_, _testable_, _verifiable_ documentation covering Scientology's criminal history and covering its abuses of the courts today. Particular focus on many web sites is the horrid anti-Human Rights conditions that Scientology customers are subjected to by this company's owners and operators.

Free speech includes consumer advocacy, expression of ideologies advocating free thought, civil rights, human rights, Constitutional rights, and public exposures of organizations that hold such things in utter contempt. Honest citizens of the world consider such ideals to be positive ideologies which serve to protect the health and safety of honest citizens. Scientology considers such ideals to be hate speech which advocates violence. The fact that human rights activists do what they do _for_ Scientology's victims is completely relevant to what motivates Scientology's claims.

Claims:

If an individual shouted from his rooftop that he was going to throw a bomb through his neighbor's window, no one would accuse the intended victim of attempting to stifle free speech when he called the police.

And yet nobody has ever advocated such actions on the Internet, not on any of the web sites that Scientology attacks, not on any of the newsgroups where Scientology is exposed.

Claims:

Hate speech is also a factor that often motivates the Church in its actions. Unfortunately it usually remains unreported by media, thus depriving the public of the full picture.

And in fact nobody in the media can ever find any claimed hate speech or advocacy of violence. If Scientology's owners would point out where these alleged hate speech web sites or alleged violence advocating web sites are, I'm sure the media would love to carry such news.

But in actual fact the media understands Scientology. Reporters are told in school that when they interview someone, or when they work to get a story, the people they interact with are going to see them -- the reporter -- as a resource for disseminating their own -- the people they interview -- agendas. The media look at the Scientology company's history and its claims, notes that the owners and operators exhibit a pathological inability to tell the truth even when honesty would serve, and either discount the claims else pass some of them along without comment. In many media newspaper reports one can find unadulterated Scientology claims that gets passed through without comment because the reporter feels they should allow the company to express their twisted version of the story -- knowing that their readers will compare Scientology's claims against the rest of the story and see which are backed up by evidence.

When someone makes claims about hate speech and violence, however, reporters want specifics, not vague, unevidenced claims. Reporters who want to be responsible don't reprint irresponsible claims. That is why the media focuses on Scientology's hatred of free speech and doesn't decide to pass along Scientology's more bizarre conspiracy theories involving hate speech, violence, mind control, Marcabian invasions, and some of the other nutty claims they make.

Claims:

It has been necessary to take legal action on several occasions due to threats and actual violence against our churches. Hate speech and extremist propaganda on the Internet have repeatedly driven unstable individuals to commit felonious acts against Church members and Church property, as in these examples:

What Scientology doesn't tell you is that all acts of violence ever conducted against Scientologists have always been at the hands of fellow Scientologists. On the rare occasions where human rights or freedom of speech rights activists have been physically assaulted by Scientologists and defended themselves, the courts have looked at the videotapes and have _always_ ruled in favor of the activist.

The company doesn't seem to care that people catch their assaults on free speech and human rights activists, in fact.

In the "vicious" Word document referenced below, Scientology sent out one of their business operators to assault Mr. Robert Minton, not caring that there were two video cameras recording the assault. In fact in Clearwater, Florida it's difficult to get the police to do anything about Scientology's violence against activists. You can see this in the Scientology hammer assault against video journalist Mark Bunker referenced below.

* http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/vicious.doc * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mbunke11.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mbunke12.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mbunke13.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mbunke15.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mbunke16.htm * http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mbunke17.htm * http://www.bobminton.org/

Horribly, when human rights activists were holding a memorial service for Lisa McPherson (a Scientologist that was murdered by Scientology because she was talking to her friends and family about escaping) Scientology blew out the memorial candles in a re-enactment of what they did to Lisa's life. What makes it relevant to the history of assaults against activists is that these incidents of behavior from Scientology's customers and owners reflect the mind set that clients slowly adopt the longer they subject themselves to Scientology's debilitative "training routines."

It's no mystery why Scientology has a long history of assaults against human rights activists. It's an artifact of the mind-warping "processing" that L. Ron Hubbard came up with while heavily doped to the gills. Doctor Carl Sagan -- planetologist and popularizer of modern science -- once said that L. Ron Hubbard had managed to come up with written procedures for driving people insane.

Take a look at some of the incidents the company claims some how justifies their assault on the Internet. Every one of their claims are either so vague as to be un-verifiable, else it's about fellow Scientologists attacking Scientologists. This last is rather telling since if you look at Scientology homicides, they're always committed at the hands of fellow Scientologists. (That summation includes the numerous "suicides" and freakish homicides that have taken place inside of Scientology's Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida.

Indeed, the number of homicides Scientology has committed in that building has resulted in activists calling it the "Fort Homicide Hotel." Scientology "training routines" are so debilitative to the mental health of its clients that suicides and killings should be expected to result.)

* http://www.lisamcpherson.org/ * http://www.whyaretheydead.net/

Claims:

o A Scientology Church was fire-bombed twice with a dozen molotov cocktails doing extensive damage to the front of the church.

Here's a vague claim that activists have been trying to pin down for a number of years now. No police report seems to have been filed on this... at least nobody can find any specifics about this claim to substanciate it. If this actually happened, why won't Scientology tell us specifics? The answer should be obvious: it most likely never happened or, if it did, it was done by a Scientologist who was trying to violently exact revenge against the company for being swindled and defrauded for many years before Scientology's debilitative "training routines" and "courses" made him snap.

In any event even if this actually did take place, why does the Scientology company claim it's justified in attacking free speech on the Internet?

* http://www.cosvm.info/oobe.htm * www.linkline.com/personal/frice/bugger.htm

It's also probably relevant that Scientology seems to have mysterious fires whenever the rent and the bills for one of their offices is long past due.

* http://www.primenet.com/~cultxpt/fires.htm

Or maybe Scientology's history of having fires when the bills are due aren't quite so mysterious. The web page references above is somewhat out of date since Scientology has held at least two new fires since September of 1999, to my recollection.

Claim:

o A staff member was stalked and shot at.

Why was there no police report filed? If this actually happened, wouldn't Scientology provide specifics to back up their allegations?

And wouldn't the media carry a story about this incident? Of course Scientology's owners might like to claim there's a massive world-wide conspiracy at work to keep such incidents out of the news, but if that's their explanation, why didn't they offer it?

Claims:

o A crazed gunman went into a church and shot a pregnant staff member whose unborn child suffered fatal birth defects and later died. The woman is now paralyzed. He then set fire to the building and took another female staff member hostage.

These is one of the longer running Scientology lies. In fact this was an incident that took place in Oregon where a _Scientologist_ came in to a Scientology business and started shooting the place up and setting things on fire.

Why didn't Scientology mention the fact that this act -- and all other acts of violence against Scientologists -- is committed by fellow Scientologists?

Not only was the shooter a fellow Scientologist by the baby in question didn't die and was reported in the news as having been delivered just fine with no complications at all. The woman who was shot lost the use of her legs yet horribly she's being used by the company to market the company's public relations lies about how they're some how a "church" that's subject to violent assaults by "anti-religious" nut cases. And yet the company consistently "forgets" to mention the fact that the nut case in question was a Scientologist who snapped due to Scientology "processing."

* http://www.cosvm.info/oregon.htm

Scientology owners and operators have uttered these lies under oath in United States courts with no compunction against perjury. It's not as if they didn't know that they were lying, that the shooter was a Scientologist, that the baby didn't die, and that the woman was fine afterward, it's that Scientology doesn't _care_ about the truth of the matter.

What Scientology lacks is _real_ incidents of violence against its customers by non-Scientologists. What Scientology lacks is _real_ murders of Scientologists by non-Scientologists. Because there are none, Scientology makes up these stories building on actual incidents committed at the hands of fellow Scientologists. And because these "shore stories," as Scientology calls them, become part of the pathology of the company's public relations mythology, ringleaders even make these knowingly false claims under oath.

Where's the web site that motivated this Scientologist to walk into the office where he was swindled and defrauded and then start shooting the place up to exact his violent revenge? Scientology is trying to claim that its clients -- and they don't mention the fact that they _are_ customers -- are being driven to violence because of things they read on the Internet. Where's the web sites that were responsible? Scientology is attacking the Internet claiming that their followers are being driven to violence by what they read on the Internet.

Claim:

o Individuals became inflamed by venom spewed online and then sent out death threats.

No specifics, again. Readers will probably have already guessed that human rights and freedom of speech rights activists routinely scour newspapers and other media outlets, and that they also keep their eyes open for criminal complaints which include Scientology. Indeed, it is that very fact that is one of the reasons why Scientology attacks the Internet. Any time Scientology appears in the news or files a complaint in any police department, activists usually find out about it eventually thanks to the on-line databases of law enforcement and thanks to the Freedom of Information Act which makes it possible to write requests to police agencies requesting all documents filed in any given time frame which involved Scientology.

Activists don't catch everything, of course, but something like this would get into the news simply because Scientology would file criminal charges and civil charges against anyone who everyone who really did give their customers death threats -- unless they're fellow Scientologists, of course, in which case they wouldn't want that getting into the news.

Scientology can't point to any "venom spewed on-line." They can't point to any "death threats." What they point at are web sites that cover Scientology history and its contemporary abuses, demanding that they be removed for vague copyright violations, trademark infringements, and these vague "venom spewed on-line." Where is it?

They are apparently invisible like Body Thetans.

Claim:

o An individual was convicted for threatening and intimidating Scientologists through the Internet. He then fled the country to avoid sentencing.

Another addition to the company's growing public relations mythology.

Human rights activist Mr. Keith Henson was picketing and protesting against two of Scientology's latest homicides: Stacy Moxon and Ashlee Shanner.

* http://www.holysmoke.org/sm/stacy-moxon-meyer.htm * http://www.xenu.net/archive/WIR/wir5-6.html

Not only wasn't Mr. Henson convicted for threats or intimidation, he didn't "flee the country to avoid sentencing." Mr. Henson was actually convicted on the bogus claim that he was some how interfering with a religion and that conviction was possible only because the jury was not allowed to be informed that he was protesting and picketing and neither was the jury allowed to be informed that he was protesting against Scientology's latest two homicides.

* http://www.keithhenson.org/ * http://www.operatingthetan.org/

Mr. Henson routinely picketed and protested the homicides of Stacy Moxon and Ashlee Shanner outside of Scientology's heavily armed and heavily fortified compound in Gilman Hot Springs, California. Stacy Moxon was the daughter of noted racketeering kingpin Kendrick Moxon who was named as one of the un-indicted co-conspirators in the single most largest incident of domestic espionage and racketeering in America's history.

* http://www.cosvm.info/stipofev.htm

Ashlee Shanner was a young girl who was driving a vehicle along the highway which passes the company's heavily armed compound and was beheaded when she rounded a corner at night and drove into the shovel of a tractor that was working on Scientology's property at night without lights, without warning signs or flags. The driver of the tractor was also driving the tractor without a license.

Mr. Henson's "interfering of a religion" was a conviction that was only possible by not informing the jury that no religion was involved, making sure that the jury was never told the notorious name "Scientology." His "interference" consisted of holding picket signs and protest signs denouncing Scientology's homicides and also denouncing Scientology's endless financial frauds. Scientology's attempts to stop this free speech included shoving him out into the highway into traffic to try to kill him, death threats against himself and his family, and endless telephone calls to the Hemet, California police.

Every time the police were called out the local cops informed the Scientology company that Mr. Henson was engaged in his Constitutionally-guaranteed right to free speech. At some point the Hemet police must have gotten tired of the endless complaints because the cops simply stopped coming out every time Mr. Henson resumed protesting Scientology's abuses.

Readers should investigate the death of Stacy Moxon closely since it's highly relevant. Scientology tried to cover up that homicide by first claiming there was an automotive accident on the highway, then they called authorities and changed their story claiming that they had a fire at their armed compound. Finally Scientology changed to the story they would stick with, claiming that there was an electrocution at their compound.

How is this relevant to free speech and Scientology's assault against the Internet? Two other human rights activists were outside of the barbed wire at the time that Scientology killed Stacy Moxon. The company sent people out to the highway to try to get the activists to leave before the authorities and the media showed up, inviting to take them to lunch, in fact, to "discuss their problems" with Scientology.

First off, Scientology claims that they're afraid of activists and yet here the company is trying to take them out and buy them lunch. But the most important piece of the equation is the fact that the company tried to get the activists away from the area before the authorities showed up. Given the changing stories Scientology phoned into local authorities after the homicide, it seems entirely likely that the company wanted to remove Moxon's remains from the underground transformer vault where she was electrocuted, then stage a vehicle accident out on the highway. The clock was ticking before the fire department, police, and media arrived and yet two activists were outside the barbed wire. Activists with cameras and cell telephones -- and a willingness to immediately inform the authorities of what they saw.

Having human rights and free speech rights activists picketing and protesting outside of Scientology businesses adversely impacts the company's revenues however the added attraction is the fact that the homicides, suicides, attempted escapes, and abuses that routinely take place are immediately reported and reportable. (Escapes are an important aspect of incidents that can be caught on film out at the Gilman Hot Springs compound. The compound is notable for the fact that the barbed wire and spikes around the compound are situated to keep people _in_ the compound, not to keep people out.)

Claims:

o Police intercepted a man with explosives in his van, who, it was discovered by the officers, was enroute to assassinate the president of a Church of Scientology.

This hasn't been reported in the news, either, for some mysterious reason. The only possible incident that sounds close to this claim may be an incident which took place in Los Angeles many years ago when a Scientologist held a number of fellow Scientologists hostage in a car and then blew the car up.

That incident, however, took place before the Internet became widely available, and long before human rights and free speech rights activists started covering Scientology's abuses on the Internet. The attempt to justify attacking the Internet by pointing at Scientologists blowing up fellow Scientologists before the Internet was open is, well, remarkably insane.

If Scientology would like to provide a little background information so that this claim of theirs can be verified, do please post a note into alt.religion.scientology so that we may investigate. Thanks.

Claims:

o A man constructed a mail bomb and hid it in one of our churches. It was detected and defused before it went off.

Scientology has been making this claim for years, too, yet some how never manages to provide any testable references. If they were to actually describe who it was, it's certain that it would have been yet another Scientologist trying to get back at the criminal enterprise after years of abuse and mentally debilitating "training courses."

If Scientology could provide background information on this claim as well, thanks.

Claims:

If these acts are carried out against U.S. citizens by Al Qaeda, it is called terrorism. Within the microcosm of the alternative newsgroups, Scientologists face a form of unadulterated cyber-terrorism, no matter how loudly its perpetrators try to disguise themselves as "free speech"

advocates.

The world-wide grassroots effort by human rights, civil rights, and free speech rights activists to expose Scientology and halt their abuses is some how the equal to religious extremists that hijack jet aircraft and fly them into high-rise buildings.

Is it any wonder why the media doesn't report these people's more freakishly bizarre claims?

Claim:

Ultimately, the only guarantee of safeguarding the Internet's potential resides with all who use it.

And who will safeguard the rights of Scientologists and other victims of Scientology? Who also will safeguard the free speech rights of citizens of free countries when those rights are attacked by organized criminal enterprises which are driven to suppress those rights solely because of the lost revenues which result from consumer advocacy?

Currently technology guarantees those rights regardless of the bogus misuse of the famously bad DMCA laws. Currently public outcries at Scientology's attacks against the Internet are what's guaranteeing the _use_ of that technology.

Not so ironically, Scientology's abuses reinforce activists' goals and motivations for putting a stop to those abuses. As previously mentioned, it's a positive feedback loop which will hopefully make the company spiral into self destruction and, given Scientology's written policies which are supposed to be inviolate, the company is stuck on rails they can't jump off of.

Claims:

We share the responsibility of ensuring that abuses by a largely lawless minority are not permitted to burden all of us with over regulation. We submit that had it not been for a few lawless individuals, online copyright regulation would not even have been necessary; ample copyright law already existed. It is up to the law-abiding majority to ensure the Internet remains truly free.

The irony would compel humor were it not quite so serious. We got a disjointed, incoherent rant about hate speech and violence while not being told that Scientologists have always been the ones doing the violence. We get informed that free speech on the Internet is akin to Islamic terrorist mass murderers. We then get an equally bizarre "summary" that jumps back to vague claims of copyright infringements again.

Claims:

We welcome the opportunity to work with any individuals and organizations seeking the goal of a lawful, safe and vastly beneficial Internet for all.

As if any free speech organization would want them.

Claims:

For more information, visit www.scientology.org

And I agree completely with that suggestion. Note that you'll not find anything about Xenu, Body Thetans, Clusters, or any of the other endless bait-and-switch bunco frauds that this company "forgets" to tell its followers before they mistakenly sign up for "courses." Do check out the company's own web sites and note the vague, unevidenced claims, the freakish conspiracy notions, and bizarre rants like their latest justifications for attacking the Internet... Then check out http://www.xenu.net/ and all the other web sites that the company tries so hard to remove from the Internet. Judge for yourself.

Claims:

April 2002

Linda Simmons Hight Media Relations Director Church of Scientology International 6331 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 1200 Los Angeles, CA 90028-6329 Phone (323) 960-3500 Fax (323) 960-3508 e-mail: mediarelationsdir@scientology.net

Don't forget to give this public relations person a phone call or some e-mail asking about the various newspaper articles and other information referenced in this debunking. Be sure to ask why she "forgot" to mention that the shooting in Oregon and all other acts of violence against Scientologists have been by other Scientologists then ask what that has to do with her company's assault against the Internet. You might also ask her why she felt she had to lie about Mr. Keith Henson when the truth would have sufficed. You might also ask her to provide some specific URLs to web pages that contain copyrighted materials so that you can confirm her allegations for yourself -- making note of the fact that Scientology's very big on thinking for oneself.

While you shouldn't expect any honest answers, if the PR person doesn't hang up on you by then -- or add you to their murdering terrorist list -- ask why the company doesn't inform its customers that they're infested with invisible murdered space aliens. You might also want to ask why you had to read about it in web sites that aren't affiliated with their company.

Scientology's assault on free speech and its endless attacks against web sites which engages in free speech aren't going to end until the company itself ends.

-=- During research for this I've found a number of other web pages that debunk the organized crime syndicate's latest lies and among the best is:

* http://www.politechbot.com/p-03929.html

-- Why did the Scientologist cross the road? - mimus To slug Bob Minton. - Shydavid (See http://www.BobMinton.ORG/ "Rosen probably defames Keith in his sleep." -- Ms. Lucas

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