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With legal chicanery I mean e.g. leveling a barrage of nuisance lawsuits at an opponent with the objective of bankrupting the victim by forcing him to expend ruinous sums on legal counsel, or alternatively by securing unfounded convictions against the victim where he has been unable to mount an adequate legal defense (See e.g. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/Declaration/exhibg.html).

An additional form of chicanery is to drop charges against a victim who does mount an adequate defense in order to avoid unfavorable precedents from being set against the sect (see http://www.rechtspraak.nl/Gerechten/HogeRaad/Actualiteiten/Hoge+Raad+verwerpt+het+cassatieberoep+in+de+zaak+Scientology+providers+en+Spaink.htm (in Dutch)).

Of course the wave of counter-harassment and even threats (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology) goes too far. But what the Cult now pleads for is to introduce a totally ambiguous definition of "Websites created with primary purpose of inciting religious vilification" (read: "anybody who says something to the effect that the Scientology sect is a nasty, dangerous, for-profit outfit") and strip those of anonymity or even the right to exist at all. In plain text: anyone who writes anything against the Scientology cult will now be exposed to harassment lawsuits, career wrecking, and intimidation (see the Fishman affidavit in one of the links above).

The full text of the "recommendations" I reproduce below:

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 1: The implementation of Criminal and Civil Restrictions on Religious Vilification.

Recommendation 2: Restriction on Anonymity on acts of Religious Vilification:

2.1 Websites created with primary purpose of inciting religious vilification shall be removed or their access to the Australian public restricted.

2.2 Creators of websites whose primary purpose is the incitement of religious vilification shall be prevented from concealing their identity.

Recommendation 3: Restriction on Religious Misinformation and Misrepresentation known or reasonably known to be untruthful in the Media

Recommendation 4: Include a form of Bill or Charter of Rights into the Australian Constitution, which prevents the Commonwealth from making any law, which 'directly, indirectly or incidentally' prohibits the free exercise of religion to the extent of such prohibition

What part of this looks as if it provides any safeguards against the most appalling abuse? Where are the checks and balances? Who determines what is "misinformation", or "incitement of religious vilification"? Would quoting court documents that state the Scientology sect pr

Most of the injustices done in the name of religion had nothing to do with religious belief or conviction.

Hi.

I'd like you to meet my friends. Their names are "Inquisition" and "Palestine/Israel". They want to invite you over to "Kosovo"'s house. I hear "Tibet" and "Belfast" might be there... And "Pakistan/India" may make an appearance, too. If we're lucky, we may even be visited by "Mountain Meadows Massacre"*!!

~W

* "That which we have done here must never be construed as an acknowledgment of the part of the church of any complicity in the occurrences of that fateful day"
- President Gordon B. Hinckley, dedicating the monument at the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Sept. 11, 1999

quote: Before the bones were placed back into the earth in the wake of the abrupt change in a state antiquities permit, they had started to reveal their secrets. In a 30-hour, round-the-clock forensic marathon, Novak and her students at the U. managed to reassemble several of the skulls before BYU officials arrived early on the morning of Sept. 10 to take the bones away.
Her results, which are still being compiled for future publication in a scientific journal, confirm much of the documentary record. But they also provide chilling new evidence that contradicts some conventional beliefs about what happened during the massacre.
For instance, written accounts generally claim the women and older children were beaten or bludgeoned to death by Indians using crude weapons, while Mormon militiamen killed adult males by shooting them in the back of the head. However, Novak's partial reconstruction of approximately 20 different skulls of Mountain Meadows victims show:
-- At least five adults had gunshot exit wounds in the posterior area of the cranium -- a clear indication some were shot while facing their killers.. One victim's skull displays a close-range bullet entrance wound to the forehead;
-- Women also were shot in the head at close range. A palate of a female victim exhibits possible evidence of gunshot trauma to the face, based on a preliminary examination of broken teeth;
-- At least one youngster, believed to be about 10 to 12 years old, was killed by a gunshot to the top of the head.
Other findings by Novak from the commingled partial remains of at least 29 individuals -- a count based on the number of right femurs in the hundreds of pieces of bone recovered from the gravesite -- back up the historical record;
-- Five skulls with gunshot entrance wounds in the back of the cranium have no "beveling," or flaking of bone, on the exterior of the skull. This indicates the victims were executed with the gun barrel pointing directly into the head, not at an angle, and at very close range;
-- Two young adults and three children -- one believed to be about 3 years old judging by tooth development -- were killed by blunt-force trauma to the head. Although written records recount that children under the age of 8 were spared, historians believe some babes-in-arms were murdered along with their mothers;
-- Virtually all of the "post-cranial" (from the head down) bones displayed extensive carnivore damage, confirming written accounts that bodies were left on the killing field to be gnawed by wolves and coyotes."
endquote.
(http://www.cesnur.org/testi/morm_01.htm)

How's that blood atonement oath working out for you?? Are you going to slit my throat or spill my bowels?

I have karma to burn so I just want to correct a few errors from the previous posters:

The materials pertaining to this case have never been released. This means that according to the http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview .html the berne convention no-one but the author and/or owner of the work has /ANY/ rights to it.

In regards to music it goes as far as that no-one but the sing/songwriter is allowed to even listening to the song (of course the sing/songwriter can give you that right if they want).

This means that the only way this material can be posted on the net is if it is illegally obtained (ie stolen and since scanned), which is also the case.

Thus the argument that if you have views against an organization you can then link to illegally obtained materials which the berne convention insists no-one but the owner has any rights to then it is also perfectly legal in the netherlands to link to the stolen source code for windows 2000 (if the argument is valid, and not just because the person saying this has a personal beef against the complaining entity).

Also some people don't understand why Scientology does not want to broadly disseminate this material - their claim is, that no-one would be able to fully understand this material unless they had been spiritually enlightened enough. The same argument that buddhist monks have for keeping certain texts secret. In other words if you don't agree with the scientologists on this you also say that it's fine to steal the sacred and secret texts of buddhist monks and put them on the internet (probably that is a bit of a worse crime since some buddhist texts only exist in 1 copy and thus you would also make the texts unavailable to the owners).

Some people mentioned that L. Ron Hubbard made a lot of money - however all copyrights and trademarks are not owned by any Hubbard:
http://www.rtc.org/

Some people ask if the organization can be deemed terrorist or illegal - well the FDA and IRS tried this and failed:
http://opposing.scientology.org/31-irs.htm
Of course xenu.net and others would have you believe something else, but do they produce links and scans for the legal documents going back from 1952? No, only the IRS agreement between the church, it's organizations and the IRS. In fact this agreement constitutes an acknowledgement of IRS wrongdoings, which in xenu speak is just "if there ever where any" [in other words, the forgot to actively check that...].

If anyone wants to know what Scientology is they should consult CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, which is an international network of associations of scholars working in the field of new religious movements.

They have the following 3 articles on scientology which could be of interest:
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_davis.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_cowan.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_rigal.htm

Reading this post AND the links (guess thats too much to ask for on /. considering people seldom RTFA :P) should atleast give you a more balanced view about this story then anything elsa on this site.

I have karma to burn so I just want to correct a few errors from the previous posters:

The materials pertaining to this case have never been released. This means that according to the http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview .html the berne convention no-one but the author and/or owner of the work has /ANY/ rights to it.

In regards to music it goes as far as that no-one but the sing/songwriter is allowed to even listening to the song (of course the sing/songwriter can give you that right if they want).

This means that the only way this material can be posted on the net is if it is illegally obtained (ie stolen and since scanned), which is also the case.

Thus the argument that if you have views against an organization you can then link to illegally obtained materials which the berne convention insists no-one but the owner has any rights to then it is also perfectly legal in the netherlands to link to the stolen source code for windows 2000 (if the argument is valid, and not just because the person saying this has a personal beef against the complaining entity).

Also some people don't understand why Scientology does not want to broadly disseminate this material - their claim is, that no-one would be able to fully understand this material unless they had been spiritually enlightened enough. The same argument that buddhist monks have for keeping certain texts secret. In other words if you don't agree with the scientologists on this you also say that it's fine to steal the sacred and secret texts of buddhist monks and put them on the internet (probably that is a bit of a worse crime since some buddhist texts only exist in 1 copy and thus you would also make the texts unavailable to the owners).

Some people mentioned that L. Ron Hubbard made a lot of money - however all copyrights and trademarks are not owned by any Hubbard:
http://www.rtc.org/

Some people ask if the organization can be deemed terrorist or illegal - well the FDA and IRS tried this and failed:
http://opposing.scientology.org/31-irs.htm
Of course xenu.net and others would have you believe something else, but do they produce links and scans for the legal documents going back from 1952? No, only the IRS agreement between the church, it's organizations and the IRS. In fact this agreement constitutes an acknowledgement of IRS wrongdoings, which in xenu speak is just "if there ever where any" [in other words, the forgot to actively check that...].

If anyone wants to know what Scientology is they should consult CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, which is an international network of associations of scholars working in the field of new religious movements.

They have the following 3 articles on scientology which could be of interest:
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_davis.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_cowan.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_rigal.htm

Reading this post AND the links (guess thats too much to ask for on /. considering people seldom RTFA :P) should atleast give you a more balanced view about this story then anything elsa on this site.

I have karma to burn so I just want to correct a few errors from the previous posters:

The materials pertaining to this case have never been released. This means that according to the http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview .html the berne convention no-one but the author and/or owner of the work has /ANY/ rights to it.

In regards to music it goes as far as that no-one but the sing/songwriter is allowed to even listening to the song (of course the sing/songwriter can give you that right if they want).

This means that the only way this material can be posted on the net is if it is illegally obtained (ie stolen and since scanned), which is also the case.

Thus the argument that if you have views against an organization you can then link to illegally obtained materials which the berne convention insists no-one but the owner has any rights to then it is also perfectly legal in the netherlands to link to the stolen source code for windows 2000 (if the argument is valid, and not just because the person saying this has a personal beef against the complaining entity).

Also some people don't understand why Scientology does not want to broadly disseminate this material - their claim is, that no-one would be able to fully understand this material unless they had been spiritually enlightened enough. The same argument that buddhist monks have for keeping certain texts secret. In other words if you don't agree with the scientologists on this you also say that it's fine to steal the sacred and secret texts of buddhist monks and put them on the internet (probably that is a bit of a worse crime since some buddhist texts only exist in 1 copy and thus you would also make the texts unavailable to the owners).

Some people mentioned that L. Ron Hubbard made a lot of money - however all copyrights and trademarks are not owned by any Hubbard:
http://www.rtc.org/

Some people ask if the organization can be deemed terrorist or illegal - well the FDA and IRS tried this and failed:
http://opposing.scientology.org/31-irs.htm
Of course xenu.net and others would have you believe something else, but do they produce links and scans for the legal documents going back from 1952? No, only the IRS agreement between the church, it's organizations and the IRS. In fact this agreement constitutes an acknowledgement of IRS wrongdoings, which in xenu speak is just "if there ever where any" [in other words, the forgot to actively check that...].

If anyone wants to know what Scientology is they should consult CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, which is an international network of associations of scholars working in the field of new religious movements.

They have the following 3 articles on scientology which could be of interest:
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_davis.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_cowan.htm
http://www.cesnur.org/2004/waco_rigal.htm

Reading this post AND the links (guess thats too much to ask for on /. considering people seldom RTFA :P) should atleast give you a more balanced view about this story then anything elsa on this site.

Happens with nearly every adaptation of any existing book/comic book/game into a movie.
If JK.Rowling can chose not to make a movie with Spielberg any one can have creative control. But book authors are more interested in money than in the creative control. When they have the money in their pocket they complain about the creative process.

CESNUR - Centre for Studies on New Religions has quite a lot of information about Scientology:

SCIENTOLOGY: Documents and Updates from CESNUR

Go do a Google search on China and human rights abuses. Or go read the State Department's report on human rights violations.Go read about how they've jailed four university professors in the past three months, including three with US citizenship or residency, for no crime greater than spreading ideas against the state. They also jailed for a month the husband and 5 year old son of one of the academics, failing to inform the US that they had done so, even though both of these people are US Citizens! (This is a major violation of international law.)

Read about how they brutally suppress religions, including everything from Falun Gong to Christianity. Read about what they've done in Tibet. Not expansionist? Read about how they backed the establishments of Communist governments in Korea and Vietnam, and how they want to take back Taiwan after 50 years of independence.

Read about the silencing of free speach in Hong Kong, the crushing of student demonstrators in Tienanmen square, the censorship of the Internet throughout China, the control and manipulation of public opinion through their state news agencies.

Go read all that, and then tell me that you welcome China.