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Surprise Arrest For Online Scientology Critic
destinyland writes "An online critic of Scientology was confronted at a routine hearing Tuesday with surprise arrest warrants and thrown into jail. Six years as a fugitive ended in February. (After picketing a Scientology complex in 2000 over the unexplained death of a woman there, he'd been arrested for 'threatening a religion' over a Usenet joke about 'Tom Cruise Missiles.') But 64-year-old Keith Henson had been out on bail, and was even scheduled to address the European Space Agency conference on Space Elevators. He's a co-founder of the Space Colony movement, and one of the original researchers at Texas Instruments. In this interview he discusses both space-based solar energy and his war with the Scientologists — just a few days before he was arrested."
...can you be arrested for 'threatening a religion' ?!
Threatening a person, yeah, but a religion? If I express a wish that Christianity or Islam die out can I be arrested? What happened to America's much touted freedom of speech?
If you all insist on voting for people because of their religious affiliations (and indeed, expressly WOULDN'T vote for atheists) then what did you expect? Vote for religious people, and they protect religious ideas. No matter how perverse they are. To allow you to deride Scientology would risk allowing you to deride born again christians or catholics.
Why is it okay for a religion to threaten me with hell, but not okay for me to openly state that I'm trying to bring down a religion? Isn't it my state-given right to work to destroy unfavorable institutions so long as I work within the confines of the law?
A law against "threatening" a religion is a violation of my right to freedom of speech.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As a Christian, I don't like seeing people criticize my religion, but I certainly don't want them arrested for it! WTF makes scientology so damn important? The same could be said for Islam. Why is throwing a koran in the toilet a hate crime, but dumping a cross in a jar of urine not?
I don't want to see people arrested for criticizing Christianity and I sure as hell don't want to see people jailed for criticizing other religions either! Why is the free speech of non-Christians important than that of Christians??
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Not knowing all the particulars of the supposed threat he was posing to the religion, it strikes me as odd that this can cause him so much trouble with the law. If he had been criticizing Catholicism as vocally for instance, would the same have happened? So remind me which elements of free speech we're not supposed to exercise anymore? We're not allowed to criticize Scientology, certain liberal agendas, certain conservative agendas, what else?
u-bend
After reading that I'm surprised anyone dared to post anything in case they ended up in jail. Crazy, just crazy. Land of the free. Umm yeah.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Is Henson the only person to ever have this happen to them? Has anyone had the same treatment for speaking out against christianity, islam, judaism, buddhism, etc?
If so, who was it and what happened to them? If not, why?
How long until people wake up and realize that scientology is not a religion but a dangerous, money-grubbing, control-freak cult/business?
Name one other religion that refuses to open its documents so someone can look at them WITHOUT you having to pay to see them.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Scientology issue aside, since even the submission can't get the actual charge correct -- why is the European Space Agency requesting guidance from an enthusiast/crackpot with no relevant technical expertise?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Sadly, we are starting to expect it now. And I mean that in the least threatening way possible.
If you want to "ruin Scientology," don't approach it like that. Don't align yourself with anyone that might make you an easier target for their lawyers. Ask questions. Investigate yourself. Don't do anything mildly against the law. Present your findings to newspapers or publish them online, but do not turn to violent attitudes. If you expect to be taken seriously about it, don't joke about it and don't joke about things that people might take the wrong way.
These people have a lot of money and a lot of lawyers, you have to be smart and careful and cautious if you want to expose them for what you believe they are.
My work here is dung.
you beat enemies of free speech: religious fundamentalists, retarded ip laws, oppressive governments, etc. with more free speech
the only reason anyone would oppose free speech is if what they have to say would suffer if it had more scrutiny
scientologists have legions of zombie lawyers attacking anyone who infringes on their "intellectual property" and "religious principles" simply because if that crap got out in more general circulation, they would be revealed as the fascist ufo wackjobs they are
same with oppressive governments, same with ip lawyer whores
and so, in the spirit of the recent dmca take down notice on digg for a stupid numer, i would like to serve and support keith and attack the immoral, yet somehow, incredibly, legal basis for arresting him by serving his cause: posting stuff the church of scientology does not want posted
the digg number fiasco prompted wordwide press coverage. this should to:
it is the exact same issue
expand the digg number revolution folks. use everything that was used in the digg number fiasco and make it used again. weidl it as a weapon agains tthose who wish to censor in the name of fascist religious fundamentalism and corporate greed. let this revolution continue! let them fear us, not us fear them!
i will respond to this comment with another comment with text the church of scientology does not want known
slashdot may get attacked by me doing this, slashdot has been forced to remove comments before. i may be attacked too. i don't care, because i know i am in the right, and i know this is important, and i know i have support
the proper response to my post of the sensitive scientology information? post it some more yourself. post it and post it some more.
post it more, post it more, post it more. post it everywhere. post it a million times
scientology has legions of aggressive fanatical laywers, but we, who love free speech are yet legion more
i support free speech, do you? did the recent imbroglio over that stupid number on digg stoke your righteous indignation at censorship in the name of corporate idiocy? well this man was just arrested in the name of religious fundamentalism. you should be stoked at this too. it is the exact same thing. let's make the revolution over the digg number a permanent fixture on the internet. let's band together and in the same of social justice fight these censoring fascist assholes
the proper response to keith being arrested is bomb post every and all sensitive church of scientology material any of us can find. the more the material makes those fascist assholes squeal, the more it should be disseminated. digg, slashdot, fark, every and all sites you can find. bomb post away, bomb away, bomb away
this is important folks. if a man can be arrested for making a dumb joke on a newsgroup, any of us can. so all of us should band together and prove the futility of what scientology thinks they are doing: when someone is arrested for simply criticizing their stupid church then us on the internet will respond by hurting them where they hurt the most: the mass public airing of that which they deem so personal and sensitive
dear church of scientology and your legal whores: fuck you you fascist censoring pricks
this is war
fire away
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"After that you are supposed to telepathically communicate with these body thetans to make them go away. "
What happens to the thetans? Where do they go?
No matter where you go, there you are.
The #1 identifier of religion is that it is forbidden to laugh at certain things. And if it is forbidden to laugh at something, "unenlightened" empirical inquiry will also be forbidden.
Religion means that some hairless monkeys take themselves seriously, puff themselves up, and. above all else, stifle themselves so as not to burst out laughing at themselves.
From what I've read about Scientology, those people take themselves seriously. Consequently, Scientologists want to forbid all Scientology-related laughter. Therefore, Scientology is a religion.
Look, I am sorry, but if you are charged with a crime, you show up in court, and plead your case. Any judge with half his brain tied behind his back would have recognized this guys actions as free speech, and tossed his arrest. Then, he would have had a great civil rights suit against the police officers and the city for violation of his rights. But no...what this guy does is he flees the USA, because he thinks the scientologists are out to get him: "I couldn't be employed while I was trying to hide out from them. They have agents inside the IRS, so when you use your social security number, they just pull it and come and get you." I mean, come on, this guy is a complete nut job...give me a break. IHMO, he should be punished for not subjecting himself to the lawful authority of the court...but not punished for telling it like it is about the cult of Xenu.
Scientology just follows in a long tradition:
* Believe us or we'll set the spanish inquisition on you - Christianity
* Believe us or when you die you'll be in perpetual torment - Islam
* Believe us or we'll sue you to hell - Scientology
and the judge didn't allow him to introduce the bulk of his evidence ... he fled and claimed political asylum in Canada before sentencing ....I suspect you're wrong about the amount of the judge's brain tied behind his back.
Keith may be a bid odd, but he's not crazy - he realized he'd been railroaded by political pressure on the local DA - it's a small town in the desert dominated by a Scientology compound - the locals hate them and if Keith had been allowed to put the fact that it was Scientology he was picketing (rather than making it sound like a real church) the jury would have acquitted him
Threatening involves, at least according to our law books, the ability to actually realize what you suggest to do, usually to the disadvantage of another. When I threaten to kill you, I suggest that I will put what's in my power behind bringing you from life to death, which is, usually, within my powers.
... Well, then how much faith do you have in your own religion?
How do you "threaten" an idea? How do you "kill" an idea? That's impossible.
I can see, though, that people who try to wage a war against ideas (like terrorism, or like drugs) do actually believe they can kill an idea. But a religion?
To kill a religion, you'd either have to kill every single person whose faith is in this religion, or you have to convince everyone who believes that his religion is wrong. Now, the former is by its very definition impossible. Ya know, there was a nation about 60 years ago whose plan was exactly that. It costed millions of lives, but it did certainly not destroy the religion.
And for the latter, it would require your faithful followers to shrug off their faith. And if you're threatend by THAT
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When you read the entire version it sounds just as insane!
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
Flag Burning, "Fuck the Draft", First admendment law is not based off of inoffensive actions.
Speech that is not "thretening" generally needs no protection.
This is an idenfifyable group, but it not a small one so I doubt the exception for threating speech would apply.
The thing is, unconstitional laws happen, that is what courts are for, to make them go away.
This is not how I would choose to do battle with an orgnization I opposed, but it is not illegamitate.
Saying "be nice" undermines the key issue, that sometimes it will be nessacry to not be nice. That is why we protect people who aren't. It is hard to tell, contempriously, who is right.
DMCA take down? So is this a religion or a business?
If its a religion i say they forfit their IP rights. If they are a business, they need to forfit any benefits they get claiming as such.
Shouldnt be able to have it both ways, regardless of how silly they are ultimately, this 'dual protection' really should stop.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"I have to say that there is also the Freedom of Religion in the US. People have the right to worship as they choose without being harassed."
Somebody peacefully expressing ideas you disagree with is not "harrassment", although you may "feel harrassed". Get over it.
Do you really want to have the feelings of group X given the force of law and enforced against you, someday soon? (If you're conservative, let X === liberals, and vice-versa...)
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The right not to have Congress pass laws establishing or prohibititing religion has got nothing to do with how you feel about picketers outside your church. The first amendment constrains *Congress*, not the people.
Further, it seems to me that if I have the right to picket BoomBoomGenocide Corp, I have the right to picket even the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, let alone Scientology. Wouldn't ruling otherwise constitute an "establishment" of religion?
IANAL, and if that matters, let's get us some torches and pitchforks...
--
phunctor
Have *you* been touched by His Noodly Appendage?
Actually, yes, it's much less plausible, considering that the founder of the CoS was a mediocre sci-fi writer.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Atheists range from the "Everyone who believes something different than me is an idiot" crowd to the "People who believe something different are probably wrong, but most of them are nice people I respect" crowd. Unsurprisingly, the same came be said of Christians...
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Nice troll, there. Seriously nice. Well crafted, insidiously linking Islam to something else entirely, the whole deal. Fantastic stuff.
Scientology pushed for charges to be made against Keith. This isn't about Islam, or multiculturalism (as much as that word clearly hurts you), but about Scientology's doctrine of using the law to harass critics, even without a conviction, to silence or discredit them. If what you said was true - that multiculturalism is to blame - then the multicultural places around the world would be having the exact same problems as are being discussed here. As they're not, your trollish behaviour is nicely outed for us all to see.
9/10 for the post, though. Seriously good.
As opposed to, say, the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
if Keith had been allowed to put the fact that it was Scientology he was picketing (rather than making it sound like a real church) the jury would have acquitted him
This implies that its acceptable to picket Scientogoly(a fake church) while it is wrong to picket a "real" church, ie real as in christian? Just what kind of bigoted ridiculousness is this, no matter what church it is, it is acceptable(ie constitutionaly protected) to picket and protest its presence.
I don't get it either. We are Constitutionally guaranteed the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to protest has long been protected. No individual or organization has the right to not be offended. Shouldn't his action have been protected under the First Amendment? I would personally have looked into having my accuser prosecuted for violation of my civil rights.
i am a soviet space shuttle
L. Ron Hubbard was mostly likely insane, I'm not a psychologist, but I have spent much time helping mentally ill people recover, I think he was Schitzophrenic. Paranoid delusions, delusions of power, fear of psych meds... Why would he hate Psychatry so very much, unless he had contact with them? One disturbing thing I've seen is that Scientology activly recruits from mental hospitals!
Schitzophrenia has two sides, sometimes you feel terrible, like the entire world hates you; sometimes you feel like a god, immortal and wonderful. and when you are in each state, you can't even conceive the other one. I've seen people off their meds go from laughing giddy, to believing that they have never been happy in the space of 15 seconds.
If you take your meds, you lose the Highs, but also the Lows. because you lose the Highs, and are having paranoid delusions, it's common to think that the medications are bad, and the doctors are trying to poison you. (a belief of L. Ron's) Because of the auditory hallucinations, you may think your body is occupied by multiple entities (a belief of L. Ron's), and come up with a bizzarre world-view that attempts to explain the world that you are perceiving (Scientology or TimeCube)
One possible trait of Schitzophrenia is a difficulty producing 'normal' emotional responses, aka 'Flat Affect'. people with this symptom may appear emotionless, and disinterested (like the VT shooter, as he was decribed before the shootings). My personal thought is that someone with this symptom, if they are very smart, may be forced to 'fake' emotions in order to interact with others. this self-training from a young age could make someone a VERY good actor, as they have essentially acted their entire life. I suspect that Tom Cruise and possibly John Travola may be in this situation. Unfortunetly as they aged they may have started showing other signs of Schizophreneia, were urged to take medication, rebelled, and then joined a cult that supported their decision... Think about Tom on Oprah and a 'giddy high'. I think Tom Cruise is intelligent, and a great actor, but without meds he may get progressivly less sane.
No matter how smart you are, with a mental disorder warping your perceptions and emotions, eventually something bad may occur by doing something that seems entirely appropriate at the time. If your 'Angel' is telling you that someone is trying to kill you, and your angel is never wrong, shouldn't you attack them in self defense first? If your uncle has lung cancer, and you can 'see' where it is, shouldn't you take a kitchen knife and cut it out? A good friend of mine came to these conclusions, fortunetly nothing seriously wrong happened, and he's now on medications instead of prison for attempted murder, or worse. (like the VT shootings, where my conclusion is the guy went insane, and detached from society... without support of others he rereated into paranoid delusions that ended in a pre-emptive attack, which in his mind was fully justified)
Unfortunetly, it's difficult to seperate 'Mental Illness', from 'Religion'. So some mentally ill states have gained some protections under the law; I've read that in the Soviet Union, when they were being critisized for imprisioning to many people for disagreeing with the Party, they redefined mental illness so that disagreeing with the Party could result in your being declared mentally ill, and being locked up in a hospital; because any 'sane' person agrees with the Party. As much as the idea amuses me, I don't think voting republican should be grounds for be declared legally insane.
Scientology, However, is not just using the law as a Shield, they are using it as a Weapon, and abusing the process. This is entirely wrong, and needs to be stopped. Like false rape accusations damage the chances of real justice for real victims; if Scientology keeps abusing their position as a 'religion' it will harm other genuine religions.
This implies that its acceptable to picket Scientogoly(a fake church) while it is wrong to picket a "real" church, ie real as in christian? Just what kind of bigoted ridiculousness is this, no matter what church it is, it is acceptable(ie constitutionaly protected) to picket and protest its presence.
Just because you call something a religion doesn't mean it is. Scientology is a money-making scam, nothing more. That is not to say that there aren't any believers, but every scam has its believers.
But, yes, fake religions, real religions, real presidents, it doesn't matter, you should be allowed to protest it unless you are being a danger to the public safety (which this guy wasn't). For a nation that protects freedom of faith to such a degree the US is pretty poor at protecting freedom of protesting/speech.
Our constitutional protections don't help much when the court is subverted by a criminal organization with a lot of money to spend on subverting the process. Read about the case, and brace yourself for what you'll find out about how a court can be corrupted in a small town.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just because you call something a religion doesn't mean it is
OK, so what does make something a religon? What's the definition? I'm not disagreeing with you that Scientology is at best rather absurd, but I don't see any clear way of distinguishing it from other more conventional religions other than by number of belivers or age - neither of which seem fair ways to judge legitimacy to me.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
You may have noticed that Magneto eventually *lost* his campaign?
The world needs heroes. Mr. Henson seems to be one of them. I admire his courage, and those of people who speak out and act against fraud, corruption, theft, abuse, or murder. I also admire, respect, and support those who do so gracefully and within the rule of law: such people make better neighbors and colleagues for the long term. Mr. Henson's arrest for peaceful protest is, frankly, the result of lawyers who spend too much time being paid too much money to game the system and wear other people out.
The fight of Scientology on the Internet is particularly instructive: their attempts to censor traffic, and the spam with which they tried to flood traffic, have helped make ISP's think about how to avoid both censorship and denial of service attacks in ways that protect against other abusers. Like a really nasty case of chickenpox, the experience in the childhood of the net helped strengthen our defenses against a far more dangerous infection later.
> Shouldn't his action have been protected under the First Amendment?
Eh? What's that? Sounds like some antiquated 19th Century notion. Now we have Hate Crimes laws, Campaign Finace laws, attempts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, etc. Congress shall make no law..... just a fairy story, was never really there ya know. Anybody who says otherwise is just a dirty doubleplus ungood traitor.
Seriously, this crap is the end product of political correctness. Once we crossed the threshold into "Crime Think" it was only a matter of time before everybody could point to a situation where their ox was getting gored. Yea you might think it is just grand when you are wielding the sword to shut up somebody YOU don't want to listen to or some obnoxious protester who is really pissing you off, but sooner or later it gets wielded by somebody ya don't like and THEN you get all pissy. Sorry citizen, the time to have fought this war was when it was first getting started. Congress shall make NO law was a defensible line in the sand, Congress shall make no law that I don't like is a fight you will never win.
Democrat delenda est
"the Romans really did require everyone to return to the town of their birth to be taxed around 5 B.C." Nah. There's no evidence the Romans were that stupid, none at all. Or perhaps you can provide a link for this nugget of religiously believed disinformation? What would be the point of counting people where they were born rather than where they are now? And how would you know people went to the right place anyway? Why does only *one* of the four gospels mention it? It would have caused massive disruption for no good reason. And such a bizarre and irrational act would have left loads of traces in the Roman civil records and other literature. There are none.