Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
The threat he posed was to expose their idiotic (and expensive) teachings, their lies and to illustrate what a malignant mind control cult they really are. This made him their enemy and they have been hounding him with nuisance lawsuits ever since. Unfortunately for him he made some throwaway remark on a usenet forum about aiming a missile at their HQ and they somehow managed to get him prosecuted for making terrorist threats as well as interfering with a religion.
His unrelating persecution by scientologists to silence and even jail the guy show who the terrorists really are.
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
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.
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
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 ----
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.
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.
And other religions aren't pyramid schemes and cults?
I have no lost love for organized religion but name me another one that charges you money to learn the church doctrine. And I'm not talking about a collection plate. Name another religion that was started by a guy that came out and said "Starting my own religion would be a good way to make money".
If the Catholic Church operated like Scientology they would have a copyrighted version of the bible and charge you money to read it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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
Some atheists are kinda militant, but if it keeps that "intelligent design" bullshit out of science classrooms, I'm all for it. We've progressed past religion dictating education (they called it the Dark Ages for a reason, kids). Discuss it in theology, discuss it in other classes, but it has no place in a science book or classroom, because it's not science. But the ten commandments in a city park? Meh. No big deal, as long as the taxpayers didn't pay for it, and aren't paying for the upkeep, and I could theoretically fund a statue of Baron d'Holbach with a plaque saying "There is no God" in the same way. What is that, I can't? Guess there's still disparity then.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
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.
I hate to make digs at the Roman Catholic Church, but once upon a time, it was against Church rules for laymen to read the Bible. Only the Priests could do so.
Fair enough, but as I said in another post of mine, I don't think that past excesses or abuses by modern religions justify the practices of Scientology. We should oppose their actions regardless of what other religions have done in the past.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
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"
"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.