Anti-Scientology Site Shut Down

Mirele writes "The owner of www.xenu.net, the most comprehensive anti-Scientology website on the Net, reported on alt.religion.scientology that the site was shut down after the ISP received a letter from Scientology's Religious Technology Center alleging trademark infringement. The heart of RTC's complaint is that xenu.net uses their trademarks, the words 'Scientology,' 'Dianetics,' and 'Hubbard,' in the metatags." A look at the legal history shows that all the cases that were won involved trademarked terms in meta tags that did not appear on the webpage; that does not appear to be the case here. When Playboy unsuccessfully sued a Playmate for metatagging the term "Playmate," she countersued; does anyone know what the result was? Update: 11/19 03:00: The site's back up.

Comments

Diffrence with the Playboy case

[Zachary Kessin]

The big difference is that people where using the terms "Playboy" and "Playmate" to try and atract customers to their web sites. Imaging starting a new Newspaper and calling it "The New York Times" the real New York Times would have a good reason to say no you can't do that. Whereas it would be perfectly OK for another newspaper to publish an article critical of the New York Times.

Trademark law is desinged so that if you have a product noneone else will start a compeating product with a similar name. It does not provent similar products. Or other people from using your name in the press (online or otherwise)

Re:Diffrence with the Playboy case

[smileyy]

The Playboy case would be more analagous to a journalist putting up a web site and advertising themselves as "a New York Times journalist", which, if it were true, would be valid (well, I don't think the court has ruled in the Playboy case, aside denying Playboy's attempt at a preliminary injunction)

Terri Welles /was/ a Playboy Playmate, and as such, is allowed to call herself that wherever she chooses.

Re:Diffrence with the Playboy case

[nevets]

But I believe that the main difference in this case is that www.xenu.net was just using the terms in Meta tags. Now I know there has been a lot of arguements about what goes in these tags, but I always thought the purpose of these tags were to state the topic of the web page. Now if people constantly sue over what goes in these tags, then we will still have to rely on the actual content. And thus go back in progress.

They are not using the term Scientology to compete with them. But to actually talk about them. A better analogy would be to say that another paper started writing articles about the New York Times. Can the New York Times sue because they are using their name? Its not to be confusing but actually the opposite. They are using the Scientology name to show EXACTLY who they are talking about.

Steven Rostedt

History doesn't matter

[rde]

There could be thousands of cases thrown out of court in the past, and that wouldn't stop the scientologists. They're greedy, amoral people whose only hope for maintaining their hold on their victims is through lawsuits; they's sue anyone, anywhere, anyhow. If they lose, they take it to a higher court.
I realise that in America this is nothing unusual, but the scientologists have it down to a fine art.

As a matter of interest: if I have a page on nursery rhymes and I have the word 'Hubbard' in my metatags (as well as 'Humpty' and 'Nantucket'), will I be sued?

Re:History doesn't matter

[Outland Traveller]

Why is this marked as "Funny"? (And where are those moderator points when you need them?) If you do even the smallest bit of research into scientology you will find that these accusations are true, and only scratch the surface of criticism one can give against the Scientologists.

Some of their beliefs would in fact be funny if they were not destroying people's lives and abusing our (US) public institutions.

-OT

Re:History doesn't matter

[greenfly]

I'm guessing the moderator was referring to the final sentence of that comment as "funny". Although if I had any points it would have seen a +1 for Insightful rather than funny, oh well.

Re:History doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, in this case, you don't have to worry about the "our == U.S." bit - the Scientologists abuse public institutions all over the world. Weren't they the ones that got that Finnish anonymous e-mailer/news poster shut down a few years ago?

I'd advise anyone criticizing them to post AC, like me.

Re:History doesn't matter

[dirty]

Yup that was them. That was a really weird situation too. People tried to shut anon.penet.fi down because a lot of kiddie porn passed through it. That failed. But when people used it to critisize the scientologists...poof it went. I personally find their behavior childish and terrifying. I wonder how long it will be before I have a lawyer calling me up.

Re:History doesn't matter

[scrytch]

> If they lose, they take it to a higher court.

Actually, they do not. The entire cult of scientology could be destroyed by a single hostile ruling from a high court. The Ku Klux Klan, for instance, is more or less defunct as an organization in some areas, because of a court ruling (and some really screwy technicalities). Whether or not you agree with the logic, scientology knows the risk of losing in a federal court, or, L.Ron forbid, the supreme court.

What they do is get around the law. After a court kept public documents in place when they were challenged by the scientologists, they now have cult members dedicated to doing nothing but keeping the materials checked out and in circulation all the time so the public can never see it.

Futile, really... The Cult of Scientology is already the object of ridicule in the USA, outright hostility in Germany (having been relegated to the same political realm as Nazis), ineffectiveness in the area of information control, and one of the biggest makers of martyrs since McCarthy.

I know the cult reads slashdot. You're going down.

Re:History doesn't matter

[DanMcS]

What they do is get around the law. After a court kept public documents in place when they were challenged by the scientologists, they now have cult members dedicated to doing nothing but keeping the materials checked out and in circulation all the time so the public can never see it.
That'll be a little harder to do if the US court system ever joins the modern era and puts documents online en mass. Maybe the good cultists will just run DoS attacks then ;)

Re:History doesn't matter

[Darth Hubris]

It seems that the Curch of Scientology could be invesitaged under RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act].

Whatever good intentions L. Ron Hubbard had have been twisted and perverted, although from a recent Investigative Reports on A&E, he started a lot of that himself.

They're incredibly secretive about their teachings, they harass anyone that voices opinions, and have a long history or dirty dealings. It does sound like a cult to me.

Re:History doesn't matter

[llywrch]

>> If they lose, they take it to a higher court.
>
>Actually, they do not. The entire cult of scientology could be destroyed by a single hostile ruling from a high court.

Were that possible.

Several high-ranking members of the CoS (including Hubbard's own wife) were arrested, tried & convicted of staging their own espionage against US government agencies in the late seventies. (The CoS has been investigated time & again by the FDA & the IRS.) It was an activity worthy of the KGB, & is why one spokesperson has stated that the CoS has an intelligence agency that is second only to the FBI.

And if you ask a devoted Scientologist about this, if you get any sort of answer, he or she will mutter that they don't do that sort of thing anymore, you shouldn't hold them responsible for prior acts, & that all they did was misuse a few photocopiers.

And what about the IRS? For about 20 years the IRS & the CoS were engaged in a life-or-death battle over the CoS' tax status, which was settled with much secrecy in 1992. Six years later, the Wall Street Journal finally uncovered the terms of this settlement which can be summarized in four words: the IRS caved in. I guess filing over 2000 suits aginst the IRS & every known employee will do that.

Imagine organizing several thousand people to dig a hole from Kansas to China -- & actually having dug several miles into the ground, despite cave-ins, privation, exposure to open weather & being unable to solve the problem of where to put the soil & rock moved. That is the kind of fanaticism & stupidity that the CoS demonstrates on a daily basis -- & with similar results. Except a hole to China would have some value as a tourist attraction: only the most twisted would visit Clearwater, Florida to see what the CoS have done to that once sleepy town.

I have had trouble writing this post because I find I keep writing things about the Cos that can be summarized by ``They are **weird**, man. They are so weird that you have to see what they do to believe it. And they get away with all of this weird stuff because no one believes they do it!" And I have seen what they have done, read the accounts, & it leaves me speechless.

>I know the cult reads slashdot. You're going down.

Eventually they will go down. This group grinds thru people at an appalling rate, & the pool of people they can recruit from is growing smaller. However, they will destroy countless families, lives, & companies before then.


Geoff

Re:History doesn't matter

[Abigail-II]

That'll be a little harder to do if the US court system ever joins the modern era and puts documents online en mass.

Been there, done that, *did* get a t-shirt [1]. That has has happened several years ago. Scientology sued. "Secret documents" became court documents. Scientology people checked out the documents everyday at 9, returning them at 5. However, they didn't realize the documents were also available online. Documents got copied to several websites. Including to a personal site of a Dutch provider. Scientology decided to raid the provider, trying to shut down the machine. Provider said "well, what the customer puts on their site is their business - if you have a court order, we shut down the machine; we will not yank the customers pages. Customer yanked to pages himself. However, the story quickly came out and within days said documents were copied more than 100 times, to allmost all Dutch ISPs. The action was organized by someone who had the pages at an ISP which was owned by the Dutch telco. Scientology decided to sue all Dutch ISPs involved, except for the one owned by the Dutch telco. Which the Dutch telco didn't really appreciate, and they made sure they got sued as well. Which was good, so all the small ISPs didn't have to pay big lawyers - the Dutch telco took care of that. Of course, Scientology stalled, withdrew most of their claims shortly before the court case, and didn't win any point in court.

[1] The shirt makes for interesting conversation pieces....

-- Abigail

wget

[dattaway]

That was a good site. Anybody got a mirror of it?

...

[Signal 11]

I'm not suprised. Scientology is not a religion - it's a huge political grab for power. It's also a complete joke. God is allegedly their leader, and in order to reach higher levels of "enlightenment" you're required to pay absolutely huge sums of money to the perveyors of this "religion". There isn't another religion on the planet that protects it's holy books from outsiders and requires huge fees to purchase them. Infact, I have people banging down my door to give me free copies of their holy books!. Bleh. Just another example of what happens when you fuse politics, idiots, and religion together...

Am I being alittle insensitive here? Flamebait? Yeah, probably. But these people are more annoying than Rush Limbaugh when quoting statistics...

--

Re:...

[Signal 11]

... I'm should have been more clear on that third sentence. Their leader believes he's god, and at the "highest" level of enlightenment, this is supposedly revealed to you.
--

Re:...

[logicTrAp]

Except scientology is even more bizarre than what you described - many "religions" have leaders who claim to be god or whatnot, but from what I remember their beliefs include stuff like
o The earth was seeded thousands of years ago for life by some alien warlord
o Said warlord will someday return to earth for some reason or another.
o There is an intergalactic war that's been going on for a few thousand years and the earth is somehow involved.
It's sad that scientology is as popular as it is.

Re:...

[Stonehand]

...and don't forget the celebrity appeal. IIRC, the Scientology folks have a habit of recruiting 'ollywood folks as members and spokespeople, although who's to say that they're being bilked as much as everybody else...

It might amuse y'all to know that there was, and probably still is, a Scientology office within walking distance of MS main campus in Bellevue, WA... both would appear to be profit-motivated, but only one admits it.

[Is Germany still cracking down on them? They once started treating it basically as a cult, but I seem to remember that some politcos over on this side of the pond got involved.]

That's 'bout the only physical presence of theirs I've personally seen; AFAIK, they've never recruited hear at Carnegie Mellon.

Re:...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's even screwier than that. A race of aliens known as the Thetans died on Earth billions of years ago. Their spirits have been haunting the planet ever since; it is their influence that causes all the bad things that humanity has done (Hitler, etc...).

Part of Scientology is how to get rid of the Thetans influence in your life.

Me, I blame Heinlein for the Scientologists. He and Hubbard had a bet over which one of them could start a major religion first. Guess who won?

-- Posting as an AC for reasons of safety and paranoia

Re:...

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, Scientology tried to become an official church in Germany, but the status was denied (the tax benefits of being a church are fantastic).

The Verfassungsschutz (a body to protect the constitution) has monitored Scientology for some time. There is however currently no motivation to prohibit the movement.

Re:...

[realdpk]

It might amuse y'all to know that there was, and probably still is, a Scientology office within walking distance of MS main campus in Bellevue, WA... both would appear to be profit-motivated, but only one admits it. The Scientology office is still there, I just passed it the other day. I wonder how many MS people they recruit in a day.

Re:...

[Anonymous Coward]

God is allegedly their leader

Actually, God isn't their leader, Hubbard is their leader..

Just another example of what happens when you fuse politics, idiots, and religion together

Actually, a better description would be that it's what happens when you get a "religion" that's created by a sci-fi writer.. (If you've read any of the secret "doctrine", it reads like a REALLY BAD sci-fi novel... in a nutshell, a few million years ago, an evil alien overlord who was enslaving the universe took a few million of his enemies, tied them up (here on Earth) around a semi-active volcano, and fired some A-bombs into the volcano to get it to go off.. now the souls of those enemies are caught in Earth's gravity (or something stupid like that) and "stick" to us earthlings, causing all of human pain and misery.)

You can only get rid of the ones sticking to you by paying the church large sums of cash, (apparently the "clingons" or whatever they're called don't like sticking to stupid people? :o)

The above info was garnered from the Swedish court records.. (scientologists sued someone there for copyright infringement, trying to keep their secret... unaware that as soon as you do that, the offending documents become a permanent part of the public record - unlike here where a trial judge can rule that the records be kept confidential.)

No Free Speach!

[meckardt]

What this really amounts to is the Scientology crowd is trying to use the legal system to shut out controvertial talk against it. You can bet that if there were a site singing the praises of dianetics, etc, using the exact same words, that there would never be a suit.


Mike Eckardt meckardt@yahoo.nospam.com

Re:No Free Speach!

[korc]

Or that if someone did file a suit against it, the "Church" would countersue. This "Church" is the most disturbing display of man's inhumanity that I've seen...of course if you believe you're an alien being just trapped here on Earth, I guess it's not inhumanity, is it? :-)

I wish getting hackers to do anything coherent were not like herding cats---there are more of us than them, and we're smarter! (Justified by our belief in ourselves rather than a figment of a socially immature man's imagination.) Maybe if we just ignore them, they'll go away.

Its mirrored

[SoftwareJanitor]

Looks like it is already mirrored, so it appears that the Co$ is not getting their way in silencing their critics. Actually, what will most likely happen, given what I've seen lately, is that this information will end up being hosted on more sites after being shut down than it was before. The Co$ is shooting themselves in the foot, again.

Poor little clams. Snap snap snap.

Re:Its mirrored

[Derek Pomery]

Where's the mirror? I don't see a link?
Did the mirror remove the offending meta tags?
And if so, why can't xenu.net do the same and avoid
the whole lawsuit hassle?

Re:Its mirrored

[soren.harward]

my mirror's here

Re:Its mirrored

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another copy (http://www.chaos.org/clambake/clambake-disk.zip) of the clambake lite site. If you want to read the actual files w/o downloading it, go to http://www.chaos.org/clambake/

*NIX, anyone?

[cswiii]

I guess we'll be seeing terms like Sc*entlogy and H*bbard, now.

seriously, though, I wonder how hard it is to fight the Sc*entologists in court. Celebrities generally have pretty deep pockets.

The usenet article referred to...

[sparks]

Is here.

Re:The usenet article referred to...

[SweenyTod]

Try and keep in mind that this is an organisation that brought the IRS down. The mighty government department caved in, and made all sorts of secret deals, just to keep them away. Judges have asked to be removed from cases, rather than suffer the harrasement that comes from being involved with them. Their war chest is in the millions, and they have around a 100 lawyers on their staff. No normal organisation can compete with that, and the individual is completly destroyed by them. Has the drug taking Hubbard said, "Never defend - always attack." And they do.

Re:The usenet article referred to...

[weave]

Funny, when I pulled up the article, DejaNews asked me to rate an Oster Breadmaker. It must have used "clam" as a keyword and thought this was a cooking discussion! :)

Not a surprising move by the Scientologists

[festers]

I checked out this site a couple weeks ago (I think I found the link here in a /. post) After a brief reading of the emails he'd received, it was clear they were out to get him as much as he was out to expose them. I'm angered that his ISP would shut it down. There have been other examples of this on /., but it proves once again that there is no justice in the legal system: those with money call the shots. Because he could probably never afford to fight Scientology in court he will never get the chance to prove them wrong. Any belief that everyday people have "rights online" is just a delusion.

Censorship & Scientology

[Anonymous Coward]

The Scientologists have a length history of literally destoying those who publicly try to discredit them and their ideas. They have a lot of money and alot of members in high places.

I used to be involved with the "Church" of Scientology, and my opinion that it is all bull shit and all they want is your money.

Some people might say the same is true of Christian churches, but you can goto a Christian church for 20 years and not give 1 cent. Not so with Scientology. They are far more predatory than other group I have been involved with, or heard about.

I am not familiar with the Trademark laws that the Sceintologists are using in this case, but as long as you do not claim them as your own, whats illegal about it? Sounds like censorship to me for sure.

For those who are thinking about getting involved with Scientology (or Dianetics, which is Phase I - brainwashing) please do not. Once they get their claws in you, leaving will be difficult.

Re:Censorship & Scientology

[Anonymous Coward]

It amuses me that a Scientology online-campaign slogan is,

'Find out for yourself.'

The religion is one thing -- I'm sure that it has helped people through difficult times in their life, and I'm glad to hear success stories. Attacking the religion isn't going to get critics anywhere.

Now, the practices of the organization is an entirely different matter.

Note to anyone attending pickets against Scientology -- be aware that members often photograph demonstrators.

Scientology? Isn't that the L. Ron Hubbard Religon

[BradyB]

Since when do religions have trademarks? I'm sure it's possible. It just makes me laugh that they are sueing someone who is against them. They were probably just waiting for a reason to pounce on these people. What is Scientology anyway? It just seems that actors and rich people on in this religion, I guess that means they have enough to afford court costs.

It's about time Scientology got shut down

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just another in a long list of abuses by the criminal organization which is the Scientology establishment. They have been using quasi-legal and downright unlawful methods to harass and silence their critics and ex-members for years. The list of documented abuses keeps getting longer and longer.

Since Scientology operates as a criminal gang, it is subject to the kinds of punishments afforded drug smugglers and fraud rings. It is time for its victims and the government to get together and comprehensively take it apart. Under criminal and civil RICO laws, the organization can be broken up and its principals sent to prison, where they belong. The organization has vast wealth which can be used to pay damages to its victims, and nearly every one of its low-level practitioners (current or ex) falls into that category.

Re:It's about time Scientology got shut down

[flatrock]

As long as they are considered a religion, no one will mess with them. The Constitution protects freedom of religion, and Scientology has got a lot of money to spend on lawyers and propoganda.

*growl*

[seizer]

This group make m fantastically angry on a painfully regular basis. I've seen a friend's life messed up by their mind-fucking "religious philosophy", although he's through it now; I've seen them close down anon.penet.fi (anyone remember that?); I've seen them try to cancel the newsgroup... the list of their attempts to censor all commentary is a long one.

And yet nothing seems to happen! What can we do!

I think a good long "aaargh" is in order

I have no money, sue me if you want


--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me

Re:*growl*

[Indomitus]

I remember anon.petet.fi pretty fondly. That was the first example I remember on the net of somebody doing something that had integrity on the net, he wouldn't give up his lists of users for anything for a long time until the CoS bullied him into it.
I love seeing all these celebrities talking about how great Scientology has been for them and how they can't imagine why people don't like it, then there's something like this. The CoS is like the NRA for me, the leadership is full of such asses and extremist jerks that it gives the few members I know a bad name. I'm sure not all CoS members are as against free speech as the leadership but I never see them standing up against it. If your religion is so great, why does it need lawyers to defend itself against speech? Speech should be defend against by more speech, not by using dirty tricks to shut up the other person.

Re:*growl*

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your friend still needs help. I couldn't get through his story with all the jargon he's throwing around.

Re:*growl*

[Rakarra]

anon.penet.fi was a wonderful place. I used to have an account on there... I knew it was shut down, but I had no idea it was because of Scientology bastards. It just seems to be an organization you just can't do anything about. For the time being, they seem to be legal untouchables because they're so amazingly aggressive, and no one wants to trample on a "religion."

Re:*growl*

[Abigail-II]

I remember anon.petet.fi pretty fondly. That was the first example I remember on the net of somebody doing something that had integrity on the net, he wouldn't give up his lists of users for anything for a long time until the CoS bullied him into it.

CoS bullying "him" (too bad I can't remember this name) doesn't do him justice. He never gave in to CoS. He had to give in to the Finnish justice - and he did, kicking and screaming.

Shutting down his service was the least of the two evils he was facing.

-- Abigail

Re:*growl*

[nine9]

Yeah well... That's the big problem of cults like this... They start messing around with your use of language so that in the end you even owe your thoughts to them... My site is back up now, though it's getting a major facelift nine9

Not Surprising - Scientology Has Done this Before

[Sorklin]

Remember the anon.petit.fi (or whatever it was) the anonymous remailer was shut down by scientology. The scientologist have been harrasing and trying to shut down websites left and right so that the only time someone can mention scientology at all is when they are part of the church. Xenu.com had a tremendous amount of information on this cult. And that's what threatened them. Xenu and those that ran it are considered the scientologist equivalent of heretic, and just like the old days of christianity, the doctrine is to do anything to harrass the heretics. This is just one form they have chosen to use.

This cult is just another force that wants to take away your rights. Learn more about it online by reading the scientology newsgroups. But remember that those groups are being harrassed as well.

Stranger in a strange land.

[cruise]

Has anyone read Stranger in a strange land? The scientologists remind me of one of the religeons in this book.

The best part is, L. Ron made the whole thing up!

L. Ron was a science fiction writer making a penny a word. He was known for his writing style of attaching his typewriter to a roll of paper on the wall and producing a SCI-FI novel in an evening.

It is said that Dianetics was written in a weekend in this style and (over drinks with his peers) he announced that he was going to start a religeon.

Well he did just that, and he did a pretty damn good job of it to. Personally the thought that humans evolved form clams makes me giggle but hay, if thats what you wanna believe more power too ya.

I've heard of some pretty sinister things these folks can do. Hopefully this positng won't get me a dead cat in the mail.

Re:Stranger in a strange land.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I remember a bit of a H*bbard interview before his religion was created :
(quoted from memory)
Journalist : Do you whope to get rich by writing ?
H*bbard : No. If I wanted to get rich, I would start a religion.

F**K Scientology

[Jerom]

Well I gues that shows how close to the truth
that guy from www.xenu.net actually was...
Scientologist do have brains the size of dried
grapes. (that's a free interpretation)

To the XENU-guy:
You scared the hell out of those nutcakes, keep
up the good work.

P.S. Hey Scientology-guys,
I called a few of my scientist-friends, and
as soon as the university lawyer can be reached
we'll sue you for abusing the term "science"

Mooohahhhahhaha

P.P.S. stupidity is no excuse, screw 'em I say...

Re:F**K Scientology

[arcade]

Well I gues that shows how close to the truth that guy from www.xenu.net actually was...

Actually, I don't think there was anything NOT true there. :) Andreas Heldal-Lund is a great heathen guy. He's been working against scientology for years now. He's the leader of the norwegian heathen society in Stavanger / Norway.

Scientologist do have brains the size of dried grapes. (that's a free interpretation)

You're giving them FAR too much credit.



--

Re:F**K Scientology

[Abigail-II]

Scientologist do have brains the size of dried grapes. (that's a free interpretation)
You're giving them FAR too much credit.

You got that wrong. The people of Scientology are smart. Very smart. Smarter than the average person.

And that's what makes them so dangerous.

-- Abigail

Religion or corporation?

[Medieval]

The Church of Scientology should be legally forced to declare whether they are a religion or a corporation.

If they are a religion, then they can't trademark 'their' words, phrases, and ideas.

If they are a corporation, then they don't get tax sheltered.

The CoS is the Amway of the religious world.

Its all about the dollar signs, kids.

(Scientology, Hubbard, Dianetics. Sue me.)

Re:Religion or corporation?

[Anonymous Coward]

For years, the IRS declared them not to be a tax exempt religion. Then suddenly the IRS reversed themselves and gave the "church" the religious organization tax exemption. Makes you wonder what their (the Scientologists') investigators discovered about officials within the IRS, that made them change their minds!

"Hubbard" is trademarked?

[jd]

Beware all nursary rhyme web sites! Thou art prohibited to mention any old mothers going to cupboards, to get their poor dog a bone, for doing so will bring down the righteous wrath of the *deleted to avoid trademark infringement*'s!

Seriously, neither trademark law, nor copyright law, permits the respective holder absolute right. Fair use (such as for reviews, commentary, satire, etc) are ALWAYS lawful. Copyright and trademarks also automatically expire when something becomes common usage.

IMHO, a person's name is about as "common usage" as you can get! The other words might be pushing it a bit, but probably fall into that category as well. It's not like anyone owns the suffix "-ology". (If they did, it would piss off the biologists a bit. Generally, irking the guys who play around with gene splicing and deadly viruses is not considered the healthiest sport in the world.)

Frankly, I'd tell the guys to counter with a slander & defamation of character suit (though I'd find a lawyer who worked on a no win/no fee basis). It is arguable that their good names and characters have been besmirched by the arguably false accusation that they willingly violated trademark laws.

Even if they lost (quite likely, given America's fondness for lawsuits & free speech, regardless of consequence), it might make trigger-happy power-players stop and think, for a moment. Being seen as going after the "Bad Guys" is Good Publicity. Being seen as a rival for the "Sherrif of Nottingham" is not.

The sooner the worm turns, the better. Because it will, sooner or later, if it keeps getting trodden on. It's just better for everyone if it's sooner.

Re:"Hubbard" is trademarked?

[Spud Zeppelin]

If memory serves, US trademark law explicitly forbids trademarking a term which is a "personal name", specifically to avoid issues like who was using "Smith" first. But, typically (like crappy patents) the trademarks get registered and then have to be overturned.

Taking this a step further than the "old mother" from the nursery rhyme, I recall a Hubbard Road in rural Idaho that presumably predates L. Ron (and was probably named for SOMEONE), and it occurs to me that there's a reasonably famous (!?) Glenn Hubbard running around these days (baseball pitcher?).

This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.

Re:"Hubbard" is trademarked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why is Billy Joel a registered trademark?

Re:"Hubbard" is trademarked?

[davidbro]

"Billy Joel," when used to describe the author or the performance of music, is a trademark. It's so that someone else cannot package up some random music and then print "Billy Joel" on it to sell it. The argument is that there are specific associations with "Billy Joel" and music, and so Mr. Joel has acted to prevent "dilution of brand."

And of course, he admits that it IS about profit, as well as musical integrity.

Re:"Hubbard" is trademarked?

[Danse]

What if someone else is a musician named Billy Joel? Would he have the right to prevent them from using their own name on their album? I know it's highly unlikely that it would happen, I'm just curious to know how well they've thought these things out.

Re:"Hubbard" is trademarked?

[Erik Hollensbe]

The utter irony.. I was just going over this with someone else earlier...

Most artists guilds require that you use a unique name to be in said guild.

For instance, there is a vaudeville actor named Dennis Miller. When the actors guild found out, they asked that either the vaudeville actor or the comedian Miller change their name.

Obviously because no one in today's world really knows the vaudeville Dennis Miller, he subsequently changed his "stage name" to reflect his middle initial (which i forget).

A name CAN be trademarked if it there is a reasonable amount of association with it. Technically, Bill Gates could easily copyright his name since it is almost synonymous with Microsoft. All this would do is prevent someone else from using the name "Bill Gates" in reference to any non-Microsoft product, of course, with the exception to the "Fair Use" provisions.

IANAL, but AFAIK this is how it works. Anyone care to correct/flame/sic a team of police and rich zealots on me about it?

-Erik-

Re:"Hubbard" is trademarked?

[Danse]

Thanks. That cleared a few things up.

Technically, Bill Gates could easily copyright his name since it is almost synonymous with Microsoft.

Yeah, guess that's true. Think we could still use the name "Billgatus of Borg" in relation to products without getting sued? :)

Anyone got a new home for the site?

[AugstWest]

It's really the ISP that's cowering here. Anyone out there with the gonads (or ovum) to host this site?

Re:Anyone got a new home for the site?

[Frozen Shade]

I co-own a web hosting buisness, and we'd be happy to host MacAspen.com

Re:Anyone got a new home for the site?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Anyone out there with the gonads (or ovum) to host this site?

Technically yer redundant, gonads are the reproductive organs of either sex (specifically testes or ovaries)

All right all right, i go now.

Something similar (and very funny)...

[Anonymous Coward]

Visit this site. I hear that Playboy is suing for the usual trademark infingement and blah, blah...

--
laddo

For the record, the playmate won.

[mbauser2]

The NY Times story on the Playboy suit explains it nicely, but the summary is: She really had been a Playboy playmate, so it was legal for her to say so on her web site. (Imagine if she lost. People could get sued for posting résumés that contained copyrighted words.)

I've never looked at xenu.net, but I suspect the Playboy v. Terri Welles case is at least partially relevant: If Playboy can't prevent ex-playmates from saying they were Playboy, Scientology shouldn't be able to prevent ex-Scientologists from saying they were in the Church of Scientology, and so forth.

The real problem here is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA encourages the yanking of web sites based on accusations, not legal findings of fact. The Act's authors put far too much faith in corporations' ability to act responsibly.

Re:For the record, the playmate won.

[Damoclese]

Yes, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. was used by the Scientology cult to get the identity of an individual posting in alt.clearing.technology called "Safe." They claimed to AT&T thyat Mr. Safe had violated their copyrights and AT&T simply handed over his identity regardless of the fact that it was against his Constitutional rights, the fact that no copy right violation had taken place, and the fact that the cult's ringleaders had been trying to years to acquire his identity to shut him up after discussing his detailed knowledge of the internal working of the cult.

in France, scientology --> jail :-)

[renoX]

Slightly off-topic, but as we are talking about scientology, I have a good news.

In France, a menber of a scientology organisation has been sentenced to jail ... Some proof were misteriously distroyed before the judgement, but he was still sent to jail :-) And there is a pending request to ban the scientology organisation ...

Let's hope scientology will be banned here.

Re:in France, scientology --> jail :-)

[DanMcS]

Let's hope scientology will be banned here.
Let's hope not. No matter how much I disagree with someone (in the case of these crackpots, a whole lot), I would not wish to ban them.

• It would make them more popular. Free publicity, they can claim oppression by the man, scream that their freedom of religion is being taken away, the whole nine yards. Anything that is banned gains a certain mystique. Then, they could tie up most any country in court for decades, and would.
• I would not want _anyone_ to be banned from expressing their religious views. Just make them declare as either a religion or a business, similar to what was done to the Christian Coalition here in the US (well, that was political, but same idea), and force them to stick to it.

Banning is not the solution.

Re:in France, scientology --> jail :-)

[Myddrin]

And there is a pending request to ban the scientology organisation ... Let's hope scientology will be banned here.

Is this really what we want? The people who joing this cults tend to be 1) more intelligent than average, 2) very idealistic, 3) want to help solve the world's problems. [I'm going to have to a blanket reference here to The Margaret Singer Foundation hopefully still there, this has been found in several studies of former cult members.]

The individuals in a cult are not nescessarily evil or bad. Some of the things they do are evil because they are in essense brainwashed. In other words, the members aren't evil individually, collectively they can do a great deal of harm to other individuals and to communities, governments and so on.

But do we want to ban them? Do we want to cross the line that Hitler crossed?

If so, how do we prevent non-Cult religions from being banned because they practice "strange and bizarre rituals"? (mediation, chanting, ritualistic canabalism...{ahem}...and so on, an important question to myself, a Buddhist).
We need to reach a balance between preventing harm and religious tolerance.

Disclaimer: My brother started trancenet.org , a cult tracking website. He is the one who first raised these concerns to me.
Also, according to discussions I had with an anon scientologist in '95 I was declared an SP (suppressive person) sometime in '94-'95 due to my participation in alt.religion.scientology... but I have no confirming evidence...

(So if you are a scientologist, you are currently out-tech just by reading this post that is trying to be tolerant!)

Re:in France, scientology --> jail :-)

[David Gerard]

Let's hope scientology will be banned here.

Is this really what we want?

It's an idea that won't work anyway. Australia tried banning Scientology in the '60s, and it just didn't work to get rid of them. You can read some press articles from the '60s on the subject here.

My main critics' page is here.

Also: going up against $cientology is entertaining and invigorating. They make out that they are the toughest bullies around, but stand up to them and they shrink away.

Re:in France, scientology --> jail :-)

[Nicolas MONNET]

I sincerely hope they'll be banned, just as the mafia is banned, the NSDAP is banned, the KKK is banned, and the fundamentalist muslims are banned. There is no room for misuderstanding what the Co$ is doing with religion. It has NOTHING to do with religion and EVERYTHING to do with robbery and crime.

Given their, ahem, lack of popularity here, the next time they try something such as what they did to xenu.net here in France (or anywhere else in the EU), they'll get KICK-BANNED big time.

Their headquarter is located close to where I live. It's a pretty scary sight. Every time I cross one of those idiots in the street, I fake punching them to scare them. I'm not a violent person (I can't remember punching anyone EVER), and curiously, I have so little respect for the SUCKERS who adhere and propagate this cult, that I would feel extremely proud of kicking one of them's bollocks. 'nuff said.

Re:in France, scientology --> jail :-)

[Nicolas MONNET]

But do we want to ban them? Do we want to cross the line that Hitler crossed?

PLEASE!!!! Don't make that stupid comparison. DO NOT. There are plenty of BAD, HUMAN RIGHT-violating government out there which effectively ban legitimate religions AS WELL AS AND MORE PARTICULARLY atheists from expressing their views, and that IS admittedly BAD, HOWEVER it is generally NOTHING in comparison to what happened under the 3rd reich.

Now, The Cult of $cientology is NOT a legitimate religion, it does NOT do any good to anybody, it is an evil organization, a criminal organization that NEEDS be shut down.

Re:in France, scientology --> jail :-)

[Myddrin]

Sorry I pushed your buttons, buddy.... I think you need to calm down just a little.

Now, The Cult of $cientology is NOT a legitimate religion,...

No duh, I didn't say that they weren't criminal. I was questioning if banning them was a good idea or not.

My feeling is that it isn't. That banning religions or orgs. that call themselves a religion is a very, very, very bad idea. You are starting down a real slippery slope when one religion may be considered a "real" religion and others may not.

How do you termine what a religion is? What's the difference between a religion and a philosophy?

...it does NOT do any good to anybody, it is an evil organization, a criminal organization that NEEDS be shut down.

I vehemently disagree!

Re:in France, scientology --> jail :-)

[DanMcS]

I sincerely hope they'll be banned, just as the mafia is banned, the NSDAP is banned, the KKK is banned, and the fundamentalist muslims are banned. There is no room for misuderstanding what the Co$ is doing with religion. It has NOTHING to do with religion and EVERYTHING to do with robbery and crime.
I presume, given your other comments, that you were speaking of France. I was not, and I thought I made it clear that I was speaking about the US.
As a counterexample, none of those groups are banned in the US. Except maybe the NSDAP, that name isn't ringing any bells for me, for all I know it could be banned. Even the mafia is not technically an outlawed organization: any group can call themselves 'mafia', and get away with it (why you might want to do that is another question). What is outlawed is _organized crime_. Use this group to commit crimes, and the law enforcement types slam down hard on you, and for good reason; this no matter what you call your group. So the solution would seem to me to be to stop their harrassment of others, make them abide strictly by the laws of whatever country you happen to be in regarding religions or corps, and ignore them.

Cult^H^H^H^HChurch of Scientology

[substrate]

I've happened on this site before, it may have been posted to memepool or something similar. There was a lot of information on Scientology that Scientologists wouldn't find too flattering. A lot of it seemed so paranoid to me that I hoped it wasn't true, such as a list of ex-scientologists who later turned detractors and also later met an untimely demise. Given the rabid nature of a lot of the scientologists defending their cult I wouldn't be so sure however.

I don't see this as anything different than a review or expose however. This is no different than if George Lucas went after any bad Star Wars: The Phantom Menace reviews and had them yanked because they referred to LucasFilms or ILM's trademarks. For that matter its no different than if restraunts threatened legal action over poor restraunt reviews (or poor health department ratings).

What's so amazing to me is how incredibly stupid the scientologists and their lawyers are. There's a page that says all kinds of unfavourable things about them, the least of which is that they bully people who don't agree with scientology, and they bully them into being shut down. Nothing like providing proof of peoples opinions of you.

For a 20/20 expose on Scientology go here, here, here or just click this for a Google search

The dangerous thing about this as far as rights go is that while many think of the internet as the last bastion of freedom its really not even close. ISP's routinely take the easy way out when faced with any legal action or even public pressure.

Re:Cult^H^H^H^HChurch of Scientology

[gad_zuki!]

A&E had a pretty informative documentary on $cientology a little bit ago, which is pretty amusing to watch because they did try to make it objective but there's just so little good anyone wants to say about the CoS. Their spokespeople really convinced me more than anything they're a bunch of asses with their neurotic defensive attitudes and half-assed arguments. One of the guys totalaly reminded me of Martin Short's SNL skit about the chain-smoking ultra-defensive nutty lawyer.

Everyone is posting the problem is this or the problem is that, but no one's mentioned that there are millions upon millions of depressed, dejected, and hopeless people out there just dying to find something to cheer them up. Usually its in the form of the 'ultimate' truth that's always available from someone or another.

Religions of concilation like Christianity are big for these kinds of people, think of the born-agains, but their religious zeal is nothing compared to the capitalist zeal of the CoS. What these people need isn't some religious BS, but mental healthcare. Historicaly overly religious people suffer from neurosis or some other ailment.
They are very very easy pickings (note to potential messiahs.) Go to any major city and in 45 minutes you'll find about 100 people who are on the verge of losing it in some way. Chat for a bit, push your product and if they have any money you've just scored a point for old L.Ron. These people don't care how much anti-$cientology crap there is out there, they just want some answers and a couple of friends.

Amerika, founded on the concept of 'lets put our nutty religions here'(which includes anti-science agendas, the media, and all sorts of protections for irrational cults) combined with a complete lack of health care will continously churn out Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gaters, and $cientologists.

If this kind of thing really gets your goat, then do a couple of simple things that will probably go a long way.

Actively boycott $cientologists, after all its your $7 movie ticket that funds most of this crap. When people ask you why you won't see the new Travolta or Cruise flick tell em, don't go nuts about it just tell them its your little way of helping the world.

Give a shit about the people you know who are a bit screwed up, don't let them become suicide statistics, or worse $cientologists.

It ain't much, but most of us don't have the resources to give legal help to their victims. You can also keep yourself busy with providing webspace and posting anti-CoS messages but they'll usually, not always, fall on the deaf ears of people who really really want to believe. It might make someone go towards a born-again group instead of the CoS but that's only a slight improvement.

Could be worse, BGates could join...

Re:Cult^H^H^H^HChurch of Scientology

[Fnkmaster]

Say what you will about Bill Gates, he is obviously an objectively intelligent person (he may be a bad, selfish man, but that's another story). Scientology doesn't go after people like that. He doesn't *need* Scientology (he's already more powerful than they are), he already has his own religion (ever meet many Microsoft employees? You could swear they were brainwashed).

Sorry, seriously though, Scientology goes after mentally marginal famous people like actors and musicians. These are not bright codes or hardcore business people. They are mushy-minded folk with pretty faces and charisma. Smart people are too enamored of thinking for themselves to make good Scientologists. Additionally, most cutthroat business types have their shit together too much to buy into Scientology, brains or no. Thus, for both these reasons, we won't see Bill signing up any time soon.

Re:Cult^H^H^H^HChurch of Scientology

[Malacai[GDI]]

this from an intelligent, open-minded Harvard student?

don't generalize. it makes you look foolish.

Re:Cult^H^H^H^HChurch of Scientology

[Chuut-Riit]

Actually, what he says seems to track pretty well with what I have observed of COS adherents, both in media interviews and in person. Hell, one way that they get people in the door is by appealing for their need to feel intelligent (free IQ tests) or in control of their lives (Dianetics (TM) -- don't want to get sued now, do I?)

Sometimes stereotypes exist because, overall, they are pretty accurate. Generalizing isn't always bad. Sometimes it gets called inductive reasoning.

Another foot-bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems the Scientology Cult is launching another RPG (Rocket Propelled Gernade) at their own feet with this one. Scientology has a history of attacking critics on the most absurd basis, which provokes outrage from those who hear about the attack, which causes more critisism, which causes more Scientology attacks, and so on. The sooner Scientology learns this sort of stunt just blows up in their face, the better. PS: There will be a picket of the Scientology office in Toronto, Ontario (696 Yonge St.) November 20th starting at 10:00 am to protest stunts like this. For details see: http://www.total.net/~wulfen/scn/picket.htm PPS: There will be a BIG picket of Scientology in Clearwater FL, December 4th and 5th. PPPS: Am I the first post :-) .

Playboy Case Results...

[Spud Zeppelin]

News.com reported earlier this year that Welles not only successfully won her right to use the term "Playmate of the Year" to describe herself, but she also was countersuing Playboy for unfair business practices, defamation, etc.

So it appears that if someone is writing about the Scientologists, they have the right to use the correct terminology to describe them, even if those terms are trademarked. It seems to me it would be no different than writing a product review of Coca-Cola, and actually using the word "Coca-Cola."

This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.

Scientology Is A Corporation

[Bartmoss]

It has long ago been found in court here in Germany that scientology is NOT a religion, but a commercial enterprise aimed to make a profit. In addition, Scientology is under observation by a branch of the German secret service, as there is evidence that Scientology is determined to undermine, erode, and abolish the democratic principles upon which modern Germany was founded.

The majority of European countries has since passed similar court rulings... Scientology is not a religion in Europe, and if they start to act up too much, we'll smash them.

One of the most idiotic things I've ever seen was a bunch of Scientologists in downtown Hamburg demonstrating for religious freedom. They dressed up in white robes, kinda made them look like KKK wannabees.

I also take great offense at the US Scientology's campaign of propaganda against Germany. Maybe some of you remember it. Basically what they did was say that Germans are Nazis. Over HERE, we have laws against such kinds of insult, I guess America doesn't. In fact, US politicans have even urged our German government to be nicer to Scientology.

It's always nice to see how our friends and allies, the moral and great leader of the free world is trying to mess with us.

Anyway, back to my first point (I seem to have wandered a bit), scientology is just a bunch of psychopatic fools trying to make a buck. Just say no.

Re:Scientology Is A Corporation

[Borealis]

While I am in no way sympathetic to Scientology, there is no denying them their right to free speech simply because they are calling germans nazis. Free speech is a principle that protects both the bad and the good. Do away with the bad and you lose the good as well. I think them doing so is rude and displays a marked lack of respect for Germans in general, but I would never seek legal censure to prevent them from saying that.

Realistically, scientology makes so many ridiculous claims that you'd be hard pressed to find a group that hasn't been offended by them. Pretty much the only folks they (supposedly) like are other scientologists.

As far as US politicians asking Germans to be nice to scientologists, do what we do and ignore them (the politicians).

The US is the moral leader of the free world?

Re:Scientology Is A Corporation

[taniwha]

actually I think the German situation is somewhat unique - one of scientology's stated aims is world domination [they even have their own version of the 'final solution' that I've been told apparently includes me .... but i digress]. Anyway after WW2 the Allies left Germany with a constitution that banned German organizations that seek world domination .....

Re:Scientology Is A Corporation

[Bartmoss]

You'd be hard pressed to provide the statues in our constitutions that forbid us to try for world domination. But we have to uphold democratic principles. There's a part in the constitution that REQUIRES all German citizens to fight anybody who tries to abolish democracy - even using weapons as a last resort.

Of course everybody who takes over Germany and wants to abolish democracy would first change that part of the cinstitution, so it's a bit redundant.. ;)

Re:Scientology Is A Corporation

[Bartmoss]

There ARE laws against insults, libel, slander, etc. As I said, I dunno about the US, but in Germany, there are.

The right to your personal freedoms end at the moment where you step on others' rights. Including the freedom of speech.

So as soon as you start abusing your freedom of speech for, say, libel, you can be forced to stop.

And yeah we ignore US politicans. Heck I like our govenrment - they even encourage cryptography. :)

Legal Defense for Content

[PG13]

Is their any organization which provides free legal defense for gratuitous suites against internet content (such as this case and the DeCSS issue). Sort of like an ACLU for freedom of expresion on the internet. It seems like something the EFF should really be involved in as the greatest danger to free speech on the internet seems to be abuse of copyright law, trademarks and especially patents.

Yes, mirroring is useful but it also allows a dangerous precedent to be set. If the sites are mirrored but not legally defended it gives legitamacy to the companies/religions claims.

Re:Legal Defense for Content

[Bartmoss]

Try the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (eff.org)

Why this case needs to fail

[Masem]

First, let's get over the facts: Scientology is overactively pursuing any anti-Sci site, and in most cases they won because copyrighted materials were used on the anti-Sci site. I don't know if the site here in question was the same (given that they have been around for this long suggests that is it not the case).

Now, why must this case fail? Look at want it boils down to: Party A does not want Party B to provide negative information to the public. Thus, Party A gets Party's B site shut down. In full violation of free speech.

If the Sci's win their case, this means that I can put any appropriate pairings in the above statement. How many of those would have Microsoft as Party A?

I find it hard to believe that there is legal precidence that a site that talks about the negative aspects of something cannot use trademark words for that purpose (especially if they are not trying to claim that trademark as their own).

Re:Why this case needs to fail

[gorilla]

Actually, in most cases they loose, cause they're making totally groundless complaints. For an example, try this site. Same subject. Same law. Scientology lost.

Most ISP's have caught onto the complaints being groundless, and for many years now they've been ignoring RTC's letters, however with the new law, the ISP has to shut it down regardless.

Re:Why this case needs to fail

[Spud Zeppelin]

Most ISP's have caught onto the complaints being groundless, and for many years now they've been ignoring RTC's letters, however with the
new law, the ISP has to shut it down regardless.

Careful about overestimating the DMCA -- it only gives that broad, reaching ability WRT Copyright violations, NOT Trademark violations like were alleged here. If Xenu isn't redistributing any copyrighted materials of the Scientologists, the DMCA can't be applied....

Example: Suppose I put up a site detailing my experiences with drinking Dr. Pepper while eating eggs, and the extreme distress it causes me. Dr. Pepper couldn't go after me using DMCA just because I am referring to them by their (trademarked) name. If, however, I put the lyrics to one of their lengthy jingles (which I presume are copyrighted) up on the site, then they have a copyright infringement to which DMCA would be applicable.

This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.

Re:Why this case needs to fail

[A. Craig West]

There doesn't need to be any copyright violation. The DMCA forces the ISP to take the site down if there is an ACCUSATION of copyright violation. It is a very different thing...

Any Mirrors?

[khadzia]

Does anyone have a list of mirrors for this site?

Great

[Nichen]

So now all a group has to do to prevent criticism is trademark their name and shut down anyone that uses it? Microsoft(TM) is a trademark, does that mean we have to stop criticizing them? Scientologists know they're full of shit, and are hiding behind trademark law to try to squeeze a little more money out of its members. I honestly hope that www.xenu.net wins in the end, because I see this starting a dangerous precedent of deep-pocketed groups controlling what information we are exposed to.

Still some part of the site left

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.xenu.net/images/

Maybe other parts too?
--
AC

Re:Still some part of the site left

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the Sintologists missed a page.
Here are the Meta tags. I find the description to be ironic.

Re:I wonder.

[Tau Zero]

Since when does the existence of worse make the merely bad unworthy of comment?
--
Advertisers: If you attach cookies to your banner ads,

L Ron the Moron

[Kid Zero]

I recall reading his sons Biography of him "messiah or Madman". Madman is more like it. his "religion" is nothing more than Computer Programming and a little psychology.

What is really sad is that there are people who can't see this fact, can't see that all this religion wants is your money, and fall for it. In florida they've already gotten away with a literal murder.

Nothing new for the Scientologists

[Rick Razzano]

The Scientologists have done very well using the legal system to stop anti-Scientology groups from operating. They sued and won a case against CAN (Cult Awareness Network - one of the strongest opponents of Scientology), which bankrupted CAN, then they promptly bought CAN.

Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[Industrial Disease]

There is a story (of Urban Legend quality) that Robert A. Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard made a bet about who could come up with s wierd religion and get people to follow it. Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land, Hubbard wrote Dianetics. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[Anonymous Coward]

There were people present when the bet was made, it was for $20.00 and everyone thought it was all a bad joke. Heinline actually paid the $20.00 by the way! - posted as Anonymous Coward (most of those present then, are not present now!)

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[Phrogman]

Whereas the version of the legend that I read was that Poul Anderson, Niven and Hubbard were gathered in a bar at some science fiction convention having a drink after some panel meeting. They got into a discussion of science and religion and Hubbard bet the others that he could start a religion bassed on pseudo science and make it so convincing that people would fall for it. A few years later Scientology was born, and the biggest scam in the world today started taking place.

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[warpeightbot]

Interesting, I hadn't heard that the bet applied to both gentlemen. I would not be surprised if it were true.... IMHO Heinlein did a much better job of it; the curious should poke around in better and more interesting bookstores for a magazine called Green Egg....

Better use it carefully, or it could change your life....

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[Anonymous Coward]

I do have an article by Hubbard which describes the event as being between himself, Asimov and the late great John W Campbell, although I don't have with me at work so it might have included Bob too.

Hubbard had no qualms about telling this story on the grounds that anyone stupid enough to believe the thing was too stupid to be held up by mere facts. He was right.

TWW

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[Mendax Veritas]

I don't recall Heinlein being mentioned in that story, but no doubt there are many different versions of it running around. The one I heard said that Hubbard made a bet that he could start his own religion at a Milford writer's conference in the '50s. Did Heinlein attend any of those?

Regardless of the story's veracity, it is certainly true that Heinlein's fictional religion from Stranger in a Strange Land has become the basis of a real-world religion. Consult www.caw.org for the web site of the Church of All Worlds. They're just as deluded as Scientologists, but they're a lot nicer.

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[daemon23]

Now to add what I've heard...

Hubbard and another science fiction author (I have forgotten names, but it was noone as big as Heinlein) were debating in a sort of column format--one would write one month, the other the next--in one of those 50's scifi mags. For some reason, I think it was Amazing, but I'm not sure that even was one of the mags from back then. Hubbard asserted that people were basically stupid, easily manipulated, and fundamentally "evil". His opponent argued the other side, that people were generally intelligent and good. It finally wound up with Hubbard betting his colleague $5 that he could start a financially successful religion.

However, this does contradict quite a bit of what I've read about Hubbard's history; Scientology wasn't originally supposed to be a religion, it was "science". He pushed it into a religion for tax evasion purposes. But, then again, this may have been unrelated to Scientology.

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[Bearpaw]

There is also a rumor (FWIW!) I've heard that L. Ron had decided to 'fess up to the con before he died ... but made the mistake of telling the wrong people that he was going to do so, and got ... um ... hurried along.

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't read 'Grumbles from the Grave' yet, but it was Heinlein's posthumous book - I've been told that he gives the origin of Scientology in there (the so-called bet). Harlan Ellison also gave his own take on this when Hubbard died - something to the effect of 'We were in a bar and someone told Hubbard he should start his own religion because that was where the money was'.

Just my $0.02.

Re:Hubbard / Heinlein UL

[expunged]

The Church of All Worlds, an *idea* Heinlein invented, is not a *religion* Heinlein invented.

If you notice, Heinlein writes a lot about Paganism in his books. Characters that are Wiccan, witches, or any other brand of Paganism are found, and there is not conflict surrounding them (as in Heinlein was very comfortable with this idea, not seeing a major social conflict).

CAW is a group founded on Pagan ground. Heinlein did come up with the idea, yes, but he did not "invent" Paganism; if he did he must have been several thousand years old when he wrote his first book.

The Church of All Worlds may sound a little fluffy bunnyish and some members (leaders?) sound as if they believe they "invented" Paganism/polyamoury/etc, but it is not a religion. If you feel that the crux of their belief system, Paganism (CAW is merely an organisation comprised of Pagan people), is delusional, that is a topic for another discussion.

-nicole

Religion or Corporation

[Woodie]

Hmm,

I must admit to being only passingly familiar with the cult of Scientology. I do know that it's the brain child of recently deceased Sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard. However, actions like this certainly make them seem like that have a hidden adgenda. IIRC, Dianetics bears more than a passing resemblance to Eugenics.

1> Are they a "religion" under US law? If so, are they exempt from taxes? Do they enjoy all the other side benefits that other organized religions do in the USA?

The statement that:

"Since when do religions have trademarks?" really strikes an interesting note. If a religion can have a trademark, they are behaving awfully business like. If they do win a case like this, and manage to sue for damages, do they get to keep the money _tax-free_? I sure as hell hope not. Of course that'd be just the thing those crack-smokers are looking for.

- Porter

Re:Religion or Corporation

[Anonymous Coward]

L Ron Hubbard died in 1986. The Scientologists do have official recognition of religious status by the IRS, which I believe they were given in 1993 after a prolonged "war" with the IRS over non-payment of taxes.

After years of conflict between the Cult and the IRS, during which period Scientology employed private investigators to check into the lives of IRS employees, there was a sudden, shocking reversal of policy and the IRS and Scientology cut a secret deal, which was leaked to the net a few years later. (anyone have the link?)

The IRS gave Scientology status as a religion. This affected not only their tax situation, but the IRS classifications of religion is also used by Congress so now they could claim they were being "persecuted" and get motions passed to put pressure on OTHER countries to stop investigating them. (Hasn't helped much-- they've recently been raided in Russia, Germany, Belgium and I think France for various bad things like money laundering...)

These guys are really amazing. I'd very much recommend spending some time at www.xenu.net - pretty fascinating in a diabolical sort of way.

commercial reasons important

[Anonymous Coward]

Though the religions has had its cult fanatics, I believe the main reason for internet vigilance is commercial. They charge several thousand dollars apiece for their psychotherapy classes and don't want that material circulating for free in the public domain.

Scietology is bullshit.

[Lord Kano]

The guys from Xenu have a distributed.net team that is doing fairly well.

Does anyone remember the movie Primary Colors?
John Travolta is a Scientlogist and apparantly he and some others in the production staff went to president clinton and asked him to pressure Germany to recognize Scientology as a valid religion. The carrot was this, if he did get them to they'd portray him in a more positive light in the movie.

Read the book, watch the movie, you'll see that there are BIG differences between the way that the main character is portrayed.

LK

Re:Scietology is bullshit.

[ktheintz]

There was an article in George magazine about the Primary Colors episode; it's just as Kano describes it. I don't know if it's on the web, though; Alta Vista turned up nothing

What's the deal?

[Courier]

This is nothing new. Just as the NAZI and all sort of werid and deranged people have done before these people are after control and power. I can't understand why people fall in with this kind of cults or such but as a history and psychology have shown time and time again.... People are not much better then lemmings. We are in one simple word stupid.

www.scientology-kills.net

[AftanGustur]

So CO$ got 2 sites for the price of one this time.

Anybody remember www.scientology-kills.net ?

It had descriptions of incidents where people had lost theire lives directly (Remember Lisa ?) or indirectly thru this cults actions.

I have been watching CO$ on the net for years and this is definetly something that we must fight back. I hereby offer to mirror the site if anybody wants to send me the tarball.. ftp://195.115.63.44/Incoming/

--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

Re:I wonder.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that you have all been reminded of how badly scientologists behave will the tedious christian baiting stop?

No - Just because the Nazis were bad doesn't mean no one should have fought the Stalinists.

All proselytizing religions are evil by their nature (no matter what the intentions of their members). The others may or may not be, but that has nothing to do with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion and the damage it causes every day, which dwarfs the crap perpetrated by the Co$.

I have seen this first hand, a friend of mine was killed by christians because he was the wrong sort of christian!

TWW

Score one for free speech!

[Wakko Warner]

It's a shite state of affairs when a small group of misguided, yet rich, people have the ability and the desire to silence all those who disagree with them. Such is the sad story of Scientology, and, unless some kind soul starts sniping them all off one by one, so shall it remain.

That could just be my evil body thetans talking, though. Maybe if I paid L. Ron a few hundred grand I could have that taken care of...

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

History of Scientology harassment...

[kevin lyda]

If you'd like some more info on Scientology's actions in the past you can look at http://www.thecia.net/users /rnewman/scientology/home.html. I find them to be a rather disgusting group of people actually. If a Scientologist reads this I'd be interested in whatever reasoning they can provide for their behaviour.

Didn't work on ABC TV! Won't work on me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Large companies and groups try to do this.

In yesterday's Boston Globe there is a piece on the Metabolife Metabolife. Metabolife sued WCVB-TV (the ABC affiliate) and Susan Warnick for libel. The court threw it out.

Mattel is trying to shut me up! I received a $139k judgment against them in a lawsuit. This lawsuit is on my website. Mattel filed and continue with a countersuit for libel by my website. This is because the websitestates that they violated the FMLA, ADA, etc, which are the grounds for the lawsuit that they paid over $140k last month. They want to shut me up.

There are protection for ISPs in cases like this for websites. It is fair to use company names (even if trademarked) when talking about them. This will come out in the courts in relation to meta tags. The judges and juries will have to be educated on tags and search engines.

Injured geek wins against Mattel and Mattel still retaliates!

Re:Didn't work on ABC TV! Won't work on me!

[Anonymous Coward]

When are you gonna stop whining about the Mattel crap?

This should incur the internet death penalty.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when people started blocking e-mail from IBM because IBM wasn't being responsive enough in tracking down a malicious SPAM?

I think that ISPs that start to censor their users based on defensive legal tactics should incur the internet death penalty.

Re: ...moderator points when you need them

[CodeShark]

Can't help with the points thing, but a small observation: I think that's what Rob designed the "meta' moderation system for -- so that if other folks disagree with how a specific moderator judges things, things will get balanced out. Maybe another moderator will see your post and agree, and add one of the other moderation codes.

Re:Libel

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that IS illegal in the United States, but not in the same way. I'm aware of the strict "hate speech" laws in Germany, but here it's termed libel to accuse someone of being a criminal without basis(and that's what being a Nazi is IMHO). Now, if you were to say that a $cientologi$t was ACTING like a Nazi, that would be protected speech.

The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

[FreeUser]

While we were all distracted, arguing over whether or not Bill Clinton should be impeached and admiring the off-color stain on Monica's dress, congress quietly, and with no opportunity for public debate or comment, passed the Digital Millenium Copyright act into Law. They did this on a voice vote, so that no individual congress person had to go on record as having supported this legislation.

The result? Broad, sweeping, and hitherto unprecedented powers and rights were granted to so-called intellectual property holders, at the expense of individual rights of expression.

In this context, the first amendment to the US Constition (the right of Free Speach) has been effectively made null and void on the internet. This serves both the interests of government and large corporations, as it effectively silences undesirable speach in the one mass medium which they, prior to enacting this law, could not control.

Now, if anyone speaks out against any entity (government, corporate, or private) with money, the mere threat of litigation against them and their ISP is enough to silence them. With the new, broad rights this law grants, the litigation has much greater potential to succeed (though one would hope juries and judges would be smart enough to overturn the law were it to ever go so far). No individual, with house payments to make, children to feed, and a job to attend to, can afford this kind of risk, either monetarilly or in terms of time lost and possible effects on their career. The result: any entity with money now has an easy, well-defined, institutionalized method for denying the "average" (read: not wealthy) person of their constitutional right to freedom of speach, with any recourse and appeal denied to that individual through financial leverage.

Mirroring is a nice, feel-good short term solution to this (and it does do good, don't stop!), but realize this: there is similar, pending legislation in many countries we currently think of as "friendly". What will the net be like when there is no longer any place to run and mirror?

Our top priortiy should be the repeal of the Digital Millenium act in the US, the even more draconian legislation in the UK, and the prevention of such bills becoming law elsewhere in the world. This attack of speach is more subtle, more dangerous, and much more effective than the CDA ever was, and has effectively made the right to free speach on-line a farce of the worst kind.

Re:The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

[Anonymous Coward]

> Now, if anyone speaks out against any entity (government, corporate, or private) with money, the mere threat of litigation against them and their ISP is enough to silence them.

Mind you, this asinine law is only applicable in the US. Data Havens, anyone?

Re:The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

[nstrug]

Actually the Digital Millenium Act is even more draconian then the UK new Copyright Act. As you may have noticed from the recent DVD discussions, publishing information on copy-protection systems is tantamount to direct copyright infringement under the UK law, i.e. a civil offence. However under the DMA it will be a criminal offence.

Nick

Re:The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

[FreeUser]

... copyright infringement under the UK law, i.e. a civil offence. However under the DMA it will be a criminal offence.

I wasn't aware of this disparity. I agree, the US law is much more draconian in making such expanded definitions of copyright violation a criminal rather than civil violation. The UK law appears to me to be marginally more broad in what it defines as a copyright violation than the US law (hence my earlier allusion to "more draconian"), but in light of the potential punishment you are right -- the US law is much worse.

Re:The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

[Hizonner]

I don't dispute the fact that the DMCA is a disgusting piece of legislation whose primary purpose is to give away important public rights, for no better reason than that Disney, the SPA, and friends screamed "jobs" and waved around a bunch of campaign contributions. I don't dispute that the law is plain evil. However, I don't see how the evil parts apply here.

The only DMCA provisions I can think of that might apply are the procedures for complaining about copyrighted (not trademarked) material on Web pages. Those particular provisions weren't very controversial. They actually make it easier for ISPs to keep certain material on line.

Before the DMCA, US law could have been interpreted to make the ISP responsible for any copyright violation. That meant that the ISP had to actually judge whether something violated copyright. If it guessed wrong (or differently from a judge), the ISP could lose a lot of money. That meant that it was very easy for people to engage in exactly the kind of intimidation you're complaining about.

Unless I completely misread the law back when the law was passed, or unless my memory has failed, the DMCA actually makes this area of the law better. Under the DMCA, the ISP is safe if it follows certain procedures, and the procedures really aren't that complicated. The ISPs still don't seem to have the motivation to actually do that, but they were even less motivated to stick up for their users before the DMCA.

Can you explain how the DMCA is evil in this particular situation? I agree that most of the DMCA is bad law, but this part seems like an improvement to me.

Re:The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

[otis wildflower]

If copyright infringement becomes a crime, then isn't the infringer considered a 'criminal' and thus entitled to free representation?

IIRC you are not entitled to representation in civil disputes..

Your Working Boy,

Re:The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

[FreeUser]

From my reading of the law, one of the things the ISP has to do is TAKE DOWN the offending material. If they fail to do this they themselves are liable. In this way, the law has abridged their status as "common carriers." While additional clauses are there to limit their liability should someone, unbeknownst to them, violate copyright using their facilities, once they have been informed they are compelled to remove the objectionable material. In this way the DMCA has facilitated the abridgement of individual rights to free speach by codifying into law an avenue for wealthy entities to coerce providors to remove content without any due process.

The problem is that the mere allegation of wrongdoing, even when completely unfounded (such as in the Co$ case), is enough to scare ISPs into removing the material and essentially silencing a voice of criticism. The new law lends new weight to this, by clarifying that ISPs do NOT enjoy common carrier status. This is unfortunate as, if I recall correctly, the courts had begun finding just the opposite.

Re:The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

[Hizonner]

It's a bit late for me to be answering this, but...

Hmm. You're right. I'd forgotten how it worked. The law is even more evil than I remembered.

It could be worse, though. If the user who owns the site claims that the material doesn't infringe copyright, then the person who complained has 10 days to get a court order, or it goes back up. In the old scheme, ISPs were routinely taking things down, permanently.

Also, if the complaining person can be proved to have deliberately lied, it costs them big bucks in damages... they have to pay every cent lost by the site owner, the ISP, and anybody else, including legal fees.

Frankly, I don't think that the common carrier view of ISPs would have held up, anyway. I'd rather have seen a law that actually declared them to be common carriers, but since corporations really do own the US government, that obviously wasn't going to happen.

This is a sad day.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I really liked that site. Of all the religions, pseudo-religions, cults, and just plain lunacy, I think I like the Church of Scientology the least.

This "religion" was started by L. Ron Hubbard, a guy who was reputed to talk about starting one's own religion as a way to make money.

The official church stance is that anyone who opposes the Church of Scientology must have a criminal background. If not, then they will make one up for the opposition.

These bastards are really scary folks. I am posting anonymously because I've met people who have been harassed by the COS for speaking out in opposition.

I am not much of a fan of organized religion anyway, but the COS goes waaaaaaay too far.

The answer to censorship is ....

[taniwha]

Xenu.net has been THE best resource of documentation about Scientology on the net period. And that's including the Scientology site.

A large part of this site is a collection of court and govermental enquiry transcripts combined with personal accounts of their experience

Behaviour like this by Scientology is par for the course their lawyers have atacked free speech at every turn in their war against the net - remember this started with one of their lawyers forging an rmgroup to remove a newsgroup - and was quickly followed with a police raid on one of the poster's houses where they hauled away all his computers - then searched them for evidence for a subsequent civil court case against him.

Anyway - the answer to censorship (or speech you don't like) is more speech - so tell your friends the things about Scientology that were (are) on xenu.net that Scientology doesn't want you to know:

• It's a mind-control cult that attenpts to squeeze as much money out of its members as possible
• It costs at least $360,000 to 'receive salvation'
• The basic tenent of their faith which they wont tell you untill you have paid at least $100k is that 7 million years ago intergallactic tyrant Xenu shipped billions of people to earth, tied them to the top of volcanos and nuked them. All the worlds troubles are caused by us being haunted by the tourtured souls of these murdered space aliens - for large amounts of money Scientology will teach you how to exorcise yourself
• abuse and occasional deaths of members have been reported - they run their own prison labor camps called 'RPF' at several places within the US (xenu.net contains a number accounts by people forced into RPF who had to do things like run around a pole in the desert each day)
• They have their own paramilitary wing called the 'sea-org'

Xenu.net will be back - it's censored, not gone - in the mean time help do the work it was doing - tell all your friends and family about Scientology - make sure they know what it's about so they won't get sucked in

Re:The answer to censorship is ....

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall the volcano the aliens were tied to was in hawaii, which 7 million years ago didn't as yet exist...

Re:The answer to censorship is ....

[Xenu]

The basic tenent of their faith which they wont tell you untill you have paid at least $100k is that 7 million years ago intergallactic tyrant Xenu shipped billions of people to earth, tied them to the top of volcanos and nuked them.

Sorry, but I was really in a bad mood back then.

Re:The answer to censorship is ....

[taniwha]

Well Hubbard was an SF writer not a geologist (he also claimed the Canary islands) ...... he was also going cold turkey from a booze and pills problem (in the Canary islands not suprisingly) .... hence the skin crawling with little tiny murdered space aliens thing

Re:The answer to censorship is ....

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! Aw, come on! That was funny! Give the guy one funny point...

Re:The answer to censorship is ....

[RobSweeney]

Also, that volcano is what the volcano on the cover of "Dianetics" is supposed to represent.

they're evil

[Anonymous Coward]

They vigorously attack anyone who has anything to say about them that isn't complimentary. It's common, accepted (encouraged) practice for them to dig deeply into the private life and past of anyone they deem an enemy, and expose embarassing personal facts, or try to create legal problems. They're not a religion. They're a science fiction book gone awry, horribly. I mean, have you ever read any of their supreme religious truths? They believe that human suffering is caused by alien spirits that arrived here before the beginning of man. The organization was started by a science fiction author who is quoted as having observed that the best way to make lots of money is to start your own religion. Argh.

Unfortunately, participating has danger...

[Christopher B. Brown]

The cases have come up have had some rather distressing results, and I agree that it is important to be aware of what is going on.

Unfortunately, to actually participate in significant ways runs people into the risk of arousing the ire of the Scientologists, and with the size of their army of private investigators and lawyers, this represents a significant risk, and one that not everyone will be willing to risk.

It might appear attractive to try to "twit" them; that is only acceptable if:

• One feels extremely strongly about them, and is willing to risk suffering the consequences, or
• The risks of consequences are low.

Of course, providing formally anonymous support ( e.g. - help with legal fees) to those that are "fighting fights and risking loss" might be a decent method...

EFF where are you?

[juuri]

As a regular reader of xenu.net and a staunch
critic of $cientology I have to wondere where
the hell is the EFF. This is one of the first
real cases out there where they can prove their
metal and worth as an orginization to actually
defend our online rights. This is a case that
can certainly make or break the EFF... maybe
that is why they are being so quiet on this one.

$cientology must be stopped, and they must be
stopped now.

On a side note for any $cios reading. As soon as
I dig myself up one of your DC7 looking lil' ol'
spacecraft I'm going fly home and kick Xenu in the
head for setting off all those nukes in the first
place and messing with mother Earth. (For those
that don't know the above bunch of smack is
atually accepted truths in the higher ranks of
$cientology).

---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...

The site is still accessible!

[Derek Pomery]

http://www.google.com/search?q=c ache:www.xenu.net/ use google!
And the best thing is, is that the sub-pages are still there, so all the links work!

Re:The site is still accessible!

[Rupert]

Please moderate this way up.

Or maybe not. We don't want to attract too much attention.

Anyway, apart from the front page it all appears to be there.

Re:Scientology? Isn't that the L. Ron Hubbard Reli

[Reinoud]

Scientology is definetly not something to laugh. My ISP has been in court with them since 1995 and the battle continues...
See this page for a list of what happened until now.

They still continue to call themselves a religion. Critics say the reason for that is only tax. The Scientology movement is considered a criminal organisation in several Europe countries, and in Germany members are not allowed to do any work for the state...

You are a bigot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Period.

Think about it: s/christian/black/gi

Re:You are a bigot.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, bigotry is an unfounded hatred/dislike/whatever of a group of people. I have a well founded hatred of a thing: religion. I am aware that many people think and try to do good via their religion. However, I think that the goals of the exclusionist religions (ie the `one true way' religions) by their nature pervert these goals. I feel a mixture of pity, hatred, and even in some cases admiration for the actual people involved depending on the person.

The ones who killed my friend do not represent all christians but they do represent enough to make me reject the thing (religion) but it does not make be reject all the people taken in by it.

To use your analogy: I can hate African Dictators (eg Idi Amin) without hating all black people.

TWW

Re:You are a bigot.

[Anonymous Coward]

However much it may have hurt to have your friend killed, such information is merely anecdotal. There were many germans killed by germans in 2nd world war for being the wrong kind of german; does this make Germans evil ? No it makes the germans doing the killing evil... While there may be some weird and wacky christians who kill there are equally wierd and wacky who kill. The gospel message is of love and peace. 'Christians' not following this message are in my book not genuine christians, most however are or at least try their best given that (according to christianity) every one is a sinner, christian and nonchristian alike.

Re:You are a bigot.

[Anonymous Coward]

However much it may have hurt to have your friend killed, such information is merely anecdotal. There were many germans killed by germans in 2nd world war for being the wrong kind of german; does this make Germans evil ? No it makes the germans doing the killing evil... While there may be some weird and wacky christians who kill there are equally wierd and wacky < any subset of a section of society you wish to choose > who kill. The gospel message is of love and peace. 'Christians' not following this message are in my book not genuine christians, most however are or at least try their best given that (according to christianity) every one is a sinner, christian and nonchristian alike.

Re:You are a bigot.

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all it is not anecdotal to me, there was an official enquiry and I can assure you he is dead.

You are missing my point: the message of the gospel is not the real issue here, it is the message of `there is only one true religion' which pervades the whole of the Bible and Koran (as well as other texts). This subliminally twists people, particularly passionate people, into at best patronising others and at worst treating them as an underclass. Surely you can see that this is a natural consequence of claiming that other religions are false?

What some germans did in the war should cause us to reject the belief system that encouraged it, even though Goering (for one) was able to give a logical, and totally amoral, defense for it. Likewise, we should reject belief systems which state that their followers are right and everyone else is wrong and lead weaker people into violence on that basis.

There's no point in saying 'look at all this good' while turning a blind eye to all the bad. Good can be done without the aid of religion, and might then be done without the bad.

TWW

Re:You are a bigot.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is anecdotal in the sense that it (true or false) is a story which is irrelevant to the argument. Good can also be done without the aid of germans (or americans) does that mean we should do without germans or americans because they may do bad ? I suspect that in total through history religions have largely been a benevolent force on humans, particularly compared to the non religious persecutions and wars throughout the ages perpetuated by nationalistic ferver,jealousy, greed, sheer hatred and madmen.

Likewise, we should reject belief systems which state that their followers are right and everyone else is wrong and lead weaker people into violence on that basis
This is very unhelpful to your argument. Almost 100% of christians would agree with that sentence which although implicitly 'anti' christian (in the sense that it is supposed to be an argument against christianity and other religions) does not actually contradict christian teachings. If you do not include the
and lead weaker people into violence on that basis
bit then your own belief system (that one shouldnt accept belief systems which state that they are right and everyone else is wrong) is contradictory for self evident reasons.

Re:Scientology? Isn't that the L. Ron Hubbard Reli

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Scientology anyway?

As I heard it, L. Ron Hubbard and Robert A. Heinlein were sitting around having a few brewskies and discussing religion. RAH made a comment that it would be impossible to create a new religion in the modern era. LRH replied with "wanna bet?" (NOT a direct quote! And I might be mistaken about the brewskies, too...) So then, Scientology, at its root, is the result of a bet.

oh and I forgot ....

[taniwha]

An item I forgot:

• One of Scientology's main goals is 'to clear the planet' which basicly means world domination and installation of a Scientology civil government - at which time they plan to "get rid of the SPs - the 2%" in otherwords they have advocated a 'final solution' for those of us who have spoken out and wont go along with the plan [this by the way is why they are in such trouble in Germany - the Allies left Germany with a constitution that doesn't allow German groups to advocate taking over the world ....]

Forgot the 'free' personality tests!

[Anonymous Coward]

They offered their free personality test to me several times. I told them that I did not have one, then walked away.

Injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates.

Re:Not Surprising - Scientology Has Done this Befo

[Anonymous Coward]

> Remember the anon.petit.fi (or whatever it was) the anonymous remailer was shut down by scientology.

And now we have double-blind cryptographically strong remailers instead. Progress rolls onward...

Son of A... (offtopic)

[SvnLyrBrto]

Posting so my moderation here cancels (hopefully, IIRC thats how moderation works)

I accidently moderated you down when I meant to mod you up. I think it's that wheel on the MS mouse that screwed it up.

Sorry 'bout that.



john (smacking my head on my desk)

Re:Son of A... (offtopic)

[Tau Zero]

I accidently moderated you down when I meant to mod you up. I think it's that wheel on the MS mouse that screwed it up.

Yes, it's a glitch (feature?) in the way most browsers handle selection boxes. Until you click on something outside the box, cursor up/down movements change selections within the box instead of moving the cursor/screen. "Losing" my arrow up/down keys (and having my selection changed in ways I very much did not intend!) drove me nuts until I found that I could click on some random text outside the box and get back to normal. Clicking on text outside the box after making a selection is now reflex with me.

This works with meta-moderation, too.
--
Advertisers: If you attach cookies to your banner ads,

yup

[taniwha]

anon.penet.fi - a Scientologist in the US posted about his own 'church' anonymously - they sued to get his name (and did!) - the anon-remailer was shut down because the person who ran it felt he could no longer maintain his promise of confidentiality

Religion and open source...

[Captain Sarcastic]

There are lots of religions in the wide world: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shinto, Sub-Genius, etc. All of these seem to have one thing in common: the works that they consider their "sacred scriptures" are not copyrighted. I mean, you have to pay money to get a Bible, but nobody screams about "copyright dilution" or "trade secret violation" when a "Bible Verse for the Day" appears in a newspaper.

The problem with the so-called "Church of Scientology" is that they have declared many of their works to be "copyrighted." As a result, they only allow people to be able to read these works after they've shelled out big bucks for initial "training," and afterward they are not allowed to divulge any of this information.

The religions that I mentioned above are all secure enough in their faith that their works are available for any to read and even criticize. I can only guess that Scientology is unable to compete this way.

Now, if we substitute the word "Microsoft" for "Church of Scientology," and the phrase "source code" for "religious writings," it makes me wonder: does this seem to anyone else to be a similar situation with the open source idea?

There goes one now...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://members.xoom.com/klambakedisk /index.htm

Ayup.

Yes, but not on the ISP

[jflynn]

I agree it's irritatingly spineless for these ISPs to roll over at the slightest hint of legal action, but really, you have to see it from their point of view. Most are shoestring operations that couldn't even dream of putting up the needed legal costs. The big ones just look at the bottom line, and see nothing much added for defending freedom of expression. More's the pity.

Lets put the blame where it belongs and blackhole any site associated with anyone using these legal tactics as a form of censorship. This wouldn't be censoring the scientologists, more a widespread agreement not to listen to them as long as they persist in trying to suppress other's speech.

Re:Yes, but not on the ISP

[rlkoppenhaver]

I'd like to think that the average /. reader is already not listening to them.

And I do see the ISP's point of view, but I think we, as a community, have to force them to stand up for their client's free speech rights. Remember, they're a business. They'll do whatever is most profitable. It's in everybody's best interest if we make it unprofitable for them to cave in to anybody with high powered lawyers.

A whois query reveals that Xenu.net's ISP is www.sagenetworks.com, BTW.

Re:Yes, but not on the ISP

[jhines]

Most ISP's put (or try) to put the responsibility to defend on the user, thru a clause in the user agreement, that requires the user to defend the ISP in any cases of legal trouble.

You have only as many rights as you have money to pay lawyers for.

Re:Yes, but not on the ISP

[ford42]

Lets put the blame where it belongs and blackhole any site associated with anyone using these legal tactics as a form of censorship. This wouldn't be censoring the scientologists, more a widespread agreement not to listen to them as long as they persist in trying to suppress other's speech.

Then contact Congress. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act says that ISPs must shutdown websites that have been accused of copyright offenses. After shutdown, the owner of the site (xenu) has ten days to declare their intent to defend themselves in court. The owner of the copyrighted materials (CoS) then has ten days to pursue litigation. If the copyright owner (CoS) does not pursue litigation, then the ISP puts the site back up. If litigation is pursued, then the site stays down until the matter is resolved.

Disclaimer: IANAL, but this is how I understand it. Don't blame Sage Networks...

Re:Yes, but not on the ISP

[quonsar]

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act says that ISPs must shutdown websites that have been accused of copyright offenses. After shutdown, the owner of the site (xenu) has ten days to declare their intent to defend themselves in court. The owner of the copyrighted materials (CoS) then has ten days to pursue litigation. If the copyright owner (CoS) does not pursue litigation, then the ISP puts the site back up. If litigation is pursued, then the site stays down until the matter is resolved.

If this is really the case, then its bass ackwards.

This is an assumption of guilt beginning with the accusation. Bass Ackwards. I know this is not a criminal case, but still.

This is very interesting. I never knew I had the power to shut down any web site hosted by an ISP. All I have to do is claim infringement and poof - its gone.

If what is said above about the act is true, it reveals a fundamental struggle occuring which has nothing to do with Scientology fruitcakes. The business/capitalist/media empire is quaking in its boots over the prospect of the true ultimate possibility of the internet - free information at everybodies fingertips. Extremely low-barrier-to-entry publishing available to virtually anybody. A way for the angry consumer to spout off about the abuses of the greedy money machine and reach millions. A way for the common citizen to escape mass-media control of ideas and information. Instead of the television-like marketing bazaar under their total control they are determined to make it. Thats what is going on in this country.

Excuse me while I puke.

======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

Re:Not Surprising - Scientology Has Done this Befo

[Anonymous Coward]

"A church enemy 'May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.'"

Re:Scientology? Isn't that the L. Ron Hubbard Reli

[taniwha]

Actually I beleive the story goes that LRH calimed that "the easiest way to make a million dollars is to start your own religion" .... of course he'd never heard of internet startups :-)

They got away with it in Bowfinger

[KillBot]

THey should just rename any references from Scientology to mindhead :) I'm still amazed at how much of a slap in the face that movie was to scientologists.

Re:They got away with it in Bowfinger

[Anonymous Coward]

The TV show Millennium made reference to "Selfosophy" and it was not a favorable one.

It's not surprising.

[SweenyTod]

I've been a critic of Scientology for about two years now. I'm lucky that I'm in Perth, Western Australia. The scientology popluation here is small enough that I can say what I want on my web site and not be subjected to the abuses that critics in other parts of the world are. And that is my main complaint about the organisation. You could stand in front of Billy Grahem or the Pope and critise them to their face, but speak out against Scientology, and they'll try their damnest to crusify you. Check out the story of Paulette Cooper. She wrote a book about them, and according to the web page, the Church of Scientology tried to forge a bomb threat against Henry Kissinger in Cooper's name. This plan has become known as "Operation Freakout". It's real, and it's happening to people all around the world right now. Andea is a very public example of what's happening to a lot of people all around the world.

Re:No Free Speech!

[Tau Zero]

I wish getting hackers to do anything coherent were not like herding cats

How many hackers are actually working on any particular open-source project? A small fraction. Are they coherent? You tell me. It wouldn't take that many hackers to make a difference.

Hackers as a group tend to have plenty of disposable income. If a group of hackers made it a point to oppose Scientology's abusive tactics, they could easily do so via a membership organization similar to the EFF. This organization could provide legal aid to people and ISP's harassed by the CoS, get injunctive relief from ISP shutoffs (the ISP can't be sued for complying with an order of the court), and possibly take a cut of damage awards.

If I recall correctly, several persons have been awarded substantial damages against the CoS but have been unable to recover. Perhaps this organization could file liens against CoS property and sell it to pay the awards. If this property happened to be the RTC's copyrights and trademarks, it would be particularly delicious.

No, I'm not volunteering. I have no talent for organizing, nor any stomach for confrontation.
--
Advertisers: If you attach cookies to your banner ads,

The Playmate won her case

[Anonymous Coward]

The playmate won her case. The judge ruled that the term was a factual description of her career and she could not be prohibited from using it. Case over.

Once again

[sunking7]

You can't break the net baby! Thanks to whoever gelled that site

Correction

[rlkoppenhaver]

I meant, of course, to say that their ISP is Sage Networks, whose website is www.sagenetworks.com.

scientology is a dangerious cult

[Porky Pig]

don't want to sound too paranoid, but the whole situation reminds me the 'invasion of body snatchers'. they look like humans, in fact they are brainwashed zombies. Religion, my ass. Just an organization to brainwash people and make money.

mirror

[soren.harward]

The "lite" version is here

Bring it on, CoS. This is my ISP (I'm the sysadmin), so it'll be a cold day in hell before this site goes down.

EFF/Co$/Crowley

[Skinwalker]

Xenu.net was based in Norway, a country that likely has different free speech laws than the US... likely a reason why EFF has not spoken up. However, Co$ enjoys a more tolerant position in the US, due to their tax-exempt status (they bullied the IRS, strange but true, into granting this status... you can read about it on xenu.net mirrors). Also, for all you Christians out there, Hubbard was a disciple of Aleister Crowley, a.k.a. the Beast 666, founder of modern satanism, back in the 30s-40s. He was not a favorite of Crowley's, as evidenced by Crowley's written remarks on Hubbard's "idiocy". Crowley's bit was that once you moved up far enough in his hierarchy, you'd start your own religion according to your personal belief system. Interesting, to say the least...

What's a newspaper

[Anonymous Coward]

The only newspapers are the ones already established. NY Post, Times, Washington Post and Times, Ogden and Thompson chains. Everyone else is a libeller or IP infringer in the eyes of the courts.

The above papers believe in freedom of the press, but only for themselves. When someone else sets up an electronic papers ala an alt newsgroup, the established press smugly watches the courts tear apart the competition.

In a defacto manner, the fed govt is licensing papers. The alt newsgroups are taking the First Amendment into their own hands when they report the news.

Getting your site canned

[Kryptic Knight]

It would see that even mentioning Scientology is the best way to get your site canned.

Although I think the award winner has to go to that wonderful penet.fi anonymous mail fowarder who as I remember got his entire server seized by the local police after intervention by the Scientology rumour-killer teams. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure I remember reading a long time ago that 'H' himself disassociated himself from the people who run the organisation.

The Text of The Threat

[AftanGustur]

Isn't Google wonderful ?

Here is the text of the threat:

Click Here
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

Pretty funny Norwegian website that is now gone..

[PanDuh]

There was a huge hubbub in Norway about this young hacker-guy named Zenon Panoussis, who managed to get his hand on some of the Church of $cientology's top-secret high-level "Holy Scriptures". He ended up publishing the contents on the Internet, and the Co$, not suprisingly, became really pissed off.

They tried to get the documents back through the Norwegian courts, but Zenon, who was actually well-versed in the Norwegian laws, submitted the documents to the Norway government library, which under Norwegian law automatically made it public domain! The Co$ resorted to having a couple of $cientologist thugs guarding the file cabinet that held the documents and picking up, pretending to read them whenever someone came over to try and take the documents out. *LOL* :D

Anyway, the $cientologists now were really pissed off and resorted to taking Zenon to court to try and bankrupt and discredit him into oblivion. Unfortunately, Zenon turned out to be much craftier than they anticipated and managed to wriggle his way out of trouble several times. They got the local authorities to raid his apartment twice, and he filmed and documented both incidents. Really funny stuff, its too bad I can't find the website anymore

In any event, check out this site, it has pictures and some notes of a $cientologist raid of Arnie Lerma's house.

Enjoy!

--
PanDuh!

More good critical sites about Scientology

[double_h]

Here is some more good reading for folks to explore while waiting for the xenu.net matter to get straightened out:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/

http://www.rickross.com/groups/scientolo gy.html

http://wpxx02.toxi.un i-wuerzburg.de/~cowen/essays/essays.html

http://www.xenutv.com

(I'll bet that this story will probably get Slashdot placed on the ScienoScitter block list, if it isn't already...)

Busted link

[Anonymous Coward]

The link re-directs to the closed website.

What we need is to attack them back...

[Sir_Winston]

Whenever Sc*entologists attack an innocent critic, they need to be attacked back. Remember that Sc*entologists have a belief called "fair game"--anyone who criticizes the "church" is evil and thus "fair game" for an attack by any means necessary. Opponents of the cult are often accused of being child molesters or child pornographers--the Sc*entologists accused anon.penet.fi of sending kiddyporn through their remailer as well as sending copyrighted Sc*entology material, despite the fact that anon.penet.fi didn't allow binaries.

The only way to fight such abusiveness is to adopt the same odious tactics of getting them "by any means necessary." What we need are people with deep pockets to sponsor counter-campaigns of lawsuits against Sc*entology--harassment, for sterters. So much "bad publicity" about Sc*entology has been leaked over the last few years that a jury would be a pushover to convict, esp. since in most states a civil suit only requires a majority of jurors and not a unanimous verdict. Think of a class action lawsuit, comprised of all the people who have been harassed by the Sc*entologists--it could easily run into the billions, and a jury would be biased toward conviction in the first place. Bring in Hu*bard's own writings about "fair game" discrediting of detractors, and it's a sure win. The only problem is how many vacuous celebrities have been attracted to the cult, versus the fact that the cult's detractors have no patron(s) with deep pockets....

In the 'Schentology Lite' site seen above:

[Anonymous Coward]

Downloadable archive of some of the information from xenu.net. Also check out the Google cached version of the site.

-Z-

Case won! Thanks folks!

[spirous2]

My ISP just sent me an e-mail telling me that Operation Clambake will be opened again asap. My thanks goes to all the people all over the 'Net that have been working hard the last two days to make this happen. You truly are showing the cult and others where the power lies! There is no way to stop free speech on the 'Net!

PS: No, I do not have to change my metatags, seems like they bought the argument. :)))

Best wishes,
Andreas Heldal-Lund
heldal@online.no
http://www.xenu.net/

Re:Case won! Thanks folks!

[gorilla]

Congratulations Andreas, on yet another win against the Co$. You'll make SP10 soon I'm sure!

Oops, I mean Swedish incident!

[PanDuh]

I meant to say that the incidents occurred in Sweden!! Hehe, sorry guys, us ignorant Americans sometimes get the Northern European nations mixed up... poor educational system and such. Sorry.

--
PanDuh!

OT VIII: put down that cup of coffee NOW.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Operating Thetan VIII, the highest "scripture" in the $cieno canon. This is what $300,000.00 buys you. Bad science fiction.

OT VIII: THE CONFIDENTIAL STUDENT BRIEFING DOCUMENT

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO BULLETIN OF 5 MAY 1980

ISSUE I

LIMITED DISTRIBUTION
OT VIII Course Students
OT VIII Auditors
OT VIII C/Sea AO
Review Auditors AO C/Sea

OT VIII Series 1

C O N F I D E N T I A L
STUDENT BRIEFING


By the time you read this I will no longer be occupying the body
and identity that you have known as Ron. That identity continues
to live in the hearts and minds of many as well as in on-Source
tech and admin centers around the planet, and will inspire for
years to come Scientologists and lovers of truth everywhere.

What follows is a story that has been withheld, for reasons which
will soon be obvious, until such time as there were enough OTs that
something could be done about it. That time is now. It is not a
nice or a pretty story, but I trust that having arrived on the OT
VIII Course you are ready to hear it. You have undoubtedly heard
pieces of data over the years that hinted at the greater untold
reality of my mission here on Earth, but the story was never
written, nor spoken, in its entirety due to security problems that
have unfortunately always plagued the organization. It is only now
that I feel it safe to release the information, although the time
is rapidly approaching when I will have no choice in the matter,
the hour draws that near.

I am not going to delve too deeply into specifics as people have
a tendency to bog themselves down in significance, which would
only serve to delay the immediacy of the task at hand. Therefore
I will be brief. Some eighty-odd million years ago Earth time (it
actually dates at 78,395,042 but dates are a bit superfluous with
this material) plans were drawn by a group outside the MEST
universe for the eventual takeover of a good portion of this
universe. Not a particularly large nor imaginative crew, their
exterior perspective, however, gives them considerable advantage
over the time-bound beings of the MEST universe. Borrowing from
earlier operations such as Helatrobus, they conceived an ongoing
implant, some portions of which have been fairly faithfully ren-
dered in parts of the Bible. This implant, laid in by carefully
controlled genetic mutation at Incident Two of OT III and period-
ically reinforced by controlled historic events since then, makes
it effectively impossible for beings on the more heavily affected
planets such as Earth to become free. It causes progressive genetic
"evolution" that gives the subject population greater and greater
susceptibility to the telepathic impingement and direction of the
controllers. In its final stage the progression becomes almost
geometric, and it is this final stage that we are rapidly
approaching.

Another aspect of this GE-line implant is that the body becomes in
effect a sort of theta trap that kicks in heavily on the being
should he attempt to expand his horizons beyond that of pure
physical universe reality. There can be temporary key-outs which
we have all experienced in varying degrees, but until this area is
handled it can honestly be said that there is no hope for continued
expansion. The good news is that once this is run out, expansion
becomes rather effortless and almost automatic.

No doubt you are familiar with the Revelations section of the Bible
where various events are predicted. Also mentioned is a brief period
of time in which an archenemy of Christ, referred to as the Anti-
christ, will reign and his opinions will have sway. All this makes
for very fantastic, entertaining reading but there is truth in it.
This Antichrist represents the forces of Lucifer (literally, the
"light bearer" or "light bring"), Lucifer being a mythical repre-
sentation of the forces of enlightenment, the Galactic Confederacy.
My mission could be said to fulfill the Biblical promise represented
by this brief Antichrist period. During this period there is a
fleeting opportunity for the whole scenario to be effectively
derailed, which would make it impossible for the mass Markabian
landing (Second Coming) to take place. The Second Coming is
designed, among other things, to trigger a rapid series of
destructive events.

With the exception of the original Buddhism, virtually all
religions of any consequence on this planet, monotheistic and
pantheistic alike, have been instruments to speed the progress of
this "evolution of consciousness" and bring about the eventual
enslavement of mankind. As you know, Siddhartha Gautama never
claimed to be anything more than a man. Having caught on to this
operation, he postulated his own return as Meteyya, part of which
prophecy will have been fulfilled upon the passing of L. Ron
Hubbard.

For those of you whose Christian toes I may have stepped on, let
me take the opportunity to disabuse you of some lovely myths. For
instance, the historic Jesus was not nearly the sainted figure has
been made out to be. In addition to being a lover of young boys
and men, he was given to uncontrollable bursts of temper and hatred
that belied the general message of love, understanding and other
typical Marcab PR. You have only to look at the history his teach-
ings inspired to see where it all inevitably leads. It is historic
fact and yet man still clings to the ideal, so deep and insidious
is the biologic implanting.

It is a good joke that the Galactic Confederacy is associated with
the Serpent in the Garden, the Beast and other emissaries of the
"Prince of Darkness". Yet in certain passages and esoteric
interpretations of the Bible (much of which has been taken out and
effectively suppressed for centuries) as well as the Kabbalah, the
truth reveals itself quite nicely for the clever and the ungullible.

So it really is a race against time and one that we happen to be
losing at the moment, as the Implant drama inexorably plays itself
out in spite of the breakneck pace I've managed to keep up these
last thirty-five years.

I had an inkling, but only that, of the insidiousness of this
material as far back as 1945. Later, in characteristic over
optimism, I thought that R6 would be the end of it. But that was
followed by NOTs and the Purification Rundown and still the string
continued to unwind with the ball at the end of it just out of
sight. It makes one wonder about such things as fate and destiny,
such was the resolve with which I managed to cling to that string,
not often knowing how close I was to falling into the abyss myself.
But destiny is merely the rationalization of feeble minds. Things
don't just happen, they are caused. And causative beings can undo
the plans of madmen and would-be enslavers, no matter how long
those plans may have been in the making.

I will soon leave this world only to return and complete my mission
with another identity. Although I long to stretch my arms back in
repose on some distant star in some distant galaxy, it appears that,
that is one dream that will have to wait. But my return depends on
people like you doing these materials thoroughly and completely so
that there will be a genetically uncontaminated body for me to pick
up and resume where I left off. A body free of religious mania,
right/wrong dichotomy and synthetic karma. The job ahead is far
too tough to even contemplate doing with your standard -- courtesy
of certain other-dimensional players and their Marcab pieces, many
of whom are right here in the general populace -- genetically
altered body.

Without the biogeneric meddling of those who stand outside time
(who cannot yet directly influence our world and must work through
others) the dwindling spiral is not nearly as automatic and self-
perpetuating as it appears. There are regions even in isolated
parts of the Milky Way where poets are free to poet and magicians
can paint reality with their magic wands and exteriorize without
body kickback. But these areas unfortunately are fewer and fewer.
I will return not as a religious leader but a political one. That
happens to be the requisite beingness for the task at hand. I will
not be known to most of you, my activities misunderstood by many,
yet along with your constant effort in the theta band I will
effectively postpone and then halt a series of events designed to
make happy slaves of us all.

So there you have it ... The secret that I have kept close to my
chest all these years. Now you too are part of this secret and I
no longer have to shoulder the burden alone or live with the
possibility of body death before all the data could be released.
And with this briefing I entrust to each of you the responsibility
for this material until such time as I am able to return. For we
have no help from any other quarter in this matter. The handful of
secret societies throughout history that have caught on to this
game have long since fallen by the wayside or been taken over and
become instruments of the very menace they were set up to combat.

The rundown is long and can be arduous, but it must be done
thoroughly if there is to be any effect not only on the body of
the pre-OT but the body of his or her progeny as well. There is
some danger, but with OT VII thoroughly complete it is not nearly
so great as the danger witnessed by assorted unfortunates who
happened to stumble into this area in their sleep or in moments of
reverie or snatch, experiencing an hitherto mysterious phenomenon
known as "spontaneous combustion".

CAUTION: DO NOT BE PTS WHILE TRAVERSING THIS THIRD AND FINAL WALL
OF FIRE. But the area is well charted, the rundown many years
in secret development, and by the time you read this undoubtedly
completed on myself. The wins waiting you are like none that you
have ever experienced, not just for you, but for your children,
your children's children and the whole of mankind, if we succeed.
And we will. If we had time we would pity the many poor souls,
from 1950 to PT, who chose such an exactly inopportune moment to
drop off the road to truth and disconnect from reality, the full
burst and glory of OT practically within their grasp. But we
haven't the time to "wax philosophic" or ponder might-have-beens.
The rundown follows. Again I say, do it thoroughly add completely,
for it is your ticket to the stars. And beyond!

1980 by L. RON HUBBARD, FOUNDER

Re:OT VIII: put down that cup of coffee NOW.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you confirm this? For obvious reasons, hard data on the upper OT levels is hard to come by, and rumors are that the only copies of OT8 are kept in a locked vault on the bad ship Freewinds (and possibly in the clamboys' 'doomsday vaults' where old El Fraud's writings are stored in nuke-proof shelters... just think, ten thousand years after a nuclear war, we'll STILL have to put up with these lunatics). The story of how these came out in the open might be interesting.

Then again, don't tell us. We don't want THEM to find you.

Re:OT VIII: put down that cup of coffee NOW.

[mojotooth]

Welllllll, that's scary and all, but I wouldn't worry. Dana and Fox will save us.

The Vermouth Is Out There.

Re:OT VIII: put down that cup of coffee NOW.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hubbard, Leary, and McClaine probably had a hoot putting this together.

Leary: "Dude, here's another quarter sheet.. Lets write the next paragraph.."

Hubbard: "Wait! I got an idea! We can sell this!"

Leary: "Yeah, but how?"

Hubbard: "We'll tell them it's religion! Why are the letters on the paper moving?"

McClaine: "Yeah! I can sell it to all my hollywood chums!"

Leary: "Do you have any idea how much 'cid we can make with the cash we can sell this for? Mmm. *licking bag*"

Re:OT VIII: put down that cup of coffee NOW.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, be careful! The human mind is not ready for such information until it has been properly prepared the Scientology way! Such powerful information is DANGEROUS to read!

(sarcasm)

Scientology doesn't always win.

[CodeShark]

As I was reading some of the information mentioned in another /. post, I ended up moving to the pages listed at the following site which apparently won in their fight against the Co$ and had their pages restored to the web.

Kudos to the Xenubat web site author for fighting back.

IT'S BACK UP !!!!!

[AftanGustur]

WWW.XENU.NET WORKS AGAIN !!!
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

Peculiar result

[werdna]

We really don't have sufficient facts to judge what happened here. It is odd that a single letter would suffice to make an ISP pull out for reasons of a threat of trademark infringement:

1) The DMCA, which addresses only third-party liability for Copyright claims, doesn't provide either the safe-harbour for pulling, or the defense against the customer's contract claim unless the letter also alleged copyright claims.

2) The domain name "xemu.com" doesn't appear to be a trademark of RTI or related entities. How was the site using the words? Mere denominative use of a designation isn't trademark infringement, any more than our use of Microsoft in discussions about Microsoft would be infringement. If that is the alpha and omega of their claims, and the defendant can show this was merely an attempt to gag criticism, they are risking serious downsides if they lose -- in particular an award of attorney fees for an exceptional case.

It is true that some xxxsucks sites went over the line. (See the jews-for-jesus.com case) But those were cases where the mark was clearly used in a non-denominative fashion.

Accordingly, this just doesn't add up. I can't see the ISP risking a contract claim by just pulling the site (since unprotected by DMCA), and it would be odd for RTC to step out on this very feeble legal limb. (Their copyright claims in previous cases, however distasteful, had real, legal teeth -- these seem toothless in comparison).

I'd like to know more facts.

Re:Peculiar result

[Anonymous Coward]

The domain name "xemu.com" doesn't appear to be a trademark of RTI or related entities

That's because it isn't - "Xenu" is an evil space alien bent on domination of the Universe (as written in the top-secret Co$ "scripture".)

Mere denominative use of a designation isn't trademark infringement

Yes, you know that and I know that, and the courts know that - but it's expensive to get the courts to say it.

If that is the alpha and omega of their claims, and the defendant can show this was merely an attempt to gag criticism, they are risking serious downsides if they lose -- in particular an award of attorney fees for an exceptional case.

You miss the point - this is EXACTLY what happened. They've done it in the past - the "serious downsides" are irrellevant, as they're not interested in winning via the legal system, they're interested in either silencing their critics (can't afford to defend themselves in court) or making the critic's life painful (long, expensive, drawn-out legal process)

it would be odd for RTC to step out on this very feeble legal limb

I don't think so - it still falls under "fair game."

PLEASE learn some more about Co$ and how they operate. They go out of their way to harass anyone who criticizes them.

Re:Peculiar result

[werdna]

PLEASE learn some more about Co$ and how they operate. They go out of their way to harass anyone who criticizes them.

With all due respect, as a denizen of the Tampa Bay arena, I have been following the matter closely for years. Disagreement with your point of view does not equate to innorance.

RTC has taken some strong positions, to be sure, and has unrelentingly exploited the legal process to abuse those who has stepped in the way of its actual rights. However, you will note, they have also won a great number of these cases on the merits.

I took substantial heat, indeed derision, for noting in alt.religion.scientology that the copyright case against Lerma was not only strong, but likely to prevail on summary judgment. Even after that was exactly what happened, there was still overwhelming denial of the merits of the case. Such is the difficulty of religious disputes.

I agree they go out of their way to attack their critics, and I agree its unconcionable. This doesn't mean that everything a critic does, particularly beyond the bounds, is legal and justified, or that every lawsuit brought by the church is meritless, even if it was brought for the purpose of harassment as critics allege.

Which brings me back to the points raised in my original posting.

Excerpts from top-secret "Sacred" Scriptures here

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are some excerpts from the OT3 which is the final sacred scriptures offered to Scientologists after investing a ton of money and time. It is part of an affadavit that was submitted and approved in Dutch courts concerning the brainwashing of an ex-scientologist.

There's some pretty wacky stuff in here, and it makes you wonder about some of the celebrities who believe this stuff like John Travolta and Tom Cruise. Of course, they probably haven't reached a sufficient level of mind-control to be fed this stuff yet..

Anyway, enuff talk the Sacred Scriptures are here

Well...

[Derek Pomery]

It's worth pointing out that most of these religions started before the notion of copyright existed.
Church of the SubGenius is new, but it is a parody.
Given the vicious ways in which some of those religions have responded to "heresy", I bet they would have made full use of copyright law if it had existed at the time they were first disseminating their memes.

Where Are the Counter-Flames?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm disappointed that the Church of Scientology hasn't flamed this thread yet. It would be highly entertaining- the Church of Scientology is possibly the group which is most implacably hostile to negative publicity in the world. This is including the Iranian religious foundation that has put a price on Salman Rushdie's head.

Re:Where Are the Counter-Flames?

[TheCodeMaster]

They're too busy preparing legal action against /., as any critical speech against them is libel.

Re:Where Are the Counter-Flames?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, usually they'll assign a few upper level people to hit discussion boards with cut-and-paste pro-scientology spam. I'm guessing that (A) they haven't seen this site yet, (B) they're doing it but it's been moderated down, or (C) they're afraid to have anyone come near this site and read all the negative press. Remember, most scientologists use the "scienositter" software to block critical pages.

The New York Times

[rnturn]

``Imaging starting a new Newspaper and calling it "The New York Times" the real New York Times would have a good reason to say no you can't do that.''

Imagine you own a company called Infocom and you are known for selling a popular computer game called ``Zork''. Imagine that because of the popularity of your flagship product you decide to name your customer newsletter ``The New Zork Times''. Would you ever imagine that the New York Times' legal department would threaten you with legal action? Because it thought that people might mistake your newsletter for their newspaper? It happened. There is little in the way of logic passing through the minds of some lawyers.

I guess that the following publications would also run into trouble:

• ``The New Pork Times'' -- the monthly newsletter put out by the producers of the other beef.
• ``The New Cork Times'' -- the journal of trends in wine stopper technology.
• ``The New Bork Times'' -- former conservative judge comments on the major news events affecting you.

Re:The New York Times

[maroberts]

> `The New Bork Times'' -- former conservative judge comments on the major news events
affecting you.

Nope - Swedish Chef comments on the major news events affecting you

:-)

Re:The New York Times

[Sabalon]

Wouldn't that be "The New Bork Bork Bork Times"?

Re:The New York Times

[Eric S. Smith]

``The New Bork Times'' -- former conservative judge comments on the major news events affecting you.

Nope -- Swedish Chef comments on the major news events affecting you

Hmm. You could point one of those encheferating proxies at the New York Times Web pages and get that with very little effort...

Mirror http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/www.xenu.net/

[Brian Ristuccia]

I've mirrored the site at http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/www.xenu. net/. Please let me know if anything is missing.

Site's up

[jwhyche]

Site was up when I went to it just a few minutes ago. Everything looked fine and I say no hint of it being shutdown on the front page.

He got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a guy who publicly denounced Scientology in a newspaper.... after his articles ran for abotu 2 weeks or so, he was hit by a car. it ran over him, then backed up, and went over him again. He almost died. He had received deaththreats prior as well.

Personally I think its run by a large criminal organization... probably not the Italian mafia, but some other one.

Many scientologists can't read slashdot ...

[taniwha]

They can't read this slashdot page, or the main one at the moment ..... really .... when they try and access this page their TCP stack shuts down because their 'church' has had them install (mostly without their knowledge) software that blanks out certain words [like my nick 'taniwha' for example] or when they see words like 'xenu' shuts down a socket connection altogether

This software, described in http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/c ensorship/ (www.xenu.net is back on the air BTW), has been variously dubbed 'clamnanny' or 'scienositter'. It only works on Windows systems and is believed to be a purloined copy of CyberSitter (who's owners denied any knowledge of it). Co$ members had it slipped into their systems under the guise of a tool to help them create personalised web pages - as part of a larger attempt to create so many 'scientology' web sites that the critical sites like xenu.net would be drowned out in the search engines.

I was one of the scientology critics that cracked the encryption on the work lists (with help from some of the other anti-censorware people) and produced the list of words and names that are banned. Who knows maybe slashdot will be on the next list :-)

Re:Many scientologists can't read slashdot ...

[Ixy]

Damn right. I was only mildly suprised, when news of this came out that some people I know personally, even the 'god of plush animals', were blocked by the 'entheta' filtering software.

*laugh* This is the same organization that claims to promote freedom?

Irrelevant -- $cientology is not a religion

[Ixy]

This would be interesting if Scientology were a religion. Even Lafayette Ronald Hubbard himself said it wasn't several times and consistently referred to it as 'the religion angle'.

This is what the dispute with supposed intolerance in Germany is about. The German government ruled that they are not a religion and may be a dangerous sect. It became a 'religion' to avoid tax laws and charges that Dianeticists were practicing medicine without a licence.

Referring to auditing as a 'religious' practice, instead of machine assisted hypnosis, took it out of the purview of the medical boards, and in 1991 the Cof$ finally got their much-cherished tax exempt status from the IRS.

So Travolta testified before a one-man (Al D'amato, my district's former senator) committee about the terrible intolerance of the German government. It's so rude for them to not consider a money making scheme a 'religion'. :P

Re:Irrelevant -- $cientology is not a religion

[taniwha]

Actually even though I'm a serious long-time scientology critic - I think that it is a religion - simply because some people beleive in it. It doesn't matter that Hubbard or the current leaders like (*) were/are just in it for the power and money.

One of the problems with our society's current take on religion is that things are either religions or they are not - I think that scientology's a religion, a scam, a cult, but mostly a business. And we have a view of religion that something can't be all those things - I have no problem with scientologists beleiving in space aliens - that's their 1st amendment right - but others shouldn't be able to hide behind those people's honest beleifs to abuse them and make money hand-over-fist.

Scientology's made me think about this a lot - I think that the seperation of church and state thing has been developed all wrong - the 1st amendment sais that the govt may not establish a state religion (or religions) [to be fair this clause was slipped in to make sure that the feds didn't try and change the then established official religions that some of the states had at the time - yup it's the antidisesthablishmentarianism clause] - I think that the act of deciding that something is a religion and giving it a tax break is in it self an act of reconising a religion and giving it state backing - something that the feds are not allowed to do according to the constitution. So a simple change - I think the govt. should get out of the business of deciding whish organisation is a religion and which is not - that means no tax breaks which are unfair on the people who don't beleive in a particular religion because they amount to a subsidy on their part.

Re: Crowley and Hubbard

[Mendax Veritas]

Also, for all you Christians out there, Hubbard was a disciple of Aleister Crowley, a.k.a. the Beast 666, founder of modern satanism, back in the 30s-40s.

Crowley was not a Satanist by any sensible definition. He would better be described as a neo-pagan (and there is some evidence that he was the real creator of the formal rituals of Gardnerian Wicca; this view is supported by some of Gardner's closest associates, including Doreen Valiente).

It is also not really correct to describe Hubbard as a "disciple" of Crowley's, for two reasons:

• Hubbard was a member of a temple of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis in Los Angeles (the "Agape" lodge). Crowley was unhappy with that temple and the conduct of its leaders, and placed it under interdict (kicking them all out of the OTO, essentially) not much later. So Hubbard's involvement with Crowley was indirect at best, and through people who Crowley considered unfit to be in the OTO.
• Hubbard later claimed to have been spying on the OTO for US Naval Intelligence, which, if true, would suggest that he was not a serious student.

He was not a favorite of Crowley's, as evidenced by Crowley's written remarks on Hubbard's "idiocy".

The actual quote (IIRC) is, "I grow fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts" and was in reference to not just Hubbard, but probably the whole Agape lodge (the context is not entirely clear; at minimum he was referring to Hubbard and/or Dr. Jack Parsons, the rocketry pioneer who was also a member of the Agape lodge and later blew himself up in a rather weird lab accident).

Crowley's bit was that once you moved up far enough in his hierarchy, you'd start your own religion according to your personal belief system. Interesting, to say the least...

Not quite right. The idea was not that you would start your own religion, but that once you reached a certain level (OTO 7th or 8th degree, I think? I don't have my references handy), you were entitled, if you chose, to start your own organization in which you could teach your own interpretation of what you had learned, according to whatever teaching methods you chose. It's closer to starting your own sect than your own religion, and was fundamentally based in Crowley's view that each adept has his or her own version of the truth.

Can Religions Copyright ?

[maroberts]

If Scientology is a religion can it legally maintain copyright on its religious texts ?

I did hear [fact or fiction] that it is not possible for a religion to hold trademarks, copyright etc.

Kudos to German govt. for fighting Scientology

[cthompso]

Scientology is very, very creepy. One has to congratulate the German government for calling a spade a spade, invoking one of West Germany's "let's-not-ever-let-anything-like-Nazism-ever-take -root-here-again" laws against the most overt abuses from Scientology. The Germans got a ton of flack from Scientology for it, but held firm. Good for them.

Re:Kudos to German govt. for fighting Scientology

[cancrman]

So what exactly happened in this instance?

ISPs/ Common Carrier status

[maroberts]

Anyone know a friendly US Member of Congress/ Senator that will put forward a bill giving ISPs some sort of "common carrier" status to any web sites they host, i.e. so that only the owner of the web site is truly responsible for information placed on that site ?

In that way, at least people who are determined to fight Cease & Desist orders and similar get to make the choice without having the ISP make it for them. I know it can take money to fight these things [which many people don't have] but I feel that a web poster should at least have the choice, and that would remove the accusations of cowardice towards ISPs.

P.S. I can't do it - I'm English! [I may contact my MP on the issue however]

Lisa McPherson, Scientology == Killer Cult

[Ixy]

--quotie
On December 5, 1995, long time Scientologist Lisa McPherson, 36, was pronounced dead at New Port Richey Hospital, near Clearwater, Florida. McPherson's death followed two and a half weeks of forcible confinement in a room at Scientology's Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida.
--/quotie

http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/lisa_mcpherso n/

how about an organized attack

[Anonymous Coward]

Hack them: they're running WebSitePro on a Winnt4/98 box. The main urls are www.dianetics.com and www.scientology.com. tax them: if they have tax exempt status, they ought to lose it.

Site Back Up!

[Sean]

It seems that www.xenu.net is back up! No idea why...I started mirroring the remains about an hour ago and just noticed that index.html is up again! Hrm...go figure...

--

Moderate this up!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is such an important point-- that normal scientologists have to use BABY SITTING SOFTWARE to access the web-- they're not protected from porn or anything but from critical info about the cult!

God those dudes are EVIL!

They're free as in beer, not as in GPL

[Nicolas MONNET]

You're free to copy it, but try making a derivative work out of the bloody Quhran and ... see what happens to Salmann Rushide.

Personally I pee in the ass of all the Ayatollahs.

Re:They're free as in beer, not as in GPL

[acb]

Personally I pee in the ass of all the Ayatollahs.

"I unclog my nose at you, you sons of window-dressers! I fart in your general direction."

Sorry...

Nary a kind word for CoS?

[Doctor Pepper]

Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle. The definition of an engram. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website, and specifically the What is Scientology portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing, all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival , Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines (also see here) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scroll down a bit through the comments, find the one where the guy says 'Drop the coffee, here's OT8', then read it. Assuming that you don't 'spontaneously combust' because you haven't cleared your bank, will you K/R Slashdot? Will you admit to Ethics that you've been accessing the Web without ScienoSitter? Will you buy another intensive to key out the entheta from reading this material? Will you ask yourself how someone can be sued for divulging 'copyrighted and trademarked' religious secrets that the Church claims he couldn't have got his hands on without self distructing from Theta-kickback?

Neat trick, that, you know. Microsoft and Co$ should get together... Bill would LOVE to get his hands on some 'tech' that makes people explode if they pirate his intellectual property.

I pity you. I really do. But I have no more time to waste on lost causes.

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[Doctor Pepper]

If it ever comes up in a conversation, I have no problem with telling ANYONE that I viewed this article and it's comments. I know nothing about "ScienoSitter", but from what I hear it requires a Windows PC. *I* have a PowerMac G4. So there. ;-)

I misspelled the name of the web site. You'll forgive me if I've never visited Xenu.net.

Will you ask yourself how someone can be sued for divulging 'copyrighted and trademarked' religious secrets that the Church claims he couldn't have got his hands on without self distructing from Theta-kickback?

I have been asking myself that for quite some time. The only explanation that I can come up with is that, while the consequences have obviously been exaggerated, you can't get anything close to the same amount of case gain and general gain in well-being by just reading the OT VIII course materials w/o the auditing to go along with it. Auditing is the reason that Scientology works, it's totally individualized.

OT VIII may seem like the product of some sci-fi writer's over-active imagination. But if you had regained your Whole Track memory from the training / auditing that you had done before Eight, you may have a different take on things. You may actually remember whatever it is that's in the OT VIII course pack. (And no, I'm NOT going to read it.).

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[gorilla]

Another possible explination is that the OT VIII is bullshit, just like the levels which go before it.

Can you control matter, space, energy & time? No, I didn't think so.

Of course, having the belief that you can is ok. However, trying to sell courses as a 'science' without any scientific testing isn't. The many illegal acts of the Co$ is what the critics are protesting against.

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone truly could control matter, space, energy and time, do you think that it wouldn't come with a degree of responsibility?

Imagine the repercussions for world peace that would result if Scientologists were found to be able to do these things, in reality? Do you think that Scientology would survive very long if in fact it was discovered that Scientologists were able to control matter, energy, space and time by matter of free will?

I don't think so. They'd be sewn up and destroyed before anyone could even read a single book.

If you ask me, the fact that they're so vehemently attacked by such powerful vested interests as the German government and the various mental health organizations around the world is evidence enough that they've got something that governments don't want to have around.

Implausible? No more implausible than the statement "another possible explanation is that the OT VIII is bullshit" - after all, how can you tell if you haven't experienced the stuff for yourself? You can't just look at it, and say "oh, that's just bullshit, it doesn't work" if you haven't done it the way its supposed to be done in order to get the desired results, per the people who are responsible for delivering it - the Church of Scientology.

Surely, that's not a scientific view...

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can tell you is that if a scientologist ever darkens my door, he's going to find a shotgun pointed right at his/her chest. He'll have about 10 seconds to get off my property before I turn him into a bloody mess.

Further, if I ever lose a relative or friend to this cult, I'll kill as many of them as I can starting with the lawyers who represent them. I'll drive a freaking dumptruck fertilizer/fuel oil bomb into their "movie studio" and see how they like real terrorism.

P.S. I'm not a crackpot.

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[Erik Hollensbe]

As someone else pointed out, it's not the religion but the church that is the problem. Just like the Catholics up until about 200-300 years ago they're using heavy-handed tactics to stifle the communication of like-minded people who disagree with the church and it's religious practices.

Now, considering we are on slashdot here, a place that stresses free speech, posting in a forum group called "YOUR RIGHTS ONLINE", how in your right mind can you even step up boldly to support this?

The point is, is that the same laws and morals and respect that gives the Church of Scientology the will and ability to spread their word is being stifled by the Church itself.

You make a decision. I know mine, there is no room in my world for anyone who stifles my ability to create it.

-Erik-

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I'm with you! Let's kill the fsckers. P.S. I am a crackpot

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[deeny]

Confession: I was a scientologist for years. I am no longer (and haven't been in many years).

The reason I am no longer has more to do with the organization than the beliefs, though the two are intertwined. Scapegoating as doctrine, for example.

Methinks that if the scns want their doctrine taken more seriously, they'll have to loosen the death grip on it and let others practice it freely. There's something weird about using the courts to protect *doctrine* -- it's so anti-1st amendment.

Then again, doing so would be contrary to their doctrine. So, ever doomed to be a fringe cult.

_Deirdre

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[cybercuzco]

>>OT VIII may seem like the product of some sci-fi writer's over-active imagination.

But you have to realize first that it was authored by a sci-fi writer, so that couldnt possibly be true

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[warpeightbot]

A long time ago I ran across the ancient Zen koan, If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him. It took me a long time to figure out what that means. It is this:

Whenever you see someone advertising the One True Way of living your life, and There Are No Others, kill him! Or at least run like hell, because the inDUHvidual is a damned liar. The real Buddha will take you some digging to find, and can usually be identified by a catchphrase something along the lines of "think for yourself, schmuck!"

Or, as another ancient Oriental religion puts it, the Tao that can be explained, is not the true Tao.

It is left as an exercise to the reader as to why Co$ fits this paradigm, and wherein.

taliesin (at speakeasy.org, the above email is obselete)
"All paths are sacred." -- Lord Serphant

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS?

[Cadaver]

The reason the Germans have to crack down on Scientologists is because they have a stated aim of world domination. This is not permitted by the German Constitution because of the events of WWII.

And the fact that the rest of Europe is doing similarly could be because the Scientologists have yet to find adequate blackmail material such as was allegedly used to gain tax exempt status in the US.

--

I'll stop after they stop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it whining to stick up for your right? Is it whining to let others know what a company that claims to support workers rights in China, retaliates against workers demanding their rights in the United States? Is it whining to let people know about wrongdoings?

Mattel is the one who filed a libel countersuit against me! Mattel is the one who are trying to shut me up by claiming that I am lying. I am not the only one that they used legal action or the threat of legal action (an example) to squelch people.

When I say Mattel, I mean Mattel/TLC/MSI, since they are all parts of Mattel.

Mattel retaliates against injured geek!

Kind words

[Nicolas MONNET]

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church.

Well Adolf Hitler might have got a bad influence from his friends, but he made lots of nice highways.

Why no pro-scientology voices here ....

[taniwha]

I think that this is one reason why there are no pro-scientology voices here - the scientologists who use the censoring software have found that they can't even view the main slashdot page because their browser chokes at the word 'xenu'

They have no idea that this discussion is going on, and won't so long as that word appears anywhere on the slashdot main page - by which time it will be too late.

To be fair their censoring software only works on Windows platforms - any Linux-using scientologists are welcome to jump in and give their point of view

Re: Crowley and Hubbard

[VValdo]

Hubbard later claimed to have been spying on the OTO for US Naval Intelligence, which, if true, would suggest that he was not a serious student.

Yeah sure. He also claimed to be the youngest boyscout, a war hero who cured his own blindness, a nuclear physicist, an explorer, a philosopher, etc. etc.

Whatever.
-------------------

Re: Crowley and Hubbard

[Mendax Veritas]

Well, yes. I didn't say it was true. I have no idea whether it is or not, though I tend to doubt it. I actually suspect that he joined the OTO hoping to pick up some magical powers with which to further his material comforts. IIRC, there is evidence of his involvement with a number of other occult or pseudo-occult organizations at around that same time, including the AMORC (which would have been a much better place to learn how to control the minds of sheeplike followers).

When does DMCA go into effect?

[Danse]

I thought the DMCA didn't go into effect until January next year. Am I mistaken?

Billy Joel / Samuel L Jackson

[XaOsGoth]

This is why actors frequently use either a different name, or a middle inital. (Although, in actor's cases, it's more to do with the Screen Actors Guild).

William H Macy
Samuel L Jackson

etc...

Re:Billy Joel / Samuel L Jackson

[copito]

Michael Keaton's birth name was Michael Douglas
--

False Alarm

[XaOsGoth]

As stated on the Latest News Page:

November 19 1999 My ISP is convinced by the arguments given, site is opened again!!! Another foot bullet from the cult, more publicity to the critics.

You can find information there about Clambake's lawyer's arguement to the ISP.

YUP - happened to me ....

[taniwha]

Or rather my kids - they picketted my kids (7 and 5) as they arrived home from school - because I'd had the temerity to stand up pubicly and protest their actions.

Before the whole scientology vs. the Net thing blew up in their faces co$ could force their critics (mostly ex-members) into silence by harrassing and sueing. But once they tried to rmgroup alt.religion.scientology and raided Dennis Erlich and took away his computer it roused the ire of a lot of net free-speech people (like me - I was never a member of co$) - there's safety in numbers, and semi-anononymity - you CAN speak out - and if you feel the heat's got a little too high just step back and let someone else take it for a while.

But the most important thing is that whole "the internet routes around censorship like a fault" thing - the best thing to do when you are being censored is to tell as many people as you can about it - not just on line - but everywhere, friends, family, at work, neighbors, a bumper sticker on your car, etc

I think that healthy democracies work the same way - secrets find a way out eventually - the net's just helping it happen faster!

Ends justify the means?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... what does Scientology offer that any *other* religion doesn't offer? Nothing. It does however, specialize in an especially nasty breed of deception, greed, manipulation, and oppression not seen in most of the others (well, at least not in a very long time).

Here is a complaint by U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman about Scientologist harrassment.

An internal document describing "Operation Freak-Out", A plan to discredit and ultimately have Paula Cooper committed for exposing Scientology practices

Another internal document describing "Operation:Freakout"

"Operation Snow-White", a systematic attempt to infiltrate and steal classified files on Scientology from governments all around the world. It was exposed by the FBI and led to several arrests.

There is sooo much more, but I'll leave it at that for now. Your beloved Xenu certainly works in mysterious ways...

Dr. Pepper is off topic

[Ixy]

We're getting two different things mixed up here, and Dr. P is encouraging it. Dianetic theory may be 99% bull, but it could help people through placebo affect like TIR (tir.org) seems to. As Doctor Pepper says, judge for yourself if you want to believe in engrams and space cooties.

That isn't what this thread is about. It's about the 'Church' of Scientology's actions as an organization. They sue, harass and censor as an organization. No one will, in any country with any sort of freedom, deny anyone else the right to use principles such as these. The issue here is that the organization that promotes this material and offers the overpriced courses is evil.

Re:Dr. Pepper is off topic

[taniwha]

He is a bit off topic but, even so, I think he should be moderated up - the whole point of this thread is about the evil of censorship - the rest of his compatriots are being censored (through mostly no fault of their own) - we should encourage speech on all sides, EVEN IF WE DON'T LIKE IT. If I had any moderator points (and hadn't already posted) I'd bump him up.

Otherwise we're just as bad as the $cientology lawyers who are trying to silence xenu.net, or their recent attempts to drown out postings in alt.religion.scientology with 100s of thousands of garbage messages.

Real dialog is good - I hope everyone will read Dr. Pepper's postings - and that he'll go and read postings from $cientology critics too.

The more I think about it the more I like /.'s moderation software - it's wonderfully decentralized ... and encourages all sides of an issue to get air-time

there's a good reason for that

[TheCodeMaster]

The CoS has had a long, well documented history of engaging in attacks against persons who question it's activities. It's hard to say something nice about people who only want something nice said about them and will harass you when you say something that isn't nice.

(The parallels to some Linux zealots are, as an exercise, left to the individual reader to draw)

Lets Inflitrate and destroy from the inside!

[Anonymous Coward]

I post as AC simply because i'm sure they track shit like this...

BUT

what would prevent a group of people to provide counterintel/mole into the CoS? That is, go in, pretend to really be into it, ride the wave, and yank as much data as possible out, and when the heat gets too high, call Dan Rather or some fishwrap writer and give them all the details.

If we get good enough hackers involved, set up BackOrifice and other "spy-like" techniquies to have their own computers feed us data on the outside.

Other groups i'd like to do this with...

The Masons
The Mormons (yikes, scary motherfuckers)
The Pentaverate (sorry... i had to ;-)

If you're with me - we can use CmdrTaco or someone as a middle man until we can do direct person to person contact (with PGP, or course)

Down with Tom Cruise!

Re:Lets Inflitrate and destroy from the inside!

[Erik Hollensbe]

As an ex-mormon (I left because well, I came to terms with the fact that the whole concept of christianity is a crock) for 8 years, I still honestly have no concept of what people's problems with them are. Except for Baptists, who have problems with everything that isn't baptist. (like disney, the evil satanic devil-worshipping on the movie screen bastards that they are)

The Masons interest me simply because they are a club which membership is based on birthright, therefore making it very hard for those who aren't a member to join. :)

However, most mormons are good law abiding people that value their own families more than anything else. The paralells between Mormons and the Catholic church are well established, and for good reason. "Disassociated" christian sects seldom imply the level of devotion or compliance to the religious laws brought before them by their church.

Which, considering that half of the point of religion (after accepting religious deium) is to follow the laws placed by said deium, is something that is scoffed at by every-weekend christians these days, is utterly fucking hilarious.

This shouldn't be about "Scientology", this should be about religious oppression, which is exactly what it is. Granted, this doesn't happen AS MUCH nowadays. (because they just send a few nuns over to senator iliketowritelawsforbooty and do it that way)

if(coffee>blood && (religion | politics)){ for(angst=coffee;angst>blood;angst++);}

-Erik-

Re:Lets Inflitrate and destroy from the inside!

[Erik Hollensbe]

heh
rather

if(coffee>blood && (religion | politics)){ for(angst=coffee;angst>blood;angst--);}

too much blood in my coffee again :)

-Erik-

anon.penet.fi did *NOT* forward kiddie porn.

[Anonymous Coward]

The penet remailer didn't handle "a lot of kiddie porn". Due to bandwidth limitations, it was set up to only forward text and possibly very small binaries. It wasn't very secure at protecting anonymity, but it did allow easy two-way anonymous email, a service that's sorely lacking today. Unfortunately it's hard to set up a service that could do it and not be vulnerable to a subpoena.

online.no

[Anonymous Coward]

The actions of online.no (Norway's largest ISP?) put the large US ISPs to shame! There is no way that any large American ISP would get involved in such a matter. It amazes me the freedoms that people in Northern European countries (in general) have compared to those we have in the US.

Oh man.. this is funny..

[Danse]

the curious should poke around in better and more interesting bookstores for a magazine called Green Egg....

They also have a publication called H.A.M. (How About Magic: A children's Pagan Magazine) You'd think it was a religion started by Dr. Seuss :)

Re:Nary a kind word for CoS? OFFTOPIC

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind words...

Well, from a purely theological standpoint, the "gist" of the story of Xenu has some parallels to my own personal beliefs. (On a VERY abstract level.) The concept of "lost souls" influencing personal behaviour is one to which I ascribe; I also believe that these souls do not necessarily have to be from this earth.

That's about as "kind" as you'll get from me.

But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

No. Not one. Not being harassed by Scientologists because I was interested in researching their beliefs, and posed questions that they were unable to answer (in my teens, I "tried on" many different religions, not the least of which would be Catholicism, Buddism, Hinduism, Scientology, New-age & spiritualist, and others.)

I believe that the best (and most direct) way to get rid of these "lost souls" is through hypnosis - direct communication with the higher-self; this is something that scientologists vehemntly oppose (I can only guess because one trip and you're cured, and they can't make nearly as much money off you.)

This is all seriously off-topic though..

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including Science of Survival, Scientology: A New Slant on Life and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

I have. As I said, I have investigated most major (and several minor) religions, and there is a kernel of truth in pretty much every one.

The problem with Scientology is that the kernel is too small, and the degrees to which they harrass their critics is too great. All of the secrecy is just too much for me - if it really is truth, they should want as many people as possible to read it, which (by their actions) is the opposite of their intentions.

Do yourself a favour - go to xenu.net (it's back up now) and email the maintainer for the NoTs - then take a look at how fanciful it all seems.

Laugh, it's funny...

[Christopher B. Brown]

If you actually could

stand up pubicly and protest their actions

then you're a vastly stronger man than anyone I know...

And I think that the quote actually is:

"Bureaucracies interpret communication as damage and route around it" -- Jamie Zawinski

:-)

But seriously, it's encouraging to hear that if dissent is sufficiently widespread that this "safety in numbers" does protect from things getting too bad.

Scientology is a corperation in most countries

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that one French judge one refered to scientology as a religion otherwise it is standard for scientology to be considered not a religon,

Scientology is a regisered trade mark of -censored-

(isn't it nice that the christians + atheists are getting along on this issue)

Scientology is a corperation in most countries

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that one French judge one refered to scientology as a religion otherwise it is standard for scientology to be considered not a religon, Scientology is a regisered trade mark of -censored- (isn't it nice that the christians + atheists are getting along on this issue)

NSDAP

[amorsen]

National-Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei. Perhaps better known as the Nazis. And I do apologize if I spelled it wrong, my German isn't that great.

Benny

As a Scientologist, I can't say I'm sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Scientologist, and a long-time Slashdot reader, I can't say I'm sad to see Xenu shut down.

Scientology, as a religion, and therefore as a way of life, has a lot to offer.

But its the sort of thing you cannot just glibly observe and say "oh, that's Scientology" - unless you are a trained Scientologist, and you have done the courses as they are meant to be done in the order given, you're just not going to get it.

It's not a matter of money, it's a simple matter of the correct sequence of events being done in order to achieve the end result.

The biggest problem with Scientology, if there is a problem, and as I am a Scientologist I feel I'm qualified to say this, is that it is too often mis-represented by people who are in fact not Scientologists, or are not applying Scientology as it was intended to be applied.

Someone within the organizational structure of the Church may do something that is completely *AGAINST* the rules of Scientology. Detractors from the Church will pick up on this, and say "Hah! SEE! Scientology is bad - look what that person did...", giving the general impression that Scientology is something that it is in fact, *NOT*. This is not something that we as Scientologists have any sort of monopoly on - it happens in *EVERY* organized human movement, whether its a software company, an Army, or a bunch of people chatting in a newsgroup.

There is a big effort in the Church right now to start getting more and more Scientologists *standardly* applying the tenets and practices of Scientology, as laid out by L. Ron Hubbard. It's called the "Golden Age of Tech", and every Scientologist is currently being urged by the Church to start getting more and more *STANDARDLY* trained on what Scientology is, so that we have less and less of a problem with people mis-understanding what Scientology truly is.

Yes, it's true, in the past there were some rotten apples in the barrel, and gradually the Church management is weeding out those rotten apples (as is their job) so that people everywhere can have a chance to experience Scientology as it was meant to be experienced... not as some news reporter has determined Scientology should be, not as some government psychiatrist has intended it to be presented, and not as some fruitcake fringe conspiracy theorists with an Internet web site are trying to make it out to be.

And as part of this process, taking down Xenu.net is a large step because *so much* of what was put up on that site *IS NOT IN FACT STANDARD SCIENTOLOGY*. It is material that has been altered and made to be 'representative' of Scientology, and this is where the damage lays.

It'd be the same as if someone took the original code from GCC, or maybe from the Linux Kernel, and packaged it up as their own Wonder-OS, with a few modifications here and there, including a bunch of bugs, and started calling it "Microsoft Windows".

It wouldn't be an appropriate representation of the hard work of the original coders, and it wouldn't be a fair and accurate view of the Open Source community, would it? Do you think that there would be efforts to get this resolved? Sure, there would.

So, this is what is going on with the Xenu situation, as far as I know...

And I urge the level-headed readers of Slashdot to take a closer look at Scientology. If you want to know what Scientology is, then read a Scientology book, or talk to a Scientologist. I know a lot of Scientologists who would actually be more than happy to chat with you, level-headedly, about Scientology and what it truly is... I'm sure there would be a lot of questions, but you know something, you'd get a lot of answers. And if that person was a true Scientologist, you wouldn't have a lot of unanswered questions.

Most of us Scientologists actually know what Scientology can do, by having actually *done* it, rather than sitting around talking about what it is and what it isn't, and how scarey it is and isn't.

You might be surprised at how different Scientology is, from what you've been made out to believe it is...

Re:As a Scientologist, I can't say I'm sad...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am happy to hear that Scientology has done what you consider to be good things for you. If people can find value in the "spiritual" aspects of Scientology that is fine by me (though I gather that the freezone offers comperable "spiritual" training for less money, and without the abuses).

That however is not the issue here. The issue is the abusive actions of Scientology.

From Operation Snow White (which resulted in jail time for a number senior staff), Scientology's criminal conviction in Canada, Lisa McPherson to the latest stunt with www.xenu.net Scientology has a history of abusing the legal rights of others. The vast majority of Scientology members may well be decent enough folks (though all of my encounters with Scienology have ranged from the distasteful to the outright unpleasant) but the actions of the organisation's leadership is the issue.

As for the argument that what is happening is not "standard" Scientology is bogus. Scientology seems to be like a used car dealership that posts signs up saying "We follow all laws regarding used car sales" and then is regularly busted for things like rolling back odometers. the actions speak louder than the words.

So who wants to attend a picket of Scientology :-) . There will be one in Toronto Ontario, 698 Yonge St, starting at 10:00 AM November 20. Be there or be square :-) .

Re:First hand experience in Scientology

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry I haven't read the whole thread. but anyway, I happened to be a victim of scientology when I was a teen. They 'employee' me to do some envelop stuffing for two weeks, and payed me below minimum wages. Technically, they didn't employ me because if i really know what I was doing then, I signed a paper that basically says I am doing voluntary work. I got introduced into scientology from the personality testing stuff they distribute everywhere.

In anycase, being bright young man, I quickly backed out ('quit') after finding out my pay check in two weeks. Anyway, the experience there is quite a illuminating. In there, they washes your brain. They have a whole collection of books by this phony Hubbard on how to think or do everything. They have their own dictionary and encyclopeida. (I'm not kidding!) Every morning they gather togeter for cult-talk. The office in San Jose also have sauna build-in. The saunas are used as a way to "wash-away-poison" as part of their brain-washing programme. This is about 1992. I think they still have the office down in San Jose. (that's California, or Silicon Valley)

being a curious and intelligent type who are actually interested in psychology or mind-control, I naturally have read a lot about scientology since then. In a nut shell, scientology is an organized crime. Time mag has an article on them around 1994.

also check out
http://www.americanreligion.org/cultwtch/index.h tml

Xah
xah@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html

Trademarks vs. Copyrights vs. Patents

[&]

mbauser2 wrote:

Imagine if she lost. People could get sued for posting résumés that contained copyrighted words.

This is nitpicking I know, but you meant "trademark", not "copyright". People throw these words around carelessly enough here that I think a clarification is in order:

• Trademark

  A symbol used by a company to distinguish itself or its product, such as the words "playmate" and "Playboy". A trademark can't be used by another party to advertise a product or service which might be mistaken for that of the holder of the trademark. Failure actively to defend a trademark will result in the loss of the right to prevent others from using the mark. The trademark holder is not allowed to prevent use of the mark which would not result in people mistaking the user for the trademark holder.

• Copyright

  The monopoly the government grants to the author of a work, giving the author the right to prevent others from copying the work. Certain types of copying are exempt - this is known as "fair use". Works similar to the copyrighted work, but which were developed independently of the copyrighted work, are not considered to be copies of the similar work for the purpose of copyright enforcement.

• Patent

  A monopoly granted to inventors to be compensated for the use of their inventions. Traditionally, inventions had to be either physical devices or methods for creating something physical, but in recent years the Patent Office has allowed patents to be issued for algorithms. Independently invented devices which are similar to the patented device are subject to the patent monopoly, even if the invention was completely independent of the patent holder's invention.

--

Applientology

[jfunk]

Anybody remember Zappa'a Joe's Garage?

Go listen to it again. Worshipping appliances?

No sillier than worshipping Wheatstone bridges (I remember doing an search on them during a workterm and wondering why all the $cientology links came up).

Zappa was very vocal about $cientology and it was pretty much what Joe's Garage was all about. Music was banned and people like Elron (hehheh) got confused young people to join the "Church of Applientology."

Plus the music rocks: "We would jam in Joe's Garage.. woooeeee..."

Not Just A Corporation...

[SolaRJetmaN]

...The Church of Scientology is a monopoly.

Imagine Scientology as a business like any other. They offer a service, of the spiritual variety, and charge a fee for it. In Scientology's case, it is a very large fee, and they go out of their way to make sure you pay it before you get a whiff of "service". They also have to first convince you to have demand for this service; Christians call it evangelism. The Church of Scientology not only harasses and silences anyone who criticizes their dogma, but also anyone who publishes it. In doing so, they want to force people to only be able to seek Scientologist salvation (or whatever they call it) through paying the Church of Scientology huge sums of money, time and labor.

In other words, the shutdown of these sites is an attempt by the CoS to preserve its monopoly power.

Compare this to another much-maligned religion, Christianity. The Catholic Church through the Dark Ages controlled all the Bibles, and were the only people who could translate the Latin text into the languages actually spoken at the time. As a result, the people were essentially held to the Catholic church, which had the clout to essentially control Europe for centuries -- until the Bible was translated. When private citizens were finally able to sit down and read the Bible, they began to have issues with Catholic dogma, and people like Martin Luther started popping up. Now, there are more denominations than can be named, and due to this competition you can acquire the Christian spiritual service for a very reasonable price.

As long as the CoS can say, "The only way to be a Scientologist is to pay us lots of money," and as long as people want to be Scientologists, this monopoly will stand. In this light, the harassment by any means necessary of critics and "translators" by the CoS makes a lot of sense.

Or should I say, cents.

Re:Not Just A Corporation...

[odaiwai]

"Thou shalt not subject thy God to Market Forces" -- The Book of Om, Terry Pratchett, Small Gods.
"This is Religion, not Comparison Shopping!" -- The Book of Om, Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

dave

Re:Not Just A Corporation...

[Bartmoss]

Since Scientology is not the only "religion" around, they hardly maintain a monopoly.

Besides, what good would a breakup do if it isn't done by application of a well placed tactical nuclear warhead underneath the CoS HQ in Florida?

Don't Blame Heinlein

[llywrch]

>Me, I blame Heinlein for the Scientologists. He and Hubbard had a bet over which one of them could start a major religion first. Guess who won?
>
You're being too harsh on Heinlein. I figure Heinlein thought they were making a joke, & besides he had better things to do with his time. Like write, visit with fans, & live his life.

Hubbard seemed enamored with the idea of starting a religion. First thing he did after leaving the service was connecting up with a Black Magic group in Pasadena that was affiliated with Alester Croweley. Then he convinced a number of people (including John Campbell the editor & A.E. van Vogt the writer) to help him start Dianetics. (Campbell & Vogt later left Dianetics when Hubbard demonstrated his inability to tell the difference between his own wallet & the Dianetic Foundation funds, a handicap that contributed to the downfall of that organization.) Then, about 9 years after that, he finally incorporated the Church of Scientology (as well as three other self-described churches). Never mind that any time Hubbard writes about God, it sounds much like what an atheist who did all of his research playing D & D (or watching old ``In Search of..." reruns) would write.

By that point, almost every science-fiction writer who had known Hubbard before the Second World War had disassociated himself from Hubbard. In a subculture that most Americans considered a little nutty (at best), he was considered a whole 'nother fruitcake.


Geoff

Scientological Inquisition

[Ektanoor]

I have followed some appearences of this organisation for several years. Funny but you know that Mr. Luzhkov, Moscow's Mayor may have some relation with these guys? At least, his well-known lawyer is known to be a scientologist...

Anyway I hardly believe that Mr. Luzhkov will suddenly run over the street and start shooting people because someone "comanded" him. The problem is that what scientology pretends to attain can crash with a few logical blows.

There is a problem with the human mind. Our brain seems to create patterns with some inconsistency. That means, many reasonings and behaviours are not "complete". If we take the care to analyse them we may note a lot of paradoxes and logical inconsistencies. However humans tend to overcome these "imperfections" by delivering their "solutions" to third persons. Usually this is covered by the social relations a human creates.

There is nothing new on this. Our society exploits these situations since its creation. However destroying society is not a solution. No matter you make revolutions or build communism, these inconsistencies remain.

In this century we met a inner nature of the human mind that was not known before. That by creating some sort of "short-circuit" in the logical building of the human brain, you may reprogram it for specific tasks. However this can be done only at lower levels of the human brain. Meanwhile he rational section still demands a straight logical structure for most of its toughts.

This is the problem why Scientology is so acid on fighting its opposition. Hubbard is known to have participated in experiments with humans in some american institutes in the 50's. There were amazing findings. I saw some films of that time and they showed how an average american could be easily turned into a typical SS of of a nazi camp.

These experiments were probably what turned Hubbard's mind to make the "perfect" ideology/religion. However he should have taken care to dig a little bit on Stalin's or Hitler's rule. You may create a temporary blackout in society. But it cannot last for long. In any case it breaks out for many reasons.

The main problem is external information that may show the internal inconsistencies of the theory. In such case he idea may fly away quite soon. A turn around is to create an Iron Curtain. However it is shown in several societies that such element can break in 2-5 generations and create a complete social chaos. This happens if you hold up certain material values. However if you degrade the material basis of the society, then wait for a few centuries to overcome it. Somehow this is what happen with Europe in the Middle Ages.

In any case the idea will degrade. There is a use problem with it. By being inconsistent with reality,in many aspects, Hubbard's religion will have to face either a chance to more real conditions or to break much like communism broke in USSR. This religion is doomed in one way or the other.

The only thing positive I see on it is to have shown on how fragile can be human thinking. And how this thing can be so flagrant in the less privileged groups of our society.

church vs. religion

[soren.harward]

You've made one of the most basic confusions of religious practice:

church == religion

which is wrong. That is to say, I don't have any stand on Scientology as a religion, but I do have a rather vehement stand against the Church of Scientology. They're two separate entities. One is the criminal organization that badgers, harasses, defrauds, and violates the laws of almost every country on this planet; the other is the philosophy that underlies the organization. So don't take the rather harsh flames personally. They're directed not at the philosophy you follow, but at the organization to which you belong.

Part of scientologists' smear campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that the 'kiddie porn' accusations were part of the smear campaign mounted by the Scientologists against penet.fi. Ron was a big fan of attacking his perceived enemies in any manner imaginable, especially by undermining their reputation and credibility.

Ron? Good intentions? Muahahaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. If you get the chance, read "The Bare-Faced Messiah" or another account of Ron's history (not the 'official' version circulated within the cult, of course).
Ron was a con man, through and through, and damned good at it. He even managed to con the likes of Jack Parsons (from JPL and OTO) and John W. Campbell Jr. (editor of Astounding Magazine), who he got to publish the original articles on 'Dianetics'.
I suspect Ron may have been slightly psychotic (paranoid schizophrenic?) (IANAD). He cast himself as the hero of an increasingly fantastic three-fisted swashbuckling science-fiction-fantasy adventure, and I think he actually believed this fantastic reality-tunnel, to some degree.
Ron used people up and threw them away all through his life, to suit his convenience. He was fond of saying that the best way to get rich was to start a religion. When the Dianetics Institute was experiencing financial difficulty, he turned it into a church. I don't believe he ever had any "good" intentions, in the conventional sense of the term.

O3T? Chain letter

[xant]

Someone ought to acquire the information that scientologists charge so much for (now available many places on the net, unless the Cult of Scientology has changed their quack secret documents recently), and just start emailing it to everyone on the net. Start a chain letter, via anonymous remailer if you have to. Get it posted to every usenet newsgroup. At the least, you would save some would-be brainwashees some money. At best, you might prompt the Cult's legal department to attempt to sue everyone on the net, effectively draining their coffers for good.

That's not fair to Amway.

[jcr]

>The CoS is the Amway of the religious world.

Amway doesn't hire goons to break in to Navy offices to try to doctor their CEO's war record.

Amway doesn't sue anyone who talks about the content of their sales training materials.

Amway doesn't make its member sever all contact with their families.

... You get the idea.

-jcr

Re:That's not fair to Amway.

[Medieval]

Amway doesn't hire goons to break in to Navy offices to try to doctor their CEO's war record.

This I will give you.

Amway doesn't sue anyone who talks about the content of their sales training materials.

No, but they use their enormous corporate power to shut down websites like CoS does

Amway doesn't make its member sever all contact with their families.

Making an uninformed statement are we?

Uplines frequently demand that Amway zombies sever their relationships with their families (or pretty much anyone not in "the business." They also encourage 'amfights' or 'ambattles' (husband/wife pairs getting into heated verbal or physical disputes about 'the business'.)

Do your research.

http://www.best.com/~cobra/amway/aus/index.htm is a mirror of Sidney Schwartz's website, which Amway had shut down.

Thanks!

Don't blame Crowley either!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unfortunate that the Pasadena group has been popularly branded "Black Magick". It's important to point out that their goals were about liberation and enlightenment, not about manipulation and slavery. Incidentally, the leader of the group wrote to Crowley (who was in his late 60's/early 70's), enthusiastically describing Ron, and Crowley completely failed to share his enthusiasm, and thought he was being foolish and naive. Not long after that, Ron made off with the lodge's treasury, the leader's boat, and the leader's wife.

Re:Don't blame Crowley either!

[llywrch]

Well, I'm the one who said they were ``Black Magick", so blame me. Although Hubbard claimed to have broken up a ring of Satanists, & this is as close as he got to any such group.

What he didn't say is that he fully assisted in the rite of Babalon Rising, & the manner he broke up the group was just as AC said: ``Ron made off with the lodge's treasury, the leader's boat, and the leader's wife."


Geoff

Dogma

[Anonymous Coward]

If anybody's seen Dogma, all I'd like to hear about is a Loki-type person in the CoS boardroom ; ). "Idolization is a mortal sin, and your gonna pay!"

'clingons' == 'thetans'

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean the Scientologists are 'thetanists'?

Scientology has been good for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, my experiences with Scientology have been nothing but good. The philosophical tenets of this religion have given me a very positive life, filled with hope and success wherever I choose to create it.

Frankly, I personally question anyones rationale who vehemently attacks Scientology, since I have gained so much from it.

What could be their true intentions, that they wish to take away something which I have found so useful, and which I have seen others use to better their own lives as well?

Re:Scientology has been good for me.

[EvilBastard]

Frankly, I personally question anyones rationale who vehemently attacks Scientology, since I have gained so much from it

So, you belong to an organisation that has done all these terrible things for the last 25-odd years, but because *you* have benefited, you don't care, and dismiss them without looking at the evidence.

What sort of surgery is required to remove a persons moral centre ? Did it hurt you much ? Is it out-patient or overnight ?

minor nit...

[cabbey]

CoS has an intelligence agency that is second only to the FBI.

the FBI isn't an intelligence agancy... that's the CIA... the FBI is a law enforcement agency.

Re:minor nit...

[climer]

After the CIA missed the fall of the Berlin wall, it is now an insult to say "XXX is an agency only to the CIA". Also considering the amount of surveillance the FBI conducts I believe the mistake is forgivable.
-Duncan
Duncan Watson -Rock climbing, Encryption, privacy
PGP Fingerprint -PGP Key on www.keyserver.net

Don't forget your masks

[Thats_Zena_with_a_Z]

When you go to picket, make sure your face is covered. They'll be taking pictures of you. Use mass transit, and watch your back. Otherwise they will try to follow your cars, and try to find out where you live. I'm not joking. Scary. This is *STANDARD* Scientology.

Xenu.net is legally in the clear

[lutefisk]

The Playboy v Playmate case mentioned by Mirele was won by the Playmate - the judge ruled that she made fair use of Playboy's metatags. It's online at http://www.isplaw.com/download /PlayboyWellesOrder.htm. The decisions are directly applicable to the www.xenu.net case - in fact, Scientology's arguments on this occasion are actually weaker than Playboy's unsuccessful arguments in the earlier case. (Why is it no surprise that the Scientologists failed to mention that particular case?)

- Chris Owen

If anyone has the power to bring the cult down...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's the Open Source/Linux/BSD/etc community. We have thousands of servers. Many of which we own! They can't get all of us and they'll sure look pretty damn stupid trying. Mirror these documents! Grab the "disk lite" version and mirror it!

Scientology cult does this all the time

[Damoclese]

The idea isn't to punish Xenu.NET for some
alleged copyright or trademark violation, but
to try to silence the Internet's most comprehensive and inclusive web site that
covers the Scientology cult and its criminal,
racketeering activities.

Ironically, trying to shut it down for good
only serves to assist Mr. Hagglund in educating
the wired world about what the Scientology cult
is all about.

xenu.net is back online today.

[Cobol^GOD]

http://www.xenu.net/news/
November 19 1999
My ISP is convinced by the arguments given, site is opened again!!! Another foot bullet from the cult, more publicity to the critics.


Damn all this talk and it was only closed for 2 days... geez.

WRONG: dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

she was the playmate of the year, thats more like if a new york times best seller got sued by the new york times for putting "New york times best seller" on the front cover. get a clue!

My mouldy old Scientology site

[daviddennis]

I have an ancient anti-Scientology site at http://www.amazing.com/scientology/ . It's interesting to note that a couple of days ago, I got an email from publicrelations@scientology.org . The chap had a friendly enough written voice and basically asked if there was any way he could get me to change my mind about the group. I think that means he wanted me to remove my page. Since I haven't changed it in eons and haven't done anything to publicise it in ages, I had no idea why he bothered to contact me.

Now I know - it looks like they are trying to start another aggressive phase, now that people like me have since gone to other causes. If they push this much further, I'm going to start reading the Scientology newsgroups again, and I don't think they want that.

Incidentally, the reason I stopped maintaining my page was that it was taking about four hours a day to read everything on ARS, HTMLitize it, answer emails, etc. It was tremendously satisfying work while I was doing it, but it was interfering way too much with what I really wanted to do with my life. Eventually, I figured out that being part of the "anti-cult" was every bit as all-consuming as being a Scientologist - and I say that as someone who's still extremely sympathetic to their views.

D

----

Re:Diffrence ...HAIL EARTHLINK

[Anonymous Coward]

and the likes like Dan Farmer who are working for them.

Scapegoating and Crack Smoking

[Anonymous Coward]

So far, two scienos have been brave enough to post here. I'll leave it up to you to weed through the entheta and find the other one.

What you are doing is following the Standard Co$ doctrine of 'scapegoating'. You are blaming every bad act ever done by Scientology on supressive persons and 'misapplication of the tech'. Those damn squirrels, eh?

Scapegoating has been used a lot in history. The People's Republic of China has a bad habit of blaming criminal acts on 'rogue officials'. Standard excuse - we did something bad? Oops, Minister X exceeded his authority. He's been removed. Sound familiar? I'm sure you can think of other examples in our century.

Scapegoating is not really dealing with the problem. It's hanging someone out to dry so that we all feel like justice has been done. A few days later, Co$ does some other evil act, and removes another 'SP'.

I'm so sick of Scienos claiming that we have to join the church before arguing against it. I don't have to be a crack addict to know I don't want to be. Is this a straw man attack? I challenge YOU to walk away from the church and try SPness for yourself before arguing against US!

So it all comes down to credibility. You (obviously) assign a lot of credibility to the Co$, and you'll take their opinion over the opinion of the rest of the world. After all, they'd know, they have a monopoly on the tech.

BUT... that's the problem. Since the Co$ keeps their 'secrets' locked so deep, it's not possible for an independant review to determine if their claims for the tech are true, and to evaluate the possible help or harm that results. And so I'd sooner smoke a crack pipe than try Scientology. After all, there are many independant studies on the effects of crack on the human body.

The only opinion that we have on the effects of the tech is from the Co$ itself, which has a vested interest in promoting it, which has proven itself unrepentantly litigous, and which has destroyed its credibility by 'scapegoating' for thirty-odd years. You'd think they'd learn not to let the damn Markabs into the Sea Org by now...

Tell you what - if you REALLY want to make a difference for us SPs, you and some of your friends should write for xenu.net's 'A Second Opinion' feature. That's the space that the webmaster has set up for sciencos to present RATIONAL arguments and evidence to refute the vast weight of evidence presented by critics and the justice system. So far, there haven't been any Scienos willing to pony up. Hell, I haven't even heard of any Freezoners who are willing to speak out. Wonder why.

Re: most of the previous messages

[Rob-G]

I am very sorry to see that the slashdot public, or let's say most of the folks that posted in this thread, are really not behaving very intelligent.

I have been reading Slashdot for well over a year now, and this is the first time I see MANY people actually believing FUD.
You, of all people, should really know better.

In the US, Scientology has been officially recognised as a _religion_.
Furtheremore, I would advise all of you to LOOK at what Scientology has actually accomplished in the past 49 years, rather than take anyone's word for it.

Finally let me explain the copyright on those words: they were registered so that Scientology actually has a defense against FUD, and so that the material is not changed over time by people who don't like the way it is. And this has proven necessary.


I have always ignored people who commented on Scientology as you all do in this thread; always because I knew they were to stupid (to see for instance, that unlike some other religions that in the past have murdered each other to force their religion onto someone else etc., Scientology only takes steps to keep people from altering their material).
The Slashdot public, however, deserves some special treatment, and I hope that my post has made at least some of you realise that FUD is not only applicable to computers.

Dead Agenting

[Anonymous Coward]

Go and word-clear 'dead agent pack' and tell me who the true masters of FUD are, the critics here and at xenu.net, or the Co$/RTC themselves.

Re: most of the previous messages

[lutefisk]

Finally let me explain the copyright on those words: they were registered so that Scientology actually has a defense against FUD, and so that the material is not changed over time by people who don't like the way it is. And this has proven necessary.

*sigh* Another person who doesn't understand the difference between trademarks and copyright.

Look: copyright is about intellectual property. Trademarks are about commercial rights over registered terms. Two completely different things. Nobody is disputing that Scientology has IP rights over its own materials, just as Microsoft has over Windows (for now). Nor is anyone disputing that Scientology has the exclusive right to use the word "Scientology" to sell goods and services. But what Scientology has tried to do in this case is to use trademark law to prevent anyone *referring* to Scientology. How can you talk about Scientology without referring to it by name? I'd suggest you have a look at the ruling in Playboy Enterprises v Welles (http://www.isplaw.com/downloa d/PlayboyWellesOrder.htm) for a nearly identical case, which Playboy lost, incidentally.

- Chris Owen

actually, most religious works ARE copywrighted

[brokeninside]

There are lots of religions in the wide world: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shinto, Sub-Genius, etc. All of these seem to have one thing in common: the works that they consider their "sacred scriptures" are not copyrighted.

The original works for most of the major religions were written so long ago that they clearly are older than the longest imaginable term of a copywright (lifetime of the author +50 years).

That said, typically anyone making a modern translation files for a copyright. This is why all the free online bibles only ship with old, crusty free translations like the King James or Revised Standard that were made a couple hundred years ago. You have to pay the copyright owner to get one of the modern translations like the New International Version or the New Revised Standard Version.

In principal, I think this is a crock of sh!t. Assuming the Gospel is true, I can't wait for judgement day when all these busines folks get to explain to the Judge why they had the audacity to copyright the word of God.

Rare are the real mystics like Sadhu Sundar Singh, who pronounce 'My mouth has no copyright'

Rand, not Heinlein...

[acb]

I heard that it was Ayn Rand that Hubbard made the bet with, and Heinlein adjudicated.

"Bob"?

[acb]

L. Ron Hubbard claimed to have made a bet with J. R. "Bob" Dobbs?

Choose your battles carefully

[acb]

If the EFF were to take on the Church of Scientology, or even make noises in that direction, the Church would probably start a campaign to take it over, infiltrating its members into its ranks and using other tactics. Apparently they did something similar to the Cult Awareness Network, and actually took over the organisation entirely.

In any case, defending against the machinations of a CoS determined on victory would leave the EFF with little if any resources to devote to other matters, such as encryption, censorship in general and abuses of copyright.

Re:applicable?

[Anonymous Coward]

The arguements may be directly applicable, but considering that the server/site is in not even in the US, I don't see how the decision is applicable.

Scientology is a BAD THING!!!!

[Myddrin]

Do you even know what an SP (Suppressive Person) is?

Dude, by responding to me you are violating the rules of scientology. If you are on staff you could be RPF'd, if your not you could have to go to costly additional auditing to prove you are not a PTS (potential trouble source, I believe that's right anyway).

Since you are already in so much shit, I would recomend going to Xemu.Net the place this article is about or trancenet.org which has some material about the Co$.

There is a lot more to the church of scientology than you think. And it ain't pretty at all.

While I don't think that the Co$ is should be banned, they have routinely done illegal things. They have defrauded you and every scientologist.
They are a pack of petty thieves and liars.

I highly recomend that you take a look at Xemu.net, since they have documents showing some of the horrible things that religion has done.

I seriously hope that you decide to leave as soon as possible.
RobK

Glad someone else understands my sig

[dpdx]

Anyway - the answer to censorship (or speech you don't like) is more speech

[I had to point out that statement derives from a Supreme Court decision here in Los Estados Unidos, and as you can see below, I've had it in my sig since I signed up for Slashdot.]

Here in Portland a dude named Jarius Godeka had attended the local Scientology reading room once, maybe twice, before he freaked out and started taking shots (the gun kind) at people in the room. It made the news, where it was reported he was destitute, a drug user, and romantically involved with someone else who was going through the program. Which made me wonder: how many Scientologists are in my TV newsroom?

What I find disturbing is the paradox that this purports to be a religion (with religious freedom) and a corporation (with trade secrets) at the same time. CoS should be forced to pick one.
_____

Absolute Truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you do not believe in absolute truth? No matter what you say, 2 + 2 = 4 and I'm sticking with it.