Defence against Scientology
Summary proceedings CoS vs Spaink
December 1995

Inhoud:

1. Introduction and personal history
2. Can disclosure be undone?
3. Free access to the Affidavit is in the public interest
4. It is important to enable discussion about the methods and beliefs of Scientology
5. On Internet, Scientology also tries to silence its critics in illicit ways
6. Is copyright an argument against publication of the Affidavit?
   1. Does copyright mean that no one may quote?
   2. Does the church suffer damages when others disclose parts of the OT-levels?
   3. The volume of the fragments from the Fishman Affidavit compared to the volume of the original OT's
7. The OT's have been in the public domain since 1968 and have not been stolen
8. It is disputed whether CST / RTC actually owns the copyrights to this material
9. The subpoena
10. Acknowledgements, and sources
11. Notes and appendices

Your honour,

It will be an extensive story, firstly because the complexity of the situation urges me to show you some of the context in order to be able to explain why I'm convinced that my conduct is legitimate. Apart from that, the subpoena has left out a number of facts that are crucial to me (and to the other people who have become involved, even though they have not been summoned to appear before your court). For example, the subpoena doesn't mention that the disputed material is part of a court document. There's also no mention of the fact that Scientology prefers to silence its critics and is apparently waging a war on the Internet. Furthermore, plaintiffs have chosen to ignore several recent court orders verdicts in similar cases.

I'll also have to explain about Internet at some stage in this defense. It's a very useful medium, but because of its many possibilities it might be somewhat difficult to get to the bottom of it. Should you feel the need for an elaborate explanation, I would be more than happy to show you in person how the medium functions, and give you a demonstration.

1. Personal history

Once on the Internet, I quickly learned more about them. In the last week of November, 1994, I took an account at XS4ALL, an Internet provider. In January and February I saw emergency appeals in several newsgroups: Scientology had supposedly removed a newsgroup and asked for a seizure at an anonymous server, anon.penet.fi. I did not give much thought to the removal of the newsgroup; I just didn't understand what was going on. But by sheer coincidence I had recently found out what an anonymous server was: a computer system to which you can send a message and which replaces your name and e-mail address with a pseudonym, before it delivers the message at its destination. Scientology demanded that anon.penet.fi would reveal the identity of a certain user, threatening to show up with a court order to reveal all known data on the system if anon.penet.fi wouldn't comply. Because someone who had meanwhile become a good friend of mine - let's call him X - regularly used this particular anonymous server (for extremely innocent purposes by the way: X happens to love stories about spanking), I warned him that his privacy was in danger and told some other people that something serious was going on.

A month or so later, I saw new warnings. Scientology threatened to attack a computer system and seize all hardware and software. The readers were asked to download the FactNet-kit and store it for the time being, until the danger would have passed. "Oh well", I thought, "another American cult. So what else is new. It will settle down." Who or what FactNet was, I did not know.

That was about it. Then, on September 5, 1995, I suddenly came across the following message, posted by Rop Gonggrijp in the Dutch newsgroup hacktic.heibel:

"At this moment, a legal seizure by an usher (Mr. Braan) is taking place in the office of XS4ALL in Amsterdam. The reason is an alleged copyright infringement; the seizure has been approved of by the President of the Court and is based upon article 444, section 1 of the civil law. Plaintiff is the Scientology cult that claims that copyright infringements are amongst others being made in the WWW-directory of user 'fonss'. More news soon ....." (1)

A seizure? At XS4ALL? At my provider? By this same Scientology?

From that moment on, I followed the case more closely. In fact, it would have been difficult not to do so, because the Dutch newsgroups were flooded with postings about it. Some people didn't believe what was happening: they were convinced that this was an absurd and out of place joke by Gonggrijp. Others apparently were more in the know and reposted the earlier FactNet- appeal; more news was posted by XS4ALL. The newspapers reported extensively about the event. The disputed document turned out to be a court document, and not a Scientology document. Scientology claimed copyrights on certain parts of the court document and summoned XS4ALL to remove the document; they threatened to press charges. User 'fonss' removed the document after XS4ALL had told him what was going on and the seizure was relieved.

I was amazed; I had always believed that court documents are public property. This conviction was confirmed when somebody posted article 15 of the Copyright Law on a Dutch newsgroup: "Publication or duplication of scientific or literary material, as well as works of art, by the Court or following a court order, is not considered to be a copyright infringement, unless this copyright is claimed explicitly by law in general, by decision or court order, or in particular cases as indicated on the work itself or at the publication of the material. However, the creator of the material continues to have the exclusive right to publish a compilation of his material, published by the Court or following a court order, even when such a proviso isn't made." When I found the document on the Internet (it was available on other places as well), I couldn't find any such proviso. Furthermore, the person from whose site I downloaded the Affidavit, had not compiled anything - the only thing he or she had done was making it available on his homepage, the disputed parts of it included.

Therefore I considered it fully appropriate to have such a document in the public domain - or more correct in this particular case: to attempt to keep it there. I wasn't the only one who felt that way. On September 8, DB.NL, the Dutch Digital Civil Movement, posted a call for protest. (2) ) With another indignant XS4ALL user who wanted to make the document available on his homepage, Johan Wevers, I discussed the situation. For my part, I did not want to open a new homepage at XS4ALL: they apparently had enough trouble with Scientology as it was, and besides: this wasn't about XS4ALL at all. Because meanwhile, it had transpired that Scientology had confiscated various computer systems, only because the document was available on those systems. They had also been creating a fair amount of havoc on the Internet. To emphasize that what was going on was most definitely not a fight between an individual provider and the cult, I set up an account at Planet Internet and put up a Fishman homepage there. On September 18, ten days after the protest call of DB.NL, I announced this in several newsgroups. (3) In the meantime, several other Fishman-pages had appeared: one at XS4ALL, one at DDS, one at the TUE (a university) and one at Cistron; shortly after my announcement one was opened at Euronet.

Realising that such a handful of pages was relatively easy to remove, I sent an appeal to a great many people, asking them to look into the case and to consider setting up a Fishman-page as well. (4) A number of people did so. Because they reported their homepage to me, I began to keep a list and also sent the participants a daily mailinglist, to keep them updated on the latest developments.

The whole thing literally turned into a snowball. I found announcements of new Fishman-homepages in various newsgroups, other participants told me about pages they found that had not yet been added to the list, etc. Often these were people I had never contacted. On September 23 there were 13 homepages, on the 25th there were twenty-three, on the 26th thirty-one, on the 27th forty-five, on the 30th fifty-eight. Someone even wrote a script that only required typing the command '~jordan/fishman4all' under Unix (an operating system), to automatically set up a Fishman-homepage, update a possible existing homepage, set the permissions correctly and that would even send me an e-mail message telling me there was yet another new participant.

As of now, there are approximately a hundred participants. There is the occasional closing down of a page, others set up a new one; but the number of Fishman homepages has been stable for several weeks - also after the trial had been announced.

Amongst the participants are renowned people or institutions: member of parliament Oussama Cherribi, the laureated novelist Marcel Möring, the weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer and TROS On-line, a radio and television network. (The latter removed the page on November 20, in order to be able to report unbiasedly about the case; Oussama Cherribi temporarily removed his page because he was extremely incommoded by Scientology-members, privately as well as at his work. He was phoned extensively at home and members would wait for him outside the house of parliament; Cherribi has explicitly stated that he'll restore the page just before the trial.

Even though at first I was not at all sure whether I would risk going to court - a hesitation that was not instigated by doubts about the legitimacy of this protest, but solely because the Church of Scientology (CoS) has a reputation of harassing its critics in numerous ways, and I didn't have the courage to confront them all by myself - but the number of participants helped me to make up my mind. When Oussama Cherribi, member of Parliament for the VVD, informed me about his Fishman homepage and told me that he would not let himself be intimidated by the pressure of Scientology, I had a meeting with a number of people on September, 28. That night we decided that Oussama, 'Newkid' and myself would take the matter to court if necessary, because we felt we had the right to make the Fishman Affidavit available. None of us was willing to take Scientology's claim that publishing the Fishman Affidavit was a copyright infringement at face value.

Not just because it would not be the first time that they had made an unjust or incorrect statement, but precisely because the only person qualified to make a legal pronouncement in a case like this, is a judge. In other words: you, your honour, and not Scientology.

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2. Can disclosure be undone?

Attending these higher-level courses - in church terminology: 'Crossing the Bridge', in other words following OT I up until OT VIII - is a very costly affair indeed. Calculations have been made, based upon price-lists that circulate within the church; the estimated cost of Crossing the Bridge is $350,000. (5) Members can get reduced rates. But in the contract that students are made to sign, they have to promise to pay the difference between the reduced and the official price upon leaving Scientology. This so-called 'Freeloader's Debt' totally commits people to the organisation and makes it virtually impossible for them to leave. (6)

In a written declaration, Steven Fishman has stated that he was trained by Scientology, in particular by staff members of the Church of Scientology Miami Org [Organisation] and the Church of Scientology Mission in Fort Lauderdale, to participate in a 'securities class action fraud. (7) Scientology denies this. Fishman was tried and sentenced to five years. Once in prison, he gradually turned away from the organisation, a process in which he was helped by his psychologist Geertz.

In 1991, both of them were interviewed by Time Magazine. Reporter Richard Behar was working on an extensive article, that was to appear as a cover article entitled "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power". In this article, Behar writes the following about Fishman:

"Occasionally a Scientologist's business antics land him in jail. Last August a former devotee named Steven Fishman began serving a five-year prison term in Florida. His crime: stealing blank stock-confirmation slips from his employer, a major brokerage house, to use as proof that he owned stock entitling him to join dozens of successful class-action lawsuits. Fishman made roughly $1 million this way from 1983 to 1988 and spent as much as 30 % of the loit on Scientology books and tapes.

Scientology denies any tie to the Fishman scam, a claim strongly disputed by both Fishman and his longtime psychiatrist, Uwe Geertz, a prominent Florida hypnotist. Both men claim that when arrested, Fishman was ordered by the church to kill Geertz and then do an "EOC," or end of cycle, which is church jargon for suicide." (8)

Because of this article, Scientology in 1991 filed a lawsuit against Time Magazine, and one against Fishman and Geertz.

The church claimed $416 million damages of Time Magazine. A verdict in this case is still to be pronounced, although the more judges try the case, the more passages of the article are declared 'not guilty'. On November 14, 1995, the court ruled that there is only one disputed sentence left, which will be presented to a jury. As far as the paragraph "Scientology denies ..... for suicide", quoted above, is concerned, the judge states that "these claims are not obviously incredible". (9)

In the Netherlands, Scientology filed a suit about an adapted version of this article that was to be published in Reader's Digest. The Dutch judge ruled that Reader's Digest was indeed allowed to write that Scientology is 'a very lucrative, worldwide swindle', that 'intimidates' its members and critics 'in a mafia-like manner', and similar niceties. (10)

Of Fishman and Geertz the cult claimed $1 million damages. In order to prove his statement that he had been 'brainwashed' by Scientology and wasn't spiritually free during his years inside the cult, Fishman handed the court documents that were allegedly church material: the so-called OT-levels.

He explained his motives for filing them as follows:

"In the course of defending my civil suit, I had to prove something that I was unable to prove during the course of my criminal trial -- that Scientology had influenced my thinking in order to get me to commit financial crimes for them. In order to defend my lawsuit, I also had to prove that I was driven psychotic by the Church, a condition known in Church jargon as "PTS (Potential Trouble Source) Type III."
In order to do this, I introduced into the court record OT Levels I through VII, which I obtained not through discovery in any legal proceeding but which I had purchased in 1987 from fellow Scientologist Ellie Bolger of Clearwater. I also introduced OT VIII, which I had received from my former criminal attorney, who had obtained the materials from expert witness Richard Ofshe." (7)

Thereupon, Scientology dropped all charges. They proposed a 'dismiss with prejudice' on their own initiative, which means they will never again be able to re-open the case.

From that moment on the OT-levels, accepted as evidence by the judge, were part of the Fishman Affidavit. The file was kept in the court library and could be studied by anyone interested. The record office sent the Affidavit to all those who requested so: copies could be obtained for 50 cents per page, adding up to $36,50 for the entire document. Parts of the OT-levels, the high-level courses that Scientology claims are trade secrets and copyrighted material, were thus made accessible to each and everyone.

Scientology's attempts to close the file - or at least this part of it - through legal channels failed repeatedly. Nevertheless, Scientology made it impossible during this period for people to use their right to study the document: eight members, working in shifts, checked out the file every morning and returned it by the end of the day, in order to prevent others from reading it. It is striking that Helena K. Kobrin, one of Scientology's prominent lawyers, more or less triumphantly says so in one of the e-mails she sent me; in her opinion it is apparently quite normal that her organisation has prevented US citizens from exerting their rights:

"[T]hese materials are of such significance to my clients that they had people at the court checking out the files every day before they were sealed, so that others could not obtain access to them." (11)

Some people and institutions ordered copies of the documents at the record office. One of them was the Washington Post, who later quoted bits of the OT's in an article. Scientology filed a complaint against the Washington Post, stating that the newspaper had illegally obtained the documents. Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected Scientology's motion. In her ruling, she summed up earlier attempts by Scientology to close (parts of) the Fishman Affidavit:

"[T]he plaintiff had moved the district court to seal the file and the court had denied that request.
When the district court refused to seal the file, plaintiff appealed that decision to the Ninth Circuit which reversed the district court in an unpublished opinion on August 30, 1994. The Ninth Circuit remanded the case with instructions to the lower court to determine whether the disputed documents contain trade secrets or were irrelevant to any of the issues in the case. In reaching their decision, the Ninth Circuit recognized the tension between the public's right of access to judicial records and the supervisory power of the court to ensure that its files not become "vehicle[s] for improper purposes." Church of Scientology Int'l v. Fishman, No. 94-55443 (9th Cir. Aug. 30, 1994). However, despite these concerns, the court's opinion did not direct the lower court to seal the file, which remained open to the public until after the Post copied the documents. Given the well recognized public right of access to court records and these facts, there is little likelihood that that the plaintiff will prevail on the argument that the Post had no right of access to the AT documents in the court file on August 14, 1995." (12)

It wasn't until August 15, 1995, after having been in the public domain for more than two years, that the Fishman Affidavit was temporarily sealed by judge Harry L. Hupp, pending the Ninth Circuit ruling mentioned above. (13) On November 14, 1995, the Pasadena Court of Appeals in California looked into this question. Their decision is expected in a few months time.

Long before August 15, however, people have obtained copies of the document, scanned them, studied them, stored them in their computer, posted them in newsgroups, put them on homepages and sent them to others. It is not at all clear whether the temporary sealing of the Affidavit has anay consequences for these copies; after all, they have been legally obtained. And even if the court should proceed to officially close (parts of) the Affidavit, that ruling will probably only relate to the original court document; it will no longer be possible to ask for it at the court's library, nor will the clerk be allowed to provide anyone with new copies of the Affidavit. But copies that have already been made and passed on, will probably not fall under the jurisdiction of the court. Or are all those people obliged to turn in their copy at the court concerned? In my opinion, disclosure, once it has been legally established, cannot be undone.

The OT's have been regularly posted (before as well as after the temporary sealing of the Fishman Affidavit) in alt.religion.scientology, an Internet discussion group focusing on CoS, and has been put on homepages. Since the document first appeared on Internet, there hasn't been a day when it was not available. At this moment, the document is available from Dutch homepages to uphold its public character; but initially it was solely used to enable discussion about the acts and beliefs of the Scientology religion, because that discussion is not only severely obstructed by the conduct of Scientology, but of vital importance as well. I will explain both arguments in the following paragraphs.

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3. Free access to the Affidavit is in the public interest

"...make very sure that you immediately and instantly, within two or three hours after your receipt of the warrant, have served upon the signer of the warrant, a personal civil suit for $100,000.00 damages for having caused the arrest of a Man of God going about his business in his proper profession, and for having brought about embarrassing publicity and molestation (...) And if you are foolish enough to have an attorney who tells you not to sue, immediately dismiss him and get an attorney who will sue (...) The DEFENSE of anything is UNTENABLE. The only way to defend anything is to ATTACK, and if you ever forget that, then you will lose every battle you are ever engaged in, whether it is in terms of personal conversation, public debate or court of law. NEVER BE INTERESTED IN CHARGES. DO, yourself, much MORE CHARGING, and you will WIN (...) The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly." (15)

The other documents attached to the Affidavit contain a description of the Scientology doctrine and various training routines. They are allegedly part of the so-called OT-levels. These courses, also referred to as the AT's or 'Advanced Technologies', may only be studied by members who have reached the 'clear' status. Whoever is 'clear', controls MEST: Matter, Energy, Space en Time. Through the OT's, adepts are taught there is yet another step to be taken: the one that makes one Operating Thetan.

The essence of the religion is described in OT III: 75 million years ago, Xenu (the evil prince that ruled the Galactic Empire) solved an overpopulation problem by transporting people to the planet Earth and set off two hydrogen bombs - one on Las Palmas and the other one on Hawaii. The souls of these people ('thetans') are still roaming the earth. We are those Thetans, but we are dazed and numb; Scientology teaches people how to regain their full powers and reach the status of 'Operating Thetan'. An Operating Thetan can control people with his mind, is intelligent way above average and can communicate with animals and plants. Furthermore, people have traumas ('engrams'), usually from past lives, that can be removed through applying Scientology. And finally, there are 'Body Thetans' that also cause trouble; adepts can learn how to get rid of those too. Unfortunately, Body Thetans have eternal life and will, once one has rid oneself of them, therefore attack or occupy others. (16) Furthermore, their numbers are infinite.

The so-called 'auditing' is part of the courses. During 'auditing', the believers have to repeat all kinds of contradictory concepts or visualise certain 'incidents' under the supervision of an 'auditor' (teacher), while holding an 'E-meter' - a kind of lie detector - that supposedly measures their reaction. Sometimes 'solo-auditing' is possible. Only when the E-meter shows the required values, the pupil can proceed to the next series of contradictions that he has to hold, or thought-experiments to which they have to learn to show the right reaction. When for example the word 'shock' is printed following a statement, the student is expected to feel or 'think' a shock and cause the right movement of the E-meter needle. (17) Such sessions may take hours to complete. Here are some of the concepts and assignments: (18)

        2. (a) You Must Survive
        2. (a) You Should Survive
           (b) You Shouldn't Survive
        3. (a) You Can Survive
           (b) You Can't Survive

        1. To build a Postulatingness machine
           Not to postulate yourself
        2. To build a thinkingness machine
           Not to think yourself

        1. Create (shock)
        2. Create no (shock)
        3. Destroy (shock)
        4. Destroy no (shock)

"Create in your body a feeling of calmness; create in your body sexual desire and turn it off. Continue that step until you feel you have control over the sexual drives. Create in the body a feeling of pain. Create in the body a feeling of serenity. Do the above until flat [i.e. totdat de E-meter een specifieke reactie geeft]. Create in the body a feeling of hunger and turn it off. Continue this step until you are in control of hunger drives. (...)
Now: Postulate Anger, boredom, grief, cheerfulness and serenity --- in that order. This is continued until you are sure that you can create any emotion." (19)

To me, the Xenu saga is more like a space soap-opera than a well-considered theory. For one thing, I question whether Las Palmas has been in existence for as long as Hubbard claims - but that is hardly relevant. There are more religions in which I do not believe and besides, there are many non-Scientologists who also believe they can have a meaningful conversation with a tree.

What does bother me is the fact that people who join Scientology and who are declared 'clear' after some time, do not know what is in store for them after they have reached that stage, nor what kind of exercises they are expected to do. Scientology flatly refuses to tell its members what they eventually will be required to adhere to and how they will be taught these lessons. Only when members have "the right ethical condition" (20) and when they are sufficiently conditioned, are they allowed to learn this little by little and under strict supervision. Offering insights beforehand is simply not done, says Scientology: after all, the higher level material of the church is considered 'secret.'

Margery Wakefield, who at a very young age (seventeen) was declared 'clear' within a week and went to Los Angeles to study the OT's and learn to be an auditor in a Scientology boarding school, later wrote about her first two days: "Did I suspect, even for a minute, that the seemingly innocuous TR's [Training Routines] I was doing, supposedly to train me to become a better auditor, were actually a series of extremely sophisticated hypnotic and control techniques that would eventually lead me into a state of unthinking obedience and robotic response? That I was unwittingly, drill by drill, surrendering my mind and my will to the whims of this bizarre organization, an organization to which I would become increasingly enslaved as the days and years passed by? Is it possible that a sophisticated system of mind control, masquerading as religion, does in fact exist in this country outside the control and wisdom of the courts and the laws of the land? Was I being lured into spiritual, physical, emotional and mental bondage without my knowledge or consent? I had in fact, with complete innocence and trust, sold myself into a subtle slavery, slavery from which I would emerge years later raped of my mind, my emotions, my soul, my finances, and twelve years of my life. Yet no laws existed to protect my freedom. Psychological kidnapping is not illegal. Is it possible for one's mind to be completely controlled by another?
The answer is yes. During those sunny days in October, a part of me was dying, my mind and my soul being sucked out." (21)

Many people who have followed the OT's and the exercises that accompany them, have stated that these have caused severe personal problems. Students are treated very strictly; questioning the contents of the doctrine or the training methods simply is not possible; and all this while you do not know beforehand what it is that you are expected to learn. The answer from their superiors (and from themselves) is solid as a rock: "The tech is never wrong". Those who hesitate, doubt or ask questions that are considered inappropriate, are ordered to start all over again. Hubbard about hesitations to continue the OT-courses: "One can also feel no wish to 'audit'. All no desire to 'audit' is some large blunder on a case." (22) Hubbard on joining Scientology:

"When somebody enrolls, consider he or she has joined up for the duration of the universe. Never permit an open-minded approach. If they're going to quit, let them quit fast. If they enrolled, they're aboard, and if they're aboard, they're here on the same terms as the rest of us. Win or die in the attempt." (23)

Within Scientology, it seems impossible to doubt Hubbard's ideas. Such doubts are considered as definite proof that the student has not appropriately learned the lessons:

"Hubbard states categorically that criticism is a sign that one has committed a harmful or destructive action on the person or area one is critical of. This belief has high credence in Scientology and is rigidly adhered to. It is common for staff and public to receive extensive confessional auditing and security checking if they are found to have the slightest criticism of Hubbard. I now know that this practice is a very effective thoughtstopping technique and that it is solely aimed at reforming the individual's thought patterns and his conduct and was never intended for his enlightenment. (...)
I was in session almost every day. I gradually became more and more convinced that I was the cause of the auditing 'not working' on me, that I was stopping it from being successful even though I did not know how I was doing it. It was firm policy that Hubbard could do no wrong - ever, that the auditing techniques be had devised were never wrong - ever, and that the auditor applying them was rarely wrong. In the face of such totalist belief, which I completely believed at the time, the only possible cause of the failure was myself." (24)

The conflicting notions with which they have to juggle, the impossibilities to 'audit' away millions of Body Thetans, the strict rules and the guilt complex that comes along with all this, threatens to break people psychologically or (as they say themselves) it has done so. Apart from that, parts of the doctrines turned their world upside down or were so unbelievable that they started to have serious doubts about themselves. Moreover, there's always the fear for reprisals.

Punishments are issued regularly: people are placed under 'Ethics' and have to scrub floors, can't have contact with others anymore and get too little sleep or food. Information from the 'pre-clear folders' (the reports and tape of the auditing sessions) is regularly used to blackmail members or ex-members. (25)

It was precisely to support this argument - Scientology makes it impossible for its members to think freely and hinders critical thought - that Steven Fishman entered parts of the - OT's as exhibits in his trial, and it is why he is still pleading passionately for his Affidavit to remain unsealed:

"To the Court of Appeals:

What is truly ironic is that these attorneys from the Church of Scientology are asking you to hide Scientology beliefs from Scientologists; while on the other hand I am asking you to allow everyone, including and especially Scientologists, full access to Scientology beliefs. So what is really happening here is that Church management is asking you to prevent their own members from seeing, knowing and understanding their secrets, and I am actually asking the Court to preserve the rights of Scientologists, ex-Scientologists and everyone else and protect us from Church management who have told the Court that we are eligible to see, know and understand these Scientology secrets only if we are eligible to see these secrets and also only if we are first exposed to enough Scientology so that we will unquestionably believe these secrets. (...)
And at the same time, they are also saying to you, 'We only want to show these secrets to people who will unquestioningly believe them', because obviously, everyone else is either ineligible or not exposed to enough non-secret Scientology. (...)
It all goes back to an issue that the Church of Scientology has been avoiding all throughout this case, and which is so obvious that I have to repeat it before the Court right now: There is something wrong with using the word 'church' and the word 'secret' in the same sentence. Why should a Church have secrets? A secret is something that you have to hide. Why does a Church have to hide its own doctrine? Are they ashamed of it? Do they fear that if too many people found out about these secrets they would not belong to this Church anymore?
I am not here to argue whether anyone should be a Scientologist or not. If someone wants to practice Scientology they have every right to do it. And if someone is practicing Scientology, and they read these upper level materials, and they then continue practicing Scientology, that should be their absolute right to do so. And if someone read these upper level materials, and they said, 'I don't agree with this stuff', it should be there absolute right to disagree with it, and then continue to practice or discontinue to practice Scientology as they saw fit. That is their absolute right too. (...)
There are a lot of people out there both in and out of Scientology who have a right to religious freedom. That is the freedom of information so people can make an informed choice about the most sacred decision --- what they want to accept or not accept as the truth. The minute anything is hidden by a religion, whether a trade secret or just a plain old secret, then what is really being hidden is the truth." (26)

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4. It is important to enable discussion about the methods and beliefs of Scientology

"...in the event I have any dispute with the Church which cannot be resolved informally by direct communication, resolution of that dispute may be pursued solely through the internal procedures of the Church's Ethics, Justice and Binding Religious Arbitration system. (...)
In accordance with the religious nature of the services to be provided, I acknowledge, understand and agree that in no event shall any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of my participation in the service be submitted to a court for judicial determination. Moreover, I understand and agree that by signing and submitting this application/agreement, I am waiving any right which I may have to have disputes hereunder decided in a court of law, before a judge or a judge and jury. (...)
Knowing this, I am voluntarily participating in the service with knowledge of the general activities involved and I hereby agree to accept any and all known or unknown risks of injury, loss or damage. (...)
I have carefully read this application/agreement and general release and fully understand its contents and consequence. I am aware that by signing below, I am forever giving up my right to sue the foundation, its staff and/or other related organizations for any injury or damage suffered in any way connected with the service activities." (27)

For the critics within the Church, Scientology has designed special categories with the appropriate punishments. All people who are declared 'enemies' - a definition that is also applied to non-members - are declared to be SP: Suppressive Person. A Suppressive Person is outlawed: any Scientology-member can treat them as he pleases. This practice is known as 'Fair Gaming', or literally, hunting stray wild:

"Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." (28)

Before one reaches the 'enemy' stage, there are many other forms of internal repercussions. One of the worst is called RPF: the Rehabilitation Project Force, places where people should repent and start working on their 'tech' again in order to become better believers. These RPF's, of which there are presumed to be four at this moment, are described by former members as forced labour-camps. The inmates are to work hard, get hardly any sleep and very little food, and are permanently being brutalised and harassed:

"The RPF was represented as a place, a group, where those assigned to it could rehabilitate themselves using Hubbard's techniques. In actuality, it was a type of slave labor camp whose members lived, ate and worked in squalid, degrading conditions and who were utterly forbidden to talk to anyone but their own kind. They were completely segregated from normal crew. One evening I saw its members on the aft deck. They were eating with their hands out of buckets containing leftover food - they were standing around a large pot of leftovers shoveling them into their mouths with their hands as if they were starving. I developed a very real horror of the RPF and what it represented and a slowly growing fear of Hubbard and the organization from that point onward." (24)

The many lawsuits filed by Scientology against journalists, writers, newspapers, magazines, television and radio reporters and networks, prove that public reports by outsiders about the organisation are not appreciated either.

Critical books often disappear from public libraries, critical articles in magazines that lie in libraries are being cut out with a razor ("razor blading"); complete circulations of magazines that are meant to be sold in bookstores are being stolen and bought. There is

"an internal directive by the church which instructs its members to eradicate all published materials critical of Scientology and to replace it with pro-Scientology materials." (29)

The 'Fair Game' principle is also applied to outsiders. The worst case known is that of journalist Paulette Cooper, who in 1971 published a book critical of Scientology: "The Scandal of Scientology". Scientology or its members appears to have filed a total of eighteen lawsuits against her. In the end, she transferred the copyright to them, hoping she would thereby finally acquire peace.

But there was more. The church set up a campaign to discredit her, to get her sent to a mental institution and involve her in criminal lawsuits. A member of Scientology was instructed to impersonate her, another member got close with her and became her lover; 'evidence' was constructed on writing-paper that was stolen from her; bombings were announced in her name by mail and by telephone. Even the exact words in which all this had to be executed, were ordered by Scientology. It wasn't until years afterwards, after an FBI raid in 1977 (incidentally, it was done for another reason), that the proof was revealed: there was indeed a complete project devoted to making her harmless, under the codename "Operation Freakout". (30)

Usually, the church denounces all criticism on its 'Fair Game' rule with two kinds of answers:
1. The 'Fair Game' rule has been revoked and does no longer exist;
2. Practices such as 'Fair Game', the 'Freeloader's Debt', 'Disconnect', 'Bait and Badger' are religious rituals of the church, that is, are part of the essence of their religion, and are therefore protected by religious freedom.

Apart from the contradictory nature of these statements:

The 'Fair Game' rule - the outlawing of critics - still exists. In a later Policy Letter by Hubbard, only the term 'Fair Game' is abolished, "because of the bad publicity" it caused, but the practice itself was explicitely not revoked:

"This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP." (28)

In 1994, Vicky Aznaran, former chairperson of the Religious Technology Centre (RTC, the institution within Scientology that has custody over Hubbard's copyrights, and also one of the plaintiffs in this Dutch lawsuit), declared under oath that Suppressive Persons are still

"to be harassed, threatened, wounded, damaged or destroyed, without taking truth, honesty or legal rights into consideration. (...) Within Scientology, lying, cheating, stealing and performing illegal acts when dealing with a Suppressive person is regarded as acceptable." (31)

Concerning the argument of religious freedom: it is obvious that such a freedom is never an argument to condone practices such as 'Fair Game' (the outlawing of critics), the 'Freeloader's Debt' (signing a strangling financial contract), 'Disconnect' (ordering members to break all ties with their partner, children, parents and friends when they criticise Scientology), 'Bait and Badger' (manipulate members who want to leave by alternately offering them rewards and intimidate them verbally).

That is why in several American lawsuits that have dealt with these methods, it was explicitly stated that not every religious practice is protected by the Constitution:

"We conclude that some [of these activities] would not be protected religious activity even if Wollersheim freely participated. (...) We do not mean to suggest Scientology's retributive program as described in the evidence of this case represented a full-scale modern day 'inquisition'. Nevertheless, there are some parallels in purpose and effect. (...) A religious practice which takes place in the context of this level of coercion hass less religious value than one the recipient engages in voluntarily. Even more significantly, it poses a greater threat to society to have coerced religious practices inflicted on its citizens. (...) Such conduct is too outrageous to be protected under the Constitution and too unworthy to be privileged under the law of torts." (6)

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5. On Internet, Scientology also tries to silence its critics in illicit ways

One of the Usenet-newsgroups, alt.religion.scientology, is devoted to debate about Scientology. (Newsgroups usually treat only a single subject: there are groups that only discuss chocolate and others that only deal with medical developments in the battle against aids). A few former members participated in the discussions; it was a busy, but fairly calm group.

Arnaldo Lerma, a former Scientologist who, in this ongoing debate, posted a number of court decisions about Scientology to a.r.s., was the first victim. On November 10, 1994, two staff members visited him at his home and demanded that he sign a declaration that he would refrain from further criticism, and would furthermore declare that he had

"left the Church entirely because I could not maintain a high enough ethical standard and wished to protect the organization from my destructive behavior." (32)

Lerma refused to sign this declaration. Within an hour, he received a fax from the church accusing him of posting illegal material on Internet.

In December 1994, parts of the OT-levels (OT I, OT II and NOT [New OT] 34, 35 and 36) were posted to a.r.s. anonymously. Dennis Erlich, a former church member and a participant of the forum, identified the material as authentic. One of his messages about the OT's was suddenly cancelled: not by himself, but by a forged cancel message. Sending a forged cancel message is unacceptable on Internet: after all, it means eradicating an article that you have not written; it is therefore generally regarded as a serious infringement of 'netiquette'. In the Netherlands, such an act is even illegal according to the law on computer criminality: one is destroying somebody else's data file.

More cancel messages followed. Almost every posting that contained CoS-material, even when it was just one sentence, was cancelled. Sometimes it was not even necessary to quote from the OT's to see your message cancelled, as explained in a highly detailed article that was published in 'Skeptic' about the war that Scientology has waged the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, against individuals and against several providers:

"Dozens of postings by a.r.s critics have been cancelled by the Cancelpoodle, in many cases with a cancellation message that claims the posting is "CANCELLED BECAUSE OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT." Many of the articles by Scientology critics which have been cancelled, however, contained either no copyrighted material whatsoever or only brief quotations falling within the bounds of "fair use" for commentary and criticism. (...) One of the earliest articles cancelled by the Cancelpoodle was a "decree of the commencement of oral trial," a court document from Spain dated December 12, 1994, describing criminal proceedings initiated against COS president Heber Jentzch, and leading Spanish Scientologists, for "felonies of illicit association, threats, coercion, usurpation of functions, false accusation, simulation of felony, illegal arrest, crimes against the Tax Administration, crimes against freedom and safety in the workplace, intrusion, crimes against the public health, injuries, damages, abuse, slander and inducement to suicide."(32)

'CanclePoodle' is the collective term that was concocted for these illegal cancels (in order to distinguish them from those issued by CancelMoose, a computer program that has been accepted by the Internet society and that only cancels messages based on form, not on contents; moreover, CancelMoose posts a message to the net.abuse.newsgroups, where the rules for cancellations are discussed; CancelMoose there explains the reasons for cancelling and reposts the content of the cancelled message). Some forged cancel messages could be traced; many of them originated from Netcom. Netcom took its measures, removed the accounts from the abusers and adjusted its software. New, smarter cancel messages followed.

On January 11, 1995, a cancel message with unprecedented consequences was sent from Netcom: Helena Kobrin (one of the top Scientology lawyers) posted a rmgroup message for alt.religion.scientology. A rmgroup message is a message that results in removing the whole newsgroup. In the message she explained her motives for doing so:

"We request that you remove the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup from your site. The reasons for requesting its removal are: (1) It was started with a forged message; (2) not discussed on alt.config; it has the name 'scientology' in its title which is a trademark and is misleading, as a.r.s. is mainly used for flamers to attack the Scientology religion; it has been and continues to be heavily abused with copyright and trade secret violations and serves no purpose other than condoning these illegal practices." (33)

Several system-operators saw the message and beat the alarm. A number of them immediately sent a newgroup message to restore the group, and venomously commented Kobrin's attempt to remove the newsgroup:

"Sorry, kids; please carry out your harassment campaign against the a.r.s newsgroup by other means. Cancellation is bad enough; rmgrouping out of spite is Not A Good Idea, thanks. And while you're there, hkk, tell us please who the person at Netcom that's cancelling other people's messages in a.r.s is, why don't ya? (...)
One doesn't rmgroup active thriving groups simply because they were "not discussed on alt.config", especially not several years after they were newgrouped. You've got the wrong alt.* hierarchy here, methinks. (...) So what's your point? Are you maintaining that nobody can use a trademarked word? Are you maintaining that nobody can attack the Scientology religion? (...) "Trade secret violations"? For a religion? I think you have the wrong United States of America here..." (34)

The newsgroup, to which by then more than 27,000 articles had been posted, was thus rescued. Kobrin's action had a twofold effect: alt.religion.scientology suddenly drew a lot of attention on the Net, because all sorts of defenders of freedom of speech investigated what was going on, and Scientology had officially acquired itself a very dirty name on Internet.

The church further refrained from such outrageous measures; from then on, it directed its actions against individuals and their providers.

On February 2, 1995, three weeks after the rmgroup message, Scientology contacted the system operator of anon.penet.fi; they told him that one of his users - an individual who had posted under the pseudonym '-AB-' had abused the anonymous server to post "information that had been stolen from a Scientology computer" to Usenet, and demanded that the system operator would disclose the personal information about '-AB-'. (32) The system operator refused. A couple of days later, on February 8, 1995, the Finnish police paid him a visit on behalf of CoS and demanded all the information about all anon.penet.fi-users; after long negotiations, the system operator eventually gave them what they wanted on '-AB-'. It was the first time ever that a public office forced an anonymous server to release the identity of one of their users.

The strangest part of the case was that this '-AB-' has never posted a sentence or paragraph of copyrighted material.

After this event, church members have managed to trace personal information about various other people that post to a.r.s. anonymously and have 'outed' them on the Net. In at least one case (henry), they have used the services of a private detective in tracking down a critic.

February was a very busy month for Scientology. Dennis Erlich was the next victim. On February 13, 1995, Scientology served him with an ex parte writ of seizure, enabling them to confiscate all material they wanted. Erlich's home was searched for almost eight hours. His personal belongings, correspondence, financial papers and his computer were thoroughly searched. Photocopies were made, back-up tapes and floppy disks were confiscated and numerous files on his computer deleted. Erlich was also handed a subpoena in which he was accused of copyright infringement. Besides Erlich, Tom Klemesrud (system operator of the bulletin board that Erlich used to access Internet) and Netcom (the bulletin board's provider) were also indicted, because CoS claimed they should have denied Erlich's access on the grounds of these alleged infringements.

And what had Erlich done? He had used his own knowledge of the church - of which he had been a high ranking member for years - to respond to and discuss the anonymously posted church writings; in his reactions he quoted parts of these postings. That was the only ground on which Scientology obtained a writ of seizure.

After Erlich, it was Lerma's turn - on August 11, 1995. His computer was seized too. Lerma had posted the Fishman Affidavit to a.r.s. because supporters or members of the church that were also posting to this newsgroup, had repeatedly stated that critics had been quoting various particles out of context. At the same time, the Washington Post was indicted - because they had obtained a copy of the Fishman Affidavit at the court's record office and had quoted bits from the OT's in an article. Shortly afterwards, on August 15, the Fishman Affidavit was temporarily sealed by Judge Hupp, pending Scientology's umpteenth request to close the document. Then, on August 21, 1995, Scientology seized FactNet's (Fight Against Coercive Tactics) computer system, an on-line bulletin board that archives information about cults and makes it available without any charge. FactNet's director is Lawrence Wollersheim, a former member of Scientology. In all these cases, Scientology (represented by RTC) accused the defendants of copyright infringement.

After the raid at Erlich's home, the Fishman Affidavit was still regularly posted to a.r.s. and was also available from a number of homepages. The Affidavit has even been available from a Chinese computer for a while.

People who quoted from the OT's contained in the Fishman Affidavit, could bet on receiving e-mail from Helena Kobrin. Even people who posted two sentences from one of the OT's received e-mail from her in which she threatened to take legal action against them. The judges who have had to rule on the seizures described above - Whyte, Kane and Brinkema - have meanwhile unanimously declared that the seizures had to be relieved and that Scientology, while searching the computers, has by far exceeded the boundaries of the grounds on which their search was warranted. None of the cases has of yet been closed, but CoS was forced to return the computers (in Erlich's case his possessions had to be delivered to the court; in all other cases they were to be returned to the defendants). Lerma still has not regained all of his possessions; FactNet's computer files have been partially deleted and damaged.

All claims against the Washington Post have been rejected by the court.

Erlich, Lerma and FactNet were ordered by the judges to temporarily refrain from posting the Fishman Affidavit. But Scientology's claim that their articles were 'secret' and had never been published before, as well as that the materials concerned were trade secrets and are protected by copyright laws, has been rejected and questioned on many points. (35)

In FactNet's case, the judge ruled that (in spite of Scientology's claim that they had the right to confiscate the computer system) no copyrights had been infringed at all, because the Affidavit had only been stored in the private section of their computer system, meaning that they had not in any way published it. (36) In the Lerma case, the judge ruled that his posting the Affidavit was done

"in the context of ongoing dialogue in the particular newsgroup to which they were posted. They form part of the topical debate concerning whether the Works are of substance or are perpetuated as part of systemic mind control." (37)

It would appear that Scientology is abusing copyright laws to keep information from the public and to disable discussion about the church. The reason I published the Fishman Affidavit on my homepage, was precisely in the hope that this would re-enable this debate.

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6. Is copyright an argument against publication of the Affidavit?

Would that indeed mean that no one will ever have the right to publish parts of these materials, even when they have been disclosed as part of a court document?

In answering this question, it is important to consider the following points:

1. Does copyright mean that no one may quote parts of the copyrighted works for the purpose of reviewing, criticizing or discussing them, or a similar purpose?
2. Does the church suffer damages when others than the owner of the copyright, publish part of their material? (After all, copyright is not only a moral right, but most certainly an economic right as well).
3. What is the exact amount of the quoted material in the Affidavit, as compared to the original, complete texts?

1. Does copyright mean that no one may quote?

Anyone who quotes a few sentences is accused of misrepresentation by "taking out of context" the remarks concerned and is blamed for deliberately ridiculing the religion. (39) Anyone who owns a newspaper clipping in which parts of the OT's are quoted, is infringing RTC's copyrights. (40) Anyone who quotes more than a mere few sentences, is accused of serious copyright-infringement and is usually taken to court. (viz. The Washington Post.) Whoever paraphrases, is accused of infringing both copyrights and trade-secrets and should also be taken to court.. (41)

Apparently civilians, journalists, writers or critics are not allowed to quote or paraphrase at all, when Scientology would have its way.

2. Does the church suffer damages when others disclose parts of the OT-levels?

"I can tell you that no Scientologist will attempt to cheat or whatever is the appropriate terminology, by accessing the Internet and downloading the material. He wouldn't even think of it. For a) it's incomplete and b) he respects the confidentiality and practices and the whole procedure of the church. Therefore we are not worried, financially speaking, that Scientologists are not going to pay because the material can be found on the Internet." (42)

In the past months, several judges have also ruled that it is highly unlikely that disclosure on Internet will create a 'market substitute' for Scientology courses:

"The evidence showed the Works are esoteric in nature and are delivered to certain followers by advanced Scientologists known as "auditors" as part of an elaborate system of instruction. The only financial harm RTC would suffer would be if followers were to forsake the Church's didactic methodology in favor of self instruction through the Works copied by Defendants. There was no suggestion, let alone evidence, of this potential for financial loss to the Church.
The alleged copying by the Defendants was not of a commercial nature. Rather, it was made for non-profit purposes to advance understanding of issues concerning the Church which are the subject of ongoing public controversy. (...)
No evidence was introduced showing a likelihood that a follower of the Church would consider the postings by Lerma as a market substitute for the Works. Nor did the evidence show that the postings were of a commercial nature or had any effect on the potential market for the works. As such, the postings may well be considered as having been made for the purposes of criticism, comment or research falling within the fair use doctrine." (Judge Kane, (KS-21)

"Moreover, plaintiff's arguments to date suggest that the extent to which plaintiff would be harmed by any future copyright infringement or trade secret misappropriation is at best slight. The documents in question are so esoteric as to require years of training in Scientology to understand them. As a result, the only financial harm that the plaintiff could suffer as a result of any alleged infringement would be if Church followers chose to forsake the Church's elaborate system of instruction in favor of self-administration of the texts. Scientology's status as a religious organization undermines any theory of loss that would depend on its followers' desire to cheat the Church by obtaining these teachings through unauthorized means. Accordingly, this Court fails to recognize any significant risk of financial loss to the plaintiff if the motion is denied. (...)
[T]he affidavits filed in support of plaintiff's complaint and motions provide that part of the Advanced Technology program involves "confidential counseling, or 'auditing' from a trained minister of the Church." McShane Aff. at P 9-10. Even the confidential levels that do not require auditing involve supervision "on each step to ensure that [the Scientologist] delivers the Advanced Technology to himself correctly and that he obtains the exact expected results from each level." Id. at P11. Accordingly, the "market" for these writings does not exist independently of the Church's services." (Judge Brinkema, KS-9)

There is of course a chance that the church is derived of future income because less people will be inclined to join Scientology when practices like 'suing to harass', 'Fair Game' etc. will become known. But in that case, another judge's remark is appropriate:

"[I]ndeed any damage which the publication of Mr. Vosper's book may cause to the plaintiff is less likely to result from what he quotes from their literature or discloses from their material than from the criticism which Mr. Vosper makes of them and of their cult of Scientology as a whole." (43)

Moreover - and that's a fact the church tends to forget to mention - OT IV up until VI (parts of which are included in the Fishman Affidavit) are the old OT's. Some parts have been revised, others are not currently in use. OT I is also not being used in exactly the same form nowadays. (44) Nowadays the curch uses the NOTS, the New Operating Thetan Series.

3. The volume of the fragments from the Fishman Affidavit compared to the volume of the original OT's

To be more accurate: only three pages of OT I, OT II and OT VI are disclosed, only four of OT IV and five of OT V. The larger fragments contains eleven out of the eighty pages of OT VII, and twenty-five of the twohundred pages of OT III. Five of the quoted pages contain a mere two or eight lines.

It is by the way remarkable that RTC again rejects the copyright on OT VIII in the Dutch lawsuit. That has indeed been the official attitude of the church for a long time: OT VIII, as it is presented in the Fishman Affidavit, is allegedly forged. Scientology claims that this forgery is made in order to unjustly set up Christians against Scientology: after all, there are quotes in OT VIII in which Jesus is declared to be an "implant" (i.e. a false memory) and is described as a short-tempered pedophile, and in which Hubbard compares himself to the Antichrist:

"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 teachings 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." (46)

But other documents show a similar spiteful attitude towards Christianity from the part of Hubbard. Based upon these similarities, critics are convinced that OT VIII is indeed authentic.

"Somebody on this planet, about 600 B.C. found some pieces of 'R6' [i.e. de 'Clearing Course', oftewel de OT's]. I don't know how they found it; either by watching madmen or something. But since that time they have used it. And it became what is known as Christianity. The man on the cross. There was no Christ! The Roman Catholic Church, through watching the dramatizations of people, picked up some little fragments of R6." (47)
"With rapidity and a [E-]Meter it can be shown that Heaven is a false dream and that the old religion was based on very painful lie, cynical betrayal." (48)
"The whole Christian movement is based on the victim. Compulsion of the overt-motivator sequence. They won by appealing to victims. We can win by converting victims. Christianity succeeded by making people into victims. We can succeed by making victims into people." (48)

There is even a tape in which Hubbard explicitly says that "Ahhh... The man on the cross... There was no Christ...". This specific passage is converted into an audio-file that can be found on the Internet. (49)

That postings to a.r.s. containing OT VIII have been removed with forged cancel messages, also indicates that the document is authentic.

Recently, the authenticity of OT VIII has indeed been confirmed in court.

During the hearings about the question whether confiscating Lerma's computer had been justified, Kendrick Moxon was ordered to identify the files that were an infringement of RTC's copyrights. Moxon himself is one of Scientology's lawyers and is an advanced member, who is apparently considered able by RTC to judge the authenticity of the higher material. One of the floppy disks that Moxon labelled as an infringement, contained only one file: OT VIII. Cooley, the lawyer representing RTC in the case, objected against this and stated once more that OT VIII is a forgery; but he wasn't appointed by the court to judge in that matter - Moxon was. (50)

That leaves us with only two options:

1. Cooley is right (and OT VIII is a forgery); but in that case RTC's own expert Moxon can't tell the real OT's from the faked ones, and therefore his judgement has no value;
2. Moxon is right (and OT VIII is original); in which case Hubbard actually claimed that Jesus was a pedophile, and RTC's lawyer Cooley has lied to the court when he stated that OT VIII is a forgery.

7. The OT's have been in the public domain since 1968 and have not been stolen

But the material that was stolen on that occasion (as well as in a similar situation in Britain) did not contain the OT's, but their newer version: the NOTS, the New Operating Thetan Series. Fishman handed of the old OT's to the court, and this material can therefore not have originated from those thefts.

The OT's have, in one form or another, been in the public domain for quite some time, as has been stated by the court:

"Despite RTC and the Church's elaborate and ardent measures to maintain the secrecy of the Works, they have come into the public domain by numerous means. RTC's assertion that the only way in which the materials have escaped its control was through two thefts in Denmark and England was not supported by the evidence. A former senior Scientology official testified to ongoing difficulties the Church incurred in keeping the Works secret, including members losing materials in their possession." (Judge Kane, KS-21)

Various testimonies show to what extent this has happened. Robert Vaughn Young's report is the most extensive; he was questioned in the RTC vs. FactNet case. From 1968 until 1989, Young was a Scientology-member; in 1973 he joined the Guardian Office (the secret service of those days, now replaced by the OSA: the Office of Special Affairs) and in 1982 he started working for Author Services Incorporated, Hubbard's literary agency and in those days one of the most important CoS departments. Because of his work, he knew literally everything about the dissemination of the OT's. Asked whether the OT's had ever been dispersed, Young answered:

"Yes, sir. It was one of the worst kept secrets in the world." (51)

Young filed an extensive list of publications and copies of newspaper-articles, books, advertisements etc. in which parts of the OT's had been published, with the court. These publications were of course written with the perspective of providing an insight in - well, maybe not always in the teachings of Scientology, but most surely in its methods.

Sometimes, the OT's were simply lost:

"Well, the funniest one was a gentleman they put the materials in their briefcase. He put his briefcase on the top of his car and drove off and the briefcase broke open is what we heard the story from, when we were giving the evidence on this, and the O.T. materials were drifting down the Hollywood freeway. And another gentleman simply lost his materials in travel someplace. So there were several instances where they were simply lost, and they just didn't know where they went." (52)

Several former members possessed complete copies: Young reports having visited a journalist who used to be a Scientologist, who had the complete series OT I up to and including OT V in his possession. (53) In those days, people were allowed to take the OT's home with them, as can be concluded from a sentence in Robert Kaufman's book:

"The Examiner sent me to Certs and Awards with no questions asked, and I took OT II home with me." (54)

Whenever material appeared in the public domain, Young was told to report in the Scientology magazine The Auditor that this material had been stolen or forged. This was standard procedure, he explains:

"Here's the order from L. Ron Hubbard declaring people suppressive persons for having taken forged upper level materials. So what we have here is within months of 1968 there is evidence of according to the Scientology publications, that the O.T. materials are starting to get out in '68. Exhibit 1, this simply is another instance. On page 2, another one, where Hubbard says here that they have been stolen, et cetera. That was what I was taught to say all of the time, it appears they were stolen, altered, et cetera. This is what Hubbard used because Mr. Hubbard said it here." (55)

Young's story becomes downright hilarious when he explains that Hubbard himself once ordered him to go out and sell his film script 'The Revolt of the Stars' (completely based upon OT III) to movie companies. Young was staggered by what was happening, for earlier CoS had claimed that the name 'Xemu' (the evil prince of the Galactic Empire) and the story about Earth being bombed with nuclear arms millions of years ago were Scientology's best kept secret:

"[T]he screen play was being passed around Hollywood. People that helped to support it in some ways, contributions, investors were made copies of this so this began to circulate through Hollywood quite a bit, so I included the promotion from Brilliant Films. In the front is a treatment written by Mr. Herbert, which I recognize because when this was given to us, I was very surprised because it listed in here in the screen play, the name of Xemu Etrawl, whoever the man who captures Xemu ends up being L. Ron Hubbard." (56)

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8. It is disputed whether CST / RTC actually owns the copyrights to this material

People who are dealing with RTC lawyers or their representatives, usually receive at a certain stage a big pile of documents issued, stamped and numbered by the US Copyright Office, but that doesn't by far say everything. This is because the original material has been submitted in a 'masked' version: most of it has been whitened out in order to make the texts unreadable, thereby making it impossible to compare these to any documents that RTC has labelled as copyright infringements. This more or less gives RTC a free hand in deciding whether or not a publication should be regarded as an infringement; see, for instance, the controversy surrounding OT VIII mentioned earlier.

To Judge Kane, this was an important reason to not accept RTC's copyright claim easily:

"RTC has not introduced the Works in their entirety into evidence to enable comparison of the amount and substantiality of the portion of the Works copied with each copyrighted work as a whole. Notably, however, even if a work is introduced in its entirety, the copying may nevertheless constitute fair use. See, e.g., Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, reh'q denied, 465 U.S. 1112 (1984); Rotbart v. O'Dwyer Co., 34 U.S.P.Q.2d 1085 (S.D.N.Y. 1985)." (Judge Kane, KS-21)

As far as my own homepage is concerned: at an early stage, I asked Helena Kobrin to send me an original copy of the Fishman Affidavit, so that I could compare it with the version on my homepage. After all, I obtained my copy somewhere on Internet and can of course not properly judge whether or not someone has tampered with the digital version; someone could have added portions or changed the phrasing of the contents. Kobrin refused. (11) ) I also asked Julia Rijnvis by telephone to enable me to compare my version with the original: she refused as well. (57)

It's also not at all clear who actually owns the copyright. CST / RTC claim that Ron Hubbard has transferred them to RTC, but the document in which he did so was presented to the notary a month after he had signed it. Under American law, this means that the transfer of the copyrights might not have been legal, in which case RTC cannot be a party in this Dutch lawsuit. Also, in that case, RTC does not have the right to license the use of the OT's to the Church of Scientology International.

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9. The subpoena

In the subpoena I have been served with, you are motioned to rule that the plaintiff mentioned in article 2, RTC, is the exclusive license holder of a great number of works that are used by Scientology to spread its teachings. I request that you check if RTC is indeed this license holder before honouring their claim.

In article 3, you are asked to conclude that the secrecy Scientology strives for, has indeed always been adequately kept. In paragraph 6, I have tried to prove that parts of the OT's are nevertheless widely spread. I agree that this has not always been done with Scientology's consent (apart from Hubbard's film script), but it nevertheless has always been done legally. In almost every case, the authors have been obliged to defend their quoting of the OT's in court, and most of them have succeeded in doing so. The press has also regularly obtained the OT's and quoted from them - sometimes even substantially - referring to their public position and their obligation to inform the public.

In article 4, you are asked to rule that the unreadable documents that have been deposited at the US Copyrights Office, are indeed the same as the documents that are debated here today. I would say that this is too much to ask from you.

In article 5, plaintiffs state that the Fishman Affidavit contains "several OT works as a whole, or major parts of them". In paragraph 5, point 3, I have made a calculation that proves that this is not the case. I have based this calculation on a testimony under oath that was made by the President of RTC, one of today's plaintiffs. None of the OT's is quoted as a whole, and compared to the volume of each of the OT's, it is disputable whether the fragments in the Fishman Affidavit are to be considered to be "major parts".

Also in article 5, plaintiffs state that they "have not given permission to add these works to the Affidavit." Since the plaintiffs were not required to give their permission in the first place, because admitting (parts of) the OT works as evidence was solely to be judged by the Californian judge, this remark is in my opinion rather irrelevant. Furthermore, plaintiffs state that they "[have] immediately resisted free accessibility of the works for third parties". As described earlier, the American court has purposefully kept the Affidavit open for a long period of time, during which time Scientology made it physically impossible for US citizens to exert their right to read the documents.

In article 6, plaintiffs refer to three legal procedures that are currently being conducted in the United States. I have quoted extensively from testimonies and rulings from these procedures. Furthermore, I would like to point out that the judges concerned have not to this date decided that "in those three procedures, the accused parties have been forbidden to publish and/or duplicate the works" as plaintiffs now claim; the parties referred o have simply been ordered to retain the 'status quo ante', or, in Judge Kane's terms, a return to the situation that existed before the war started. The accused are forbidden to post the Affidavit again, pending the final outcome of the procedures; furthermore both Judge Kane and Judge Brinkema have ruled that it is questionable whether RTC can validate its claim to the copyrights, and that the seizure of computers and personal belongings was therefore out of proportions and should be undone immediately.

I have no remarks about articles 7 and 8.

In article 9, plaintiffs state that a URL is a unique address. This is not true. An address on the World Wide Web (WWW) can have several different formats. The Fishman homepage of a specific participant in this protest can for instance be reached as:

- http://www.iaf.nl/%7Eabigail/Fishman/
- http://ftp.iaf.nl:80/%7Eabigail/Fishman/fishman.html or
- http://uni4nn.iaf.nl/%7Eabigail/WWW/../Fishman/./fishman.html

It is also very well possible to retrieve different documents from one URL, depending on the position of the sun or on the machine that sends the request to access. (58) A URL says nothing about the actual site where the document is stored. WWW-browsers are not strictly reserved to PC's, as plaintiffs seem to assume. And it ifairly easy to construct the name of a user from the URL: all one has to do is combine the account name with the provider's name. This way, the addresses of approximately ninety percent of the participants can be found.

In danger of being niggling (on the other hand: this case is to the best of my knowledge the first Dutch lawsuit in which Internet plays an important role and in any case the first lawsuit about a homepage; which makes it all the more important that you get the right information), article 10 is not correct either. Plaintiffs forget to mention that information of third parties is also received on the systems of the providers: e-mail from other systems, and the newsfeed of non-local groups.

Article 11 is most certainly not correct: I use the services of two providers, and have a homepage with the Fishman Affidavit at both. It is remarkable that the first and only homepage Scientology has complained and lawyers have correspond about, is not located on the system of one of the providers now subpoenaed. Planet Internet has not been indicted by the plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs' selectivity in choosing the defendants surely deserves an extra comment. After all, many providers have become involved in this protest, through the participation of some of their subscribers. It is remarkable that the only big provider (and most homepages are located on the systems of the bigger providers) accused is XS4ALL: not Planet Internet, not Euronet, not bArt. Given the earlier seizure, Scientology could hardly avoid taking XS4ALL to court, but their choice in other accused providers is reason to strongly suspect that Scientology has focused on the smaller, less well-to-do providers. DDS is financed exclusively by sponsors and is run by goodwill and the work of volunteers, Dataweb and Cistron are relatively small companies that have only just started. I cannot help but be reminded of the quote in which Hubbard states that the law has to be used to intimidate and ruin people. Others have come to the same frightening conclusion. Therefore I am all the more pleased that Planet Internet disagreed deeply enough with Scientology in this matter, to voluntarily join the ranks of the accused in this lawsuit; partly because they, as a provider, reject any responsibility for the homepages of their users, but also because they want to support me - being one of their users - in this trial.

As far as the accused users are concerned, Scientology claims that it had great difficulties in obtaining the names and addresses of the other participants; therefore one of there requests is that you order the providers to hand them the names and addresses of all users concerned.

In my opinion, this is an extremely dubious argument. Oussama Cherribi, one of the participants, is a member of parliament for the VVD; his address and telephone number are therefore public, and he is (apart from myself) the only one who has received a written order from RTC to remove his homepage. Members of Scientology also knew very well how to find him when he wanted to do his job as a member of parliament. Why has Cherribi not been indicted? And why are TROS and De Groene Amsterdammer - both of them public institutions whose addresses can be obtained very easily - left out? Why has Bureau Jansen & Jansen not received a subpoena? Their address can be found on their homepage. Why has Marcel Möring not been summoned to court? His address shouldn't be that hard to find. Why am I the only one, out of approximately a hundred participants, who has received this subpoena? Because I have an organising role in this protest? Because an example had to be made?

In article 12 plaintiffs state that they have not given their permission to publication of parts of the OT's and have nevertheless found them on a number of homepages. I would first of all like to refer you to my remarks concerning paragraph 5. Secondly, I would like to go into the selectivity of the plaintiffs again.

At an earlier stage, plaintiffs' lawyers have given Mr. Bakker Schut a list with notes concerning the homepages of the participants. This list is a printout of the list of Fishman homepages that I very regularly sent to all participants and that has been posted in newsgroups a number of times, and it has been annotated by the plaintiffs.

I noticed on this annotated list that plaintiffs did not by far object to all the URL's that were listed. (59) At that time, the list contained approximately 75 URL's. Apparently, plaintiffs (or their representatives) were not able to find some of these homepages: these have been marked with a cross. The rest was divided into 'yes' and 'no'. When I checked the list in order to find out the reason behind this division, I started to see the answer after visiting about twenty homepages. All homepages that offered the Fishman Affidavit in ascii-format, i.e. as one long document with only one font, had received a 'no' and were apparently not objected to. Next to all homepages that were offered in HTML - i.e. as a text divided in chapters, that make it easier to see where the various parts of the Affidavit begin and end - a proud 'yes' was jotted down. But there is no difference between the text of the ascii- and the html-version. What a strange selectivity, that focuses on the form of the document and not on the disputed OT's that it contains...

Moreover, another strange incident occurred. Several days after the subpoena against XS4ALL, DDS, Cistron, Dataweb and me had been filed, Mrs. Kobrin abruptly started to send e-mail messages again. Truly bizarre was the fact that in those e-mails, she only objected to OT VII - and this while the recipients of her e-mail do indeed have the complete Affidavit on their homepage. (60)

I must confess that Scientology and her legal representatives seem to move in mysterious ways. The disputed parts of the OT's may be presented in 'flat' text on a homepage, but apparently may not be indexed. One moment publishing OT VIII is an copyright infringement, another moment it isn't. While the Dutch lawyers want to see all parts of OT I up until OT VII removed, the American lawyer only objects to OT VII and doesn't say anything about the parts of the six other OT-levels.

Concerning article 13, I find it extremely important to remark that users are the only ones who decide upon the contents of their homepages. Users are not allowed to upload material to somebody else's homepage; it is even impossible to do so, unless you hack an account or mess around with the homepage - which is strictly forbidden. Neither has the provider any influence on the contents of the homepages of its users, apart from technical limits (for instance, on volume). Whoever deletes or adds something to a homepage without the user's prior consent, is under Dutch law guilty of breaking the law on computer criminality.

As for article 14, which describes the role of the providers: here plaintiffs define homepages as if they were viruses, that happily multiply themselves. A provider does not publish or duplicate anything that is available on a homepage. The homepage is located on a section of the hard disk on the providers system, for which I pay a monthly rent and the homepage is dormant there; only when another user undertakes a deliberate action - i.e. visits my homepage - a temporary copy is transferred to the other user's computer. The providers - the one that stores my homepage and the one where the user who visits my homepage has set up an account - merely pass the information on. The only deliberate action in this process is undertaken by me (because I made the homepage) and by another user (because he or she visits my homepage).

When this user leaves my homepages, a copy of it is most certainly not by definition stored in his computer. Only when he gives an appropriate command, the data is definitely stored on the computer in his home.

In article 15, the plaintiffs state that a so-called 'hyperlink', a reference to the location of another document, is also to be considered as "publication and/or duplication by the user and the provider". A hyperlink is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, more than a description of a location that can be activated. Plaintiffs' statement is the same as saying that a library or the writer of a book can be accused of duplication and/or publication because they publish the name, number and location of a certain book or article in a footnote, a bibliography or in an archive entry...

A hyperlink refers to a location. Hyperlinks regularly refer to other hyperlinks. The whole WWW is nothing but a complicated conglomerate of hyperlinks and files. Are all these systems breaking the law in plaintiffs' opinion? Should the whole WWW be indicted whenever there's a document available somewhere that is illegal in plaintiffs' opinion?

A hyperlink does not formally add anything. The publication is a fact as soon as the page is on Internet. Making the document available can only be considered as publication and/or duplication when the number of potential users is increased by this act. But this doesn't apply to Internet, because all users already had access to the files, they just didn't know where to find them yet. Making a catalogue (which is what hyperlinks are basically about) means making data easily accessible. In my opinion, that is not illegal. (61)

One of the developers of the WWW - who describes it as a "worldwide multimedial hypertext system" - sent me a declaration in which he states that this demand can indeed not be maintained. (62) He is one of the thirteen people in the world who has notably attributed to the specifications of this WWW-language.

Regarding article 16 - the publishing of the OT works without plaintiffs' consent - I would like to make the following remarks. By now, it will be clear to you that I opine that neither I, nor the other participants, need plaintiffs' permission, because none of the participants is doing anything but keeping a court document in the public domain. None of us has the intention of infringing plaintiffs' copyrights. We only want to keep this court document, that is apparently hunted so vigorously by Scientology, in the open - especially because Scientology uses the argument of secrecy as a means of intimidation, as is proved by the many lawsuit Scientology has filed about quoting of parts from the OT's.

In case you do not agree with my arguments that this is a public document and that disclosure cannot be undone, I strongly urge you to consider the public interest in this case. After all, every one is entitled to make a well-informed choice - also where the decision to join Scientology is concerned.

Regarding article 17, I can only refer to what Martin Weightman, a high ranking member of Scientology, and several foreign judges have said about the possibility that Scientology suffers damages when the Fishman Affidavit remains unsealed (their remarks are described above in paragraph 5, article 2).

In article 18, the plaintiffs state that I did not comply with their demand to remove my homepage. This is correct; it is my opinion that only you, and not Scientology, can judge whether my conduct is lawful or illegal.

It is only logical that the providers did not comply with Scientology's requests either. Not only because by destroying other peoples files, the providers would break the law on computer criminality, but also because the participants have all along emphasised that they are the only ones responsible for the presence of the Affidavit on their homepage.

Finally, regarding the demands: Scientology asks you to all individual defendants to pay the costs of this lawsuit. Should you decide that defendants are not guilty, I kindly request you to do the opposite and order the plaintiffs to pay these costs.

Scientology and her various corporate bodies are renowned for filing one lawsuit after the other, only to make criticism a costly affair. I would hereby like to remind you of Hubbard's notorious statement: "The purpose of the suit is to harass and to discourage rather than win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody (...) will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly." (15)

These corporate bodies are themselves not always inclined to comply with decisions of judges. Concerning this Dutch lawsuit, I refer to the procedures in the United States, where RTC has not only unjustly seized material, but has also chosen to ignore the judges' orders to return the computer systems in their original condition. Furthermore, Scientology still has to pay substantial sums of money as a result of other lawsuits: Lawrence Wollersheim - former member and at this date President of FactNet - still has to receive $2,500,000 damages. His claim is so old, that interest has increased this sum to $5,000,000. David Mayo (who was meant to be Hubbard's successor) is still awaiting payment of almost $3,000,000. The organisation has acquired itself such a bad name in juristry, that the managing editor of the magazine The American Jurist in his editorial of last month's issue asked his colleagues to be extremely careful, and warned lawyers who work for Scientology to consider their ethical responsibilities. (63)

I would like to make a final remark, to make my intentions absolutely clear. I am not bent on "destroying Scientology" as members of the organisation have accused me with these past few months. In my opinion, people are allowed to believe whatever they want.

But I do feel that a well-informed discussion about any religion and conviction, mine as well as Scientology's, must be possible in a democratic society. Every human being has the right to make a well-considered decision in matters of such importance and it is my opinion that Scientology obstructs this where its own religion is concerned. In this aspect, I can only fully agree with Steven Fishman himself, who said:

"What is truly ironic is that these attorneys from the Church of Scientology are asking you to hide Scientology beliefs from Scientologists; while on the other hand I am asking you to allow everyone, including and especially Scientologists, (...) access to Scientology beliefs."

Your honour, I thank you for your attention.

Respectfully,

Karin Spaink,
28 november 1995.

Translation: Patricia Savenije

Back to table of contents

10. Acknowledgements, and sources

Besides all those people participating in this protest, I would like the following people and institutions from other countries:

alt.religion.scientology, Bruce Scott, Cornelius Krasel, Dave Touretzky, Davel, Diane Richardson, The Electronic Frontier Foundation", FactNet, Faegre & Benson, Felipe Rodriquez, Fonss, Jerod Pore, Jim Lippard, Jon Atack, Martin L Poulter, Maureen Garde, Modemac, Rogue Agent, Ron Newman (*), Scott Goehring, Steve A, Steven Fishman, Tilman Hausherr, Tony Sidaway and Robert Vaughn Young.

(*) The best place to start.

Back to table of contents

11. Notes and appendices

1. (KS-1) posting, From: rop@xs4all.nl (Rop Gonggrijp); Newsgroups: nlnet.misc, hacktic.heibel; Subject: Beslaglegging bij XS4ALL op laste van Scientology ((Seizure at XS4ALL on behalf of Scientology); Date: 5 Sep 1995 12:45:49 GMT. (terug)

2. (KS-2) Persverklaring DB.NL. (Press statement DB.NL) (terug)

3. (KS-3) posting, From: kspaink@xs4all.nl (Karin Spaink); Newsgroups: dds.dds, nl.misc, nlnet.misc, xs4all.general, alt.religion.scientology; Subject: Fishman available on *another* Dutch provider; Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 17:46:10 GMT. (terug)

4. (KS-4) e-mail, From: kspaink@xs4all.nl (Karin Spaink); To: many; Subject: *dringend* verzoek (*urgent* request); Date: 22 Sep 1995. (terug)

5. (KS-5) posting, From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous); Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology, theta.general, theta.wins; Subject: Up the bridge to OT8 !; Date: 20 Sep 1995 15:40:34 +0200. (terug)

6. Based upon - amongst others - the pressure inherent to this 'Freeloader's Debt', Scientology was sentenced to pay former member Lawrence Wollersheim $2,5000,000 smartmoney. See: Larrry Wollersheim v. Church Of Scientology California, No. B023193, Court of Appeals of California, Second Appelate District, Division Seven; 212 Cal.App.3d 872, 260 Cal.Rptr. 331.; archived in the XS4ALL file on Scientology. (terug)

7. (KS-6) "Fishman's press release on his legal battle. Scientology upper level references (OT materials) affirmed unsealed and in the public domain by United States court of appeals". This declaration contains a reconstruction of his personal experiences with Scientology after his imprisonment, what happened to the Affadavit and a description of the basics of Hubbards teachings. Not everything in this press release is correct: the story about the death of Miscavages mother-in-law appears to be refuted in the meantime, even though many people believed it (and still do so, for that matter). (terug)

8. Richard Behar, 'The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power', Time Magazine, 6 May 1991. (terug)

9. (KS-7) United States district court, Southern district of New York, 92 civ. 3024 (pkl): Church of Scientology International v Time Warner, Inc., Time Inc. Magazine Company, and Richard Behar. (terug)

10. Summary Proceedings, Scientology Church Amsterdam and The Church of Scientology International v Uitgeversmaatschappij Reader's Digest N.V. and Reader's Digest Association Inc, rolnummer KG 91/2034V, verdict on 20 September 1991; Appeal, Scientology Church Amsterdam and The Church of Scientology International v Uitgeversmaatschappij Reader's Digest N.V. and Reader's Digest Association Inc, rolnummer 1151/91 KG, verdict on 9 April 1992. (terug)

11. (KS-8) e-mail, From: Helena Kobrin >hkk@netcom.com<; Subject: Re: Your mail; To: Karin Spaink >kspaink@xs4all.nl<; Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 22:07:41 -0700 (PDT). (terug)

12. (KS-9) Memorandum Opinion, Judge Leonie Brinkema, 30 aug. 1995, Civil Action No. 95-1107-A; cursivering van mij. (terug)

13. (KS-10; no link) CV 91-6426 HLH, Church of Scientology International v Steven Fishman et. al. Sealing order, Judge Hupp, 15 August 1995 (terug)

14. "Witness Preparation: Hatting the Witness" - Exhibit C, Fishman Affidavit and "Addendum to Witness Preparation" - Exhibit D, Fishman Affidavit; "Project Quaker" (Title: "To ensure that all those DC staff concerned are not available for questioning by Scales yet cannot be prosecuted for fleeing") - Exhibit E, Fishman Affidavit; "Magazine article on the dissemination of material" - Exhibit G, Fishman Affidavit. (terug)

15. L. Ron Hubbard, "Magazine article on the dissemination of material", Exhibit G, Fishman Affidavit, pag. 53, 54 and 55. (terug)

16. See OT III and OT VII, Fishman Affidavit. (terug)

17. "A single page inserted before The Electric GPMs supplied a further note of instrucion: when the word SHOCK appeared on an item, one was to THINK OR FEEL SHOCK." Robert Kaufman: Inside Scientology: Or How I Found Scientology and Became Super Human, Olympia Press, New York 1972, pag. 159. (terug)

18. See OT II, Fishman Affidavit, pag. 67, 75, and 65. (terug)

19. See OT VI, Fishman Affidavit, pag. 111. (terug)

20. Julia Rijnvis (spokeswoman for Scientology Church Amsterdam) in a program for Radio AFM, 3 November 1995. (terug)

21. Margery Wakefield: Xenu: The Road to Total Freedom, fifteen chapters, posted regularly to alt.religion.scientology. Quote from chapter 5: 'Do fish swim? Do birds fly?' (terug)

22. Hubbard in OT III, Fishman Affidavit, pag. 86. (terug)

23. Hubbard, quoted in Margery Wakefield: The Road to Xenu, vijftien hoofdstukken, posted regularly to alt.religion.scientology. Quote from chapter 3: 'For the next endless trillions of years'; my emphasis. (terug)

24. (KS-11) Affidavit of Hana Whitfield, 661N. Occidental Boulevard Los Angeles, California 90026, posted to a.r.s. (terug)

25. See for the various punishments ('Ethics Conditions'), the internal justice and courts and for the various camps ('Rehabilitation Project Force' of RPF), the testimonies that XS4ALL has compiled durch their research, and (KS-11). (terug)

26. (KS-12) Provisional version of Steven Fishman's testimony in the Court of Appeals, Pasadena, California, on 14 November 1995. Attached to e-mail: Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 21:41:16 -0400; From: Steven Fishman; To: kspaink@xs4all.nl; Subject: Many thanks for your wonderful web site. (terug)

27. (KS-13) 'Hubbard dianetics foundation, Enrollment application/agreement and general release', posting a.r.s, From: clara@holsoft.demon.co.uk (Sister Clara); Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology; Subject: Re: SHUDDER INTO SILENCE; Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 20:16:07 GMT (terug)

28. (KS-14) Ron Hubbard, HCO Policy Letter of 18 October 1967, Issue IV; my emphasis. This HCO Policy Letter has later been replaced by another one, in which the terminology 'Fair Game' is abolished "because of the bad publicity" that it attracted, but in which the practice explicitly remains in use: "This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP."
That this policy is still applied can be concluded from a recent legal statement in 1993, RTC, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Robin Scott, et al., Defendants, case No. 85-711-JMI (Bx), US District Court, Central District of California. "MEMORANDUM OF DECISION (...) Plaintiffs have abused the federal court system by using it, inter alia, to destroy their opponents, rather than to resolve an actual dispute over trademark law or any other legal matter. This constitutes 'extraordinary, malicious, wanton and oppressive conduct."' (terug)

29. (KS-15) See amongst others Scarffs testimony. (Part of the complete Fishman file and at this dat avcailable on almost 20 Dutch Fishman homepages). In his testimony, Scarff elaborates upon illegal actions discussed in the presence of Scientology-lawyers Bowles and Moxon (members themselves, of course) or even ordered by them. (terug)

30. (KS-16) Documents concerning 'Operation Freakout'. FactNet (Fight Against Coercive Tactics) has in one of her files compiled a number of these documents, which were found during an FBI raid. (terug)

31. Vicky Aznaran, 4 april 1994, United States District Court, Central District of California; quoted in FOK-dossier 10, 'Scientology', p. 117.
In another declaration (KS-17), she explains the relation between RTC and the other Scientology branches, and states that RTC is the current central corporation and responsible for the present 'Fair Game' policy. (terug)

32. (KS-18) Jim Lippard and Jeff Jacobsen, 'Scientology v. the Internet. Free Speech & Copyright Infringement on the Information Super-Highway', Skeptic vol. 3, no. 3, 1995, pp. 35-41. (terug)

33. (KS-19) From: hkk@netcom; Subject: cmsg rmgroup alt.religion.scientology; Sender: hkk@netcom.com (Helena Kobrin); Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 22:52:23 GMT.
Senders can be forged on Internet, and therefore it was not sure at first whether this rmgroup message was indeed posted by Kobrin herself. But afterwards she has repeatedly admitted in interviews that it was indeed hers. (terug)

34. (KS-20) From: dbd@panacea.phys.utk.edu (David DeLaney); Subject: cmsg newgroup alt.religion.scientology; Control: newgroup alt.religion.scientology; Date: 12 Jan 1995 02:20:37 GMT. At least five differnet system operators reacted with a newgroup message; they were all furious. (terug)

35. (KS-9) Judge Brinkema: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, civil action No. 95-1107-A, RTC v. Arnaldo Lerma, Digital Gateway Systems, the Washington Post et. al.; 30 August 1995.
(KS-21) Judge Kane: United States District Court for the District of Colorado, civil action No. 95-B-2143, RTC v Factnet et. al.; Memorandum Opinion and Order, 15 September 1995.
(KS-xx) Judge Whyte: United States District Court for the Northern District of California, NO. C-95-20091 RMW, RTC and Bridge Publications Inc. v Netcom, Dennis Erlich, Tom Klemesrud en Clearwood Data Services; Order granting in part and denying in part Plaintiff's application for a preliminary injunction and defendant Erlich's motion to dissolve the Temporay Restraining Order; Denying Plaintiff's motion for contempt; Granting Erlich's motion to vacate the writ of seizure; and denying Plaintiff's request for sanctions against Erlich's counsel, 9 September 1995. (terug)

36. (KS-21) CoS v. FactNet, Judge Kane, 15 September 1995: "The evidence showed, however, that, apart from the Lerma posting, the only copying of the works by Defendants was scanning them onto their computer and placing them in the private section of their library without making them available to the public over the Internet or otherwise. Copying of this sort by Defendants falls within the well established limitation on the exclusive right of copyright ownership recognized in the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C 107." (terug)

37. (KS-21) CoS v. FactNet, Judge Kane, 15 sept. 1995: "Defendants maintain and the evidence does not refute that the Lerma postings to the Internet were made in the context of ongoing dialogue in the particular newsgroup to which they were posted. They form part of the topical debate concerning whether the Works are of substance or are perpetuated as part of systemic mind control." (terug)

38. Lord Denning M.R., Megaw and Stephenson L.J.J., Court of Appeal, Hubbard and Another v. Vosper and Another, 1971, No. 7360.
The trial was about the book "The Mind Benders", written by a former member of Scientology. On the day the book was published, Scientology demanded that it would be forbidden. In the book, the OT's were quoted, especially OT III. Scientology lost the case. Quote from one of the judges, L.J. Megaw: "Mr. Caplan [lawyer for the defense] is more than abundantly justified in his proposition that there is here evidence that the plaintiffs are or have been protecting their secrets by deplorable means such as evidenced by ths code of ethics [i.e. de 'Fair Game' rule]; and, that being so, they do not come with clean hands to this cour asking this court to protect those secrets by the equitable remedy of an injuction." (terug)

39. Andrew Milne, on a.r.s. the semi-official spokesperson for Scientology and also staff writer for the Scientology magazine, has repeatedly accused critics of this. (terug)

40. (KS-22) Cross examination of Warren McShane, president Religious Technology Center, on 11 September, 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet et. al (Judge Kane); pag. 210-211 from the court transcripts. (terug)

41. (KS-23) Testimony under oath of Warren McShane, president Religious Technology Center, on 8 September 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet et. al (Judge Kane); pag. 68-69 and pag. 88-90 from the court transcripts. (terug)

42. (KS-24) Martin Weightman, Director Church of Scientology - European Human Rights Office, in a interview on 7 November 1995 with Jeroen Pietersma for the magazine N@T, to be published in December 1995. It is a painfull interview, because both of the CoS-members interviewed - Julia Rijnvis, spokesperson of the Scientology Church Amsterdam and Martin Weightman - made numerous statements that could immediately be refuted.
Weightman was present at the seizure at XS4ALL and has visited the Netherlands regularly in the weeks after, because he wanted to deliberate with providers and individuals about the removal of the Fishman Affadavit from their systems. Weightmans presence is interesting, because the plaintiff in this case isn't Scientology but RTC, that claims to be independant of the various Scientology branches. (terug)

43. Quoted from Judge L.J. Stephenson, in the same case as mentioned in note 38. See also, referring to another critical book by a former member, Church of Scientology of California v. Kaufman, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, No. 20 [1973] R.P.C, in which Judge Goff stated the following:
"What the plaintifs argued was that disclosure of their secrets might lose them business, but there never has been any suggestions in the case that the confidential passages are sufficient to enable or even assist others to teach the plaintiff's courses or disclosure so much that there is nothing left for the plaintiffs to teach those who wantto become Scientologists.
Therefore save insofar as disclosure may prejudice the plaintiffs by exposing the worthless nature of the passages disclosed, any injury appears to me to be problematical and speculative in the extreme.
I would, therefore, respectfully adopt Stephenson, L.J. view, but in my judgment the passages sought to be protected are pernicious nonsense, and I accept the submission that equity will not lend its aid to prevent disclosure of such matters. It was argued that there is no case in which an injunction has been refused on that ground, but the facts here are unlike those of any other confidence case of which I am aware, and in any case I find support for the submission in the judgement of Megarry, J. in the Coco case (supra), again at page 48, where he said:
'Equity ought not to be invoked merely to protect trivial tittle-tattle however confidential.'
By analogy, ought it to be invoked to protect what I see here, which, even if I am wrong in finding it to be dangerous, is at best utterly absurd? I again refer to pages 105-106 and 111 of the book. In my judgement the answer is 'No.'" (terug)

44. (KS-25) Cross examination of Warren McShane, president Religious Technology Center, on 12 September 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet et.al (Judge Kane); pag. 477-478 from the court transcripts. (terug)

45. (KS-26) Testimony under oath from Warren McShane, president Religious Technology Center, on 16 September 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet et. al (Judge Kane); pag. 96-97 from the court transcripts.
The calculation:

        no.       OT-level         Fishman

         1          25 blz           3 blz
         2         300 blz           3 blz
         3         200 blz          25 blz
         4          63 blz           4 blz
         5          35 blz           5 blz
         6          10 blz           3 blz
         7          80 blz          11 blz

      Totaal:      713 blz          54 blz

47. L. Ron Hubbard, Class 8 Course, Lecture #10, 3 Oct, 1968. This excerpt is regularly posted to a.r.s. (terug)

48. L. Ron Hubbard, HCOB [Hubbard Communication Office Bulletin], 11 May, 1964. Thse fragments from it are regularly posted to a.r.s. (terug)

49. http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/NoChrist.wav for a.wav file or ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/gr/grady/NoChrist.zip for a zipped .wav file. (terug)

50. (KS-27) Civil Action No. 95-1107-A, Religious Technology Center vs. Arnaldo Pagliarini Lerma, et al. (Judge Brinkema), for the part of the transcript in which Lerma's lawyer points out this contradicition. (terug)

51. (KS-28) Testimony under oath from Robert Vaughn Young, former member, on 11 September, 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet (Judge Kane). For this statements, see page 262 from the court transcripts. (terug)

52. (KS-28) Testimony under oath from Robert Vaughn Young, former member, on 11 September, 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet (Judge Kane). See the court transcript, page 263. (terug)

53. (KS-28) Testimony under oath from Robert Vaughn Young, former member, on 11 September, 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet (Judge Kane). See the court transcript, pages 265 - 266. (terug)

54. Robert Kaufman: Inside Scientology: Or How I Found Scientology and Became Super Human, Olympia Press, New York 1972, pag. 159. (terug)

55. (KS-28) Testimony under oath from Robert Vaughn Young, former member, on 11 September, 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet (Judge Kane). See the court transcript, page 264. (terug)

56. (KS-28) Testimony under oath from Robert Vaughn Young, former member, on 11 September, 1995, in Courtroom C401, United States Courthouse, Denver, Colorado. Civil Action No. 95B2143, RTC v FactNet (Judge Kane). See the court transcripts, pages 274 - 275. (terug)

57. Telephone conversations with Julia Rijnvis, on 2 Oktober 1995 and on 3 Oktober 1995. Both conversations are on tape. (terug)

58. (KS-29) Posting / e-mail, From: Abigail >abigail@mars.ic.iaf.nl<; Newsgroups: nl.misc, nl.burgerrechten, xs4all.general, dds.dds; To: kspaink@xs4all.nl; Subject: Re: Complete tekst dagvaarding 14 december (Re: Full text subpoena December 14); Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 01:59:55 +0100. (terug)

59. (KS-30; no link) List annotated by Scientology or by Nauta Dutilh, handed over by Nauta Dutilh to Mr. Bakker Schut, and sent to me by him. (terug)

60. (KS-31) In as far as I know, Helena Kobrin has sent three such e-mails: to kees@dataweb.nl, to a.cooke@roe.ac.uk and to mrsmepel@bart.nl; all dated 8 November 1995. (terug)

61. With thanks to Dick Zelverder (From: Dick.Zelvelder@nos.nl (Dick Zelvelder), Subject: Re: Complete tekst dagvaarding 14 december (Re: Full text subpoena 14 December), Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 07:30:44 GMT). (terug)

62. (KS-32) E-mail, From: "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" >hallam@w3.org<; To: kspaink@xs4all.nl (Karin Spaink); Subject: Re: Scientology; Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 21:20:13 -0500. (terug)

63. (KS-33) Eric Ascalon (editor) in The American Jurist, November 1995. (terug)

Copyright Karin Spaink.
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