From: chris@eris.uchsc.edu (Chris Yoder) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: More Articles from local papers on FACTnet raid. Date: 24 Aug 1995 21:12:54 GMT Organization: UCHSC Lines: 272 Message-ID: <41iq0m$3qi@tali.UCHSC.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: eris.uchsc.edu Summary: $cientology Sucks Hard OK, Here is all I have been able to find so far. I am looking for the text of the Boulder Weekly article, but . . . . -----------------8<------------------------------- From The Boulder Daily Camera Aug 23 1995 Font Page HEADLINE: Marshals raid homes of former Scientologists SUB HEADER: ACLU lawyer sees appalling lack of due process By DOUG COSPER Camera Staff Writer Delegations of Scientologists searched two Boulder County homes Tuesday under the protection of federal marshals, seizing thousands of dollars in computer equipment and data they claim were used to violate copyrights on "sacred scriptures." Directors of FACTNet, an Internet bulletin board dedicated largely to criticizing the church of Scientology, said after the simultaneous raids that the Scientologists also got a bonus: a list of thousands of their enemies. An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer at one raid in Boulder called the action "appalling." "With my own eyes, I witnessed a member of Scientology going through drawers and closets," said Denver attorney David Lane. "What kind of a country is this when your sworn enemy can go into your house and rummage through your drawers at the point of a fed eral marshal's gun?" The Church of Scientology, founded 40 years ago by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, teaches that technology can expand the mind and help solve human problems. It can cost thousands of dollars for initiates to progress through the church's teachings and counseling. Church spokeswoman Karin Pouw said the organization has 8 million members worldwide. Beginning about 9 a.m., parties of federal marshals and Scientology members entered the homes of Lawrence Wollersheim in Boulder and Bob Penny in Niwot. Both men are former Scientologists who turned against the church after being excommunicated. (See HOMES, Page 2A) HEADLINE: Homes of ex-Scientologists raided (From Page 1A) Denver copyright lawyer Todd Blakely, who was at the Wollersheim raid to represent the church, said the marshals were enforcing a federal seizure warrant for Scientology "religious text" protected by federal copyright and trade secret laws. Pouw, who flew with colleagues from Los Angeles for the actions, said the men had posted protected "religious secrets" on the Internet newsgroup "alt.religion.scientology" and threatened to continue. The church "scriptures" are guarded under lock and key at six locations across the globe, said Blakely, who is not a church member. Pouw said that because only members who had "reached a certain level in the church" had access to them, a church member must have stolen them. "It's our constitutional right to have religious secrets," Pouw said. "(Wollersheim) is on a hate campaign against Scientology, and he's chosen the wrong target." Wollersheim, who said he was a part-time computer consultant, said FACTNet is a nonprofit archive "dedicated to exposing information on dangerous cults and mind control." He called Scientology "the largest secret satanic cult in the world." Wollersheim, 46, who was a Scientologist from age 18 to 29, said he won a $30 million verdict against the church in a previous lawsuit. Pouw said Wollersheim has not collected any of the $2.5 million reduced award. Wollersheim also is helping Time magazin e defend against a $470 million libel suit the church filed following a 1991 news story about the church. The raids were not the first by the church against critics who would publish what the church calls protected material. Acting on a similar federal warrant, the church a few weeks ago seized former Scientologist minister Dennis Erlich's computer diskettes and files from his Glendale, Calif., home. On Aug. 12, a raid shut down Virginia critic Arnaldo Lerma, a 44year-old former member. "This raid is not about copyrighted documents, it's about the church beating up on its adversaries," Wollersheim said. U.S. Marshal Chief Deputy Larry Homenick said the federal marshals were enforcing a private civil seizure brought by the church and ordered by a federal court in Denver. "Our only role is to provide a law enforcement presence and execute the order of the court. We allow the plaintiff (the church) to seize the property: We don't have the expertise to identify the objects. We inventory it and hand it over to them pending further litigation," Homenick said. Along with the seized computer hardware and software, data storage devices and paper documents, the Scientologists took a mailing list of 8,50d "donors and former church members" who support FACTNet and "who are very afraid of Scientology," Wollersheim sa id. Attorney Lane said: "There are names of persons in these files who have escaped Scientology and changed their names, started new lives.: They're now in the hands of Scientologists." Pouw said the church would do nothing with the list. "Experts are going through the material looking for key words of copyrighted material. Everything not copyrighted will be returned," she said. Two federal judges denied Lane's request Tuesday for a hearing in which Wollersheim and Penny could have presented their cases against handing over the seized materials to the church, Lane said.: "This country is founded on principles of due process, and this is as far from due process as you can get," he said. But regardless of the outcome of the federal civil suits behind the raids, many of the church texts have been downloaded into hard drives across the country already, said Penny, the retired founder of the Boulder software company Small Systems Design Inc. "They're already everywhere; they'll be popping up on the net. Certainly not from us, but that no longer matters," he said. From The Longmont Daily Times Call Aug 22 1995 Front Page HEADLINE: Marshals raid homes in county Pam Regensberg and B.J. Plasket The Daily Times-Call NIWOT-U S. Marshals raided Niwot and Boulder homes today seizing computer software, hardware and other electronic gear to halt what the Church of Scientology claims is copyright infringement. Church officials claim Bob Penny of Niwot and Larry Wollersheim of Boulder, who were both reportedly excommunicated from the church, placed copyrighted Scientology material on the Internet. However, Penny, speaking through a friend over the telephone today, said the material that was placed on the Internet was legally obtained information from court documents. The material placed on the electronic bulletin board was information taken from a California case in which Steven Fishman sued the church and won over a similar copyright case. At noon today, marshals were boxing up Penny's be See RAID/A9 RAID: Continued from page A1 longings. According to a press release issued by a church spokesperson, today's search and seizure follows a similar raid 10 days ago on a colleague of Wollersheim's and Penny's in Virginia. "The courts take these matters very seriously," said the plaintiff's Denver lawyer, Todd Blakely. "The law is clear-if you are going to violate copyrights, you will have to answer for it in court." Gail Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles; scoffed at claims the materials were in the public domain because they were contained in a public court record. "The fact that copyrighted material is contained in a court record does not at all mean the copyright can be violated," she said. "Anything filed in court does not become public domain if it is copyrighted." Helena Kobrin, cited by the church as an intellectual property law expert, also discounted the argument that Wollersheim and Penny's right to free speech allows them to place the copyrighted material on the Internet. "Violators of copyright and trade secret laws traditionally try to hide behind free speech claims," she said. "The church is a strong advocate of free speech, however free speech does not mean free theft and no one has the right to cloak themselves in the First Amendment to break the law." Tina Rowe, the head of the U.S. Marshal's office in Denver, was unavailable for comment on the raid at press time this afternoon. From the Longmont Daily times Call Aug 23 1995 Front Page HEADLINE: SPEECH VS. RELIGION SUBHEAD: Ex-Scientologist says church duped judge into issuing warrant Pam Regensberg and B.J. Plasket The Daily Times-Call NIWOT-Bob Penny continues to deny the Church of Scientology's allegations that he violated United States copyright laws, despite a court order to hand over items believed to contain secret church information. The 53-year-old ex-Scientologist said church officials somehow duped a judge into issuing a search and seizure order. Three church members along with their photographers and U.S. marshals showed up at Penny's Niwot home Tuesday at 9 a.m. with the order in hand. "It's the sort of thing the Church of Scientology does all the time," Penny said. The church has accused Penny and Larry Wollersheim of Boulder of placing private church information on an electronic bulletin See PENNY/All PENNY: Continued from Page A1 board they established. The information includes steps to "spiritual enlightenment." Penny denies that, but admits to placing information about cults on the Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network (FACTNet Inc.,), that was run from Penny's home. In a brochure supplied by FACTNet, the board of directors - Penny, Wollersheim and Jon Atack-describe themselves at "victims of coercive mind control." Penny claims the Church of Scientology is a dangerous cult that is responsible for 300 suicides or attempted suicides. The organization is the brainchild of L. Ron Hubbard, author of Dianetics. Penny was a member for 13 years before he left. Deborah Danos, director of special affairs for the church, said the information Penny put on the Internet is not readily available to the public. It can be obtained only as each member advances to the next step of "spiritual enlightenment." "There is freedom of speech, but not freedom to break copyrights," Danos said at Penny's home on Tuesday. "He's making a mockery of it ... spreading (material) around the world and saying 'Look how ridiculous this is.' " The church became aware of the sit uation when one of its members found the information about Scientology on the Internet. Danos said the church will not allow it to continue. Tina Rowe, who heads the U.S. Marshal's Office in Denver, said the seizure was a routine execution of a federal court order. Computer software, hardware, a fax machine and several files were taken from Penny's home. In Boulder, a similar operation took pl ace at Wollersheim's home. "This was not at all an unusual thing," Rowe said Tuesday. "We got an order from the federal court and are carrying it out. "It is still in progress and is going along smoothly. It has been a situation without incident." Rowe said she is not familiar with the details of the case-only the order to seize certain items from the homes. Wollersheim claims he is being denied due process. The marshals just showed up and began taking items. Ann Weber, Penny's friend who was with him during the seizure, said Penny was not surprised when the marshals arrived. He called her and told her, "Now you will believe when I told you this is what they do." A federal judge is now reviewing the search and seizure order. But, for now, Penny and Wollersheim are out of business. -- +----------------------------------------+-----------------------------+ | Get the mail address from the headers! | Sabreur for NCF in Boulder | +--Copyright 1995 by Chris Yoder -PGP via Finger | Stop Scientolgy | | http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/scientology/home.html for reasons | ======== From: Mike_Reuss@HP-Loveland-om10.om.hp.com (Michael Reuss) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Rocky Mountain News CoS Articles Date: 28 Aug 1995 19:13:01 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard Lines: 159 Message-ID: <41t4fu$lne@hplvec.lvld.hp.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: hpcm5a11.lvld.hp.com Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.93.11 Here are three articles from the Sunday Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO, USA) Denver's largest daily paper. (typos mine, used without permission). -- Michael Reuss Honorary Kid ******************************************************************************* From page 4 (article continued on page 29) ******************************************************************************* Page 4 headline reads "Church of Scientology plays hardball with Boulder critic" The section beginning on page 29 carries the headline "Scientology beliefs called 'trade secrets'" by Greg Lopez (people beat) Bouder - Lawrence Wollersheim came into his apartment Friday afternoon pulling off his tie, 24 phone messages waiting, trying to get to the Rocky Flats Lounge to watch the Green Bay Packers play. The apartment is one bedroom, $600 a month, with posters of famous paintings thumbtacked to the walls. The bed is in the living room, because the bedroom is where he did his work. The lock on the bedroom door lies on the carpet, where it fell Wednesday morning when U.S. marshals broke in and gave the Scientologists what they wanted. "They won," Wollersheim said. "This battle at least." He had spent the morning in U.S. District Court in Denver and the afternoon with his lawyer trying to get back what the Scientologists took. Some of the hard feelings might come from the fact the Scientologists haven't paid him the $2.5 million he won in a lawsuit in 1989 in Los Angeles, alleging "severe emotional injury" while he was a member. He says he made $21,000 last year as a computer consultant. The Scientologists say he is putting copyrighted information on the Internet "to make some easy money," according to a news release. "I drive a 1985 Dodge Omni with a cracked windshield and no grille," Wollersheim said. "People who have already given all of their money to a cult aren't the best people to make money off of." The lawyers for Scientology say this is a copyright-infringement cast. Wollersheim says his Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network is a library and archive on the Internet, and this is a First Amendment case. Apparently, at least one Scientologist believes that anonymous phone calls are an acceptable tactic. I got a call from someone who told me, "You should be aware that people higher up than you are sympathetic to our way of thinking and can make life unhappy for you." Wollersheim is 46, grew up in Milwaukee, and the second half of his life has been taken up by Scientology. The first eight years, he was a member. the last 15, he has fought it. Scientology was founded in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard and teaches that every person is an immortal being who has been born over and over again. Previous negative experiences have producedengrams, which block the soul from realizing its potential. Auditors work the eliminate the engrams until a person becomes "clear." After that, what Scientologists believe is either a "trade secret" or copyrighted. Some of that information is public record contained in a court transcript from an unrelated case in Los Angeles, but the Scientologist have a person check out the transcript every morning and sit with all day so nobody else can read it, according to Helena Kobrin of Chicago, one of the lawyers for the Scientologists. "Most religions want their beliefs dissseminated as widely as possible," Wollersheim said. "Don't they?" The church used to have a "Fair Game Policy," which said enemies of the church "may be tricked, sued, lied to, or destroyed," but repealed it in 1968. When the U.S. marshals broke into Wollersheim's bedroom, the Scientologists got what they wanted - about 15,000 pages in boxes and about seven gigabytes on 1000 floppy disks. They got his three computers. "They got a list of their enemies," Wollersheim said. In a lawyer's office, computer experts are searching Wollersheim's computer files 24 hours a day, looking for key words that include the names of Wollersheim's lawyers and the phrase "rogue agent." On the Internet, more than 4,000 messages are waiting for Wollersheim. When he gets a computer, he'll be able to read them. ******************************************************************************* Second article also found on page 4 ******************************************************************************* Science-fiction writer Hubbard founded Scientology by Jean Torkelson It took L. Ron Hubbard a good amount of faith - in himself - to form the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard, a nuclear science physicist, explorer, and science fiction writer, published his solution to the problems that afflict human behavior. "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health," was immediately excoriated by the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association. Hubbard and his followers formed the first churches in Wichita, Kan. and Washington, D.C. in the 1950s. The movement evolved a system for solving painful life experiences, called engrams, which Scientologists believe may extend back before birth and into past lives. In 1993 the Internal Revenue Service granted the church tax-exepmt status, which has caused a boom in membership, according to spokeswoman Deborah Danos. There are now 1,039 churches around the world and 8 million followers, 2000 of them in Colorado. The main Denver church of Scientology is at 375 S. Navajo St. There are smaller "mission" churches in Englewood, Boulder and Alamosa. The national headquarters are split between Clearwater, Fla. and Los Angeles. Some of the church's more well-known adherants include John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, Lisa Marie Presley, Pricilla Presley and Chick Corea. ******************************************************************************* Third article from page 24 ******************************************************************************* "Computer rules in Scientology case stumps wizards of the law - for now" By Karen Abbott (RMN staff writer) Judges and attorneys in Denver confronted law in cyberspace last week. And they weren't ready. "The courts generally are adrift in trying to figure out this fairly new problem," said U.S. District Judge John Kane Jr. He is presiding over the trial of the Church of Scientology's suit against two Boulder County men, claiming that church information they're sending over the Internet is copyrighted. The church won a court order Tuesday to seize up to 10 million pages of data from Lawrence Wollersheim and Robert Penny. Independent computer experts are working around the clock to separate legally transmitted data from the material the church claims violates its copyrights. But the way Kane see it, computer information is like a Mulligan stew: It's hard to take out the potatoes without also looking at the peas, carrots and onions. And the law, as often happens when technology advances quickly, isn't ready. "This happens periodically, where technology outstirps our political and legal proces in terms of our capacity to make social policy." said University of Denver law dean Dennis Lynch. "We wind up confronted with cutting-edge issues." The technology also tends to take battles to a new level, said Peter Tippett, president of the Pennsylvania-based National Computer Security Association. "It's just that the new technologies allow people to fight in new ways," he said. "It's sort of a new class warfare." Tippett divides "information warfare" into three categories: * In traditional warfare, or terrorism, computers can be used to plant a computer virus that destroys air defenses or jams telephone systems. * Computers can be used in industrial espionage to steal secret formulas or designs or to spread misinformation. * Computers lie at the heart of the controversy over personal privacy. For instance, Tippett said, anyone with the access to a drugstore's computerized prescription records can find who's taking anti-depressant medication. "Here's just one more example: On our network, systems people write notes to each other all the time and they think of it just like they're in a private conversation. "And yet the technology has all kinds of forms of backup, so that conversation is there for any time period you can think of." Face-toface and telephone conversations are is[sic] protected by law from eavesdropping. But what if a computer-network conversation is about, say, where to park the truck to blow up the building or how to make consumers crave a product? What if it's mixed into a stew of millions of conversations? What if somebody kept an illegal copy of it? We haven't come to grips withe what we're going to do with these massive backup systems that may have bits of relevant information in them, and we might have to through a lot of it to pluck three or four things out," Lynch said.