alt_religion_scientology/FACTNetARS19970403

From: factnet < XXX-Obsolete.email.Deleted-XXX >
Subject: Net censorship, access cost increase, and Intellectual Property alert!
Date: 1997/03/04
Message-ID: <331C8D0E.8C8@rmii.com>#1/1
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology

Net censorship, access cost increase, and Intellectual Property alert!

Every netizen or organization that wants low cost net access, net free
speech, and uncensored e-mail has a high stake in a court case soon to
be decided in the litigation war involving Scientology, the Internet,
and a nonprofit electronic library and historic archive called FactNet.

An emergency Internet and legal issues briefing has been prepared for
you and/or your organization at (www.factnet.org). Factnet=92s Board of
Directors urgently asks your help to promote both media coverage and a
vigorous dialogue among netizens on the immediate and substantial threat
this briefing discloses to the future of the Internet. =

To help understand the importance of this briefing to Internet costs,
Internet slowdowns, Internet intellectual property and Internet free
speech please find the following media quotes.

"If the church's (Scientology=92s) lawsuits prevail...future providers of=

bulletin boards and newsgroups on the World Wide Web, as well as the
companies
running such subscriber services as Prodigy, Compuserve, and
America Online might be forced to monitor or restrict information
simply because they fear being sued...If system operators are liable for
the content of the postings, it will lead to censorship...It would
change
the whole idea of how the Internet develops -- it's that important." =

--Shari Steele, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as
quoted in "The Net: Copyright or 'Free Press'?" Newsday, 10/10/95

"Besides the technological curtailment of free speech, a skirmish like
this one has the potential to completely disrupt the online operation
not
only of individual users, but also of entire networks overloaded by
traffic their circuits were never designed to handle." =

--Colman Jones, "Freedom Flames Out on the 'Net: Who Launched the
largest-ever Sabotage of the Internet?"
www.now.com/issues/15/44/News/feature.html =

"Other [Internet] users have reported mysterious incidents:
investigators
visiting their neighbors, strangers attempting to get into their
telephone
records, e-mail sent to their sysadmins asking that their accounts be
closed down. How did we get to this, in a free country?...

"It turns out that a belief in free speech and an interest in
Scientology may involve you in the bitterest battle fought across the
Internet to date. A fight that has burst the banks of the Net and into
the real world of police,
lawyers, and armed search and seizure. Ultimately, however, the drama
doesn't matter: the real issues here are the boundaries of free speech
and the future of copyright and intellectual property in the face of a
technology that can scatter copies across the world in seconds...
"Whatever the motives, when computers are seized because they
contain allegedly purloined intellectual property, messages are
intercepted as they traverse the network, or the security of anonymous
remailers is pierced by police, the days of the Internet as a cozy,
private, intellectual cocktail party are over. .." =

--Wendy M. Grossman, "alt.scientology.war," Wired, 8/95

Lest anyone doubt Scientology's intentions, an article in the most
recent
issue of an internal Scientology magazine called "High Winds" proudly
trumpets "groundbreaking lawsuits against both copyright infringers and
the
computer service companies that served as electronic conduits" for them.
It goes on to predict "landmark decisions" in which, "for the first
time,
Internet access providers will be held responsible for any copyright
infringements posted through their facilities." =

"The Internet is an information age tool that empowers individuals and
reduces the need for a large, authoritarian government. It empowers the
poor with an unregulated world of entrepreneurial opportunity...
Information and the new frontier could create a more fair, peaceful
society The free flow of information is central to America's foundation,
and '90s technology only enhances it. Unfortunately, it's all big threat
to those in power who rely on the control of information to secure their
lofty positions. No matter what they call it, free speech is the issue."
--Wayne Langsen, "Raiding Free Speech," Boulder Weekly
editorial. 8/24/95 =

PLEASE help protect our mutual Internet freedoms by appropriately
forwarding this briefing to your personal or organizational network of
individuals, newsgroups, listservs, net media, and net watch
organizations where it hasn=92t appeared yet.

Your timely attention to this critical briefing is appreciated,

The Directors of Factnet
Boulder Colorado USA