alt_religion_scientology/FACTNetARS20020321

Is GOOGLE supporting efforts to censor the internet?
Are Americans being stopped from accessing critical information about
dangers to their society?

The latest scandalous story concerns Scientology. The implications of what
has occured in the past 24 hours is of global concern for people who wish to
access information that is not carried by the mainstream press.

"Andreas Heldal-Lund, webmaster of http://www.xenu.net/, got a DMCA [Digital
Millenium Copyright Act] notification letter from Google earlier today. In
the letter, a long list of URLs were listed as infringing, and Google
apparently complied with the DMCA request by removing them."

http://www.xenu.net/ is Operation Clambake. A Website that provides critical
information about Scientology. It is a website dedicated to educating people
about abuses relating to the Church of Scientology. (Which, by the way, many
countries refuse to recognise as a church.)

GOOGLE responded to a query from Andreas Heldal-Lund with: "We removed
certain specific URLs in response to a notification submitted by the
Religious Technology Center and Bridge Publications under section 512(c)(3)
of the the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Had we not removed these
URLs, we would be subject to a claim for copyright infringement, regardless
of its merits."

Does this mean that an educational website, for example, that wishes to
discuss potential sexism in a Ford automobile commercial cannot replicate
the commercial to illustrate its point because they will be blocked by
GOOGLE?

Does this mean that satirical humour that uses corporate identities as
targets will also be blocked by GOOGLE?

Does this mean that "fair use" is a useless legal concept?
"The doctrine of fair use is described at 17 U.S.C. Section 107.
"Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 and 106A, the fair use of a
copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or
phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes
such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple
copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement
of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any
particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a
commercial nature or is for or nonprofit educational purposes, (2) the
nature of the copyrighted work, (3) the amount and substantiality of the
portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and (4) the
effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted
work."

GOOGLE is advised to be fair and transparent in these matters. FACTNet
recommends that if GOOGLE is blocking websites from coming up in its search
engine then they should publish a list of such sites for all to see. And
they should also display the reasons these sites are being blocked.

GOOGLE cannot hide behind the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and claim
ignorance of larger moral issues.
GOOGLE cannot afford to be seen as being a lackey of either Big Business or
other vested-interest groups.

What is this all about?
The first principle of brainwashing is to stop alternative information. This
latest scandal is just the latest in a litany of attempts by the Church of
Scientology to stop critical information from finding its way into the
mainstream press. It is not about copyrights. It never was. It is about
controlling what people think.

To quote John Stuart Mill:
"On Liberty" (excerpt from Chapter 2)

"....The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it
is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation;
those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If
the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging
error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the
clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its
collision with error...We have now recognized the necessity to the mental
well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of
freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four
distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate.

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught
we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own
infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly
does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing
opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the
collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance
of being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth;
unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly
contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner
of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational
grounds.

And not only this, but fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be
in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on
the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession,
inefficacious for good, but encumbering the ground, and preventing the
growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal
experience."

Copyright law should not be used to quell non-comercial public debate issues
relating to grave social dangers. Whether information relates to public or
private institutions we need open public debate on the issues of the day. We
also need both public or private institutions to operate in an open and
transparent manner to foster democracy and democratic debate.

We live in dangerous times. GOOGLE needs to stand up and be counted. Freedom
of speech or not? Information control or not?

These are our humble opinions,
Lawrence Wollersheim and the staff of FACTNet.

To voice your own opinion - the GOOGLE contact e-mail adresses are:
Suggestions: suggestions@google.com
Praise and complaints: comments@google.com
Not satisfied with search results? search-quality@google.com
Report errors, bugs and broken links: webmaster@google.com

To watch this scandal being played out in real time:
Log into the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup to see the fur fly!

This current Scientology scandal regarding GOOGLE is being covered by these
websites:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-865936.html
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/3/20/8222/92911
http://slashdot.org/yro/02/03/21/0453200.shtml?tid=99
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=scientology
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=154205&group=webcast
http://www.operatingthetan.com/google/
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jo-21.03.02-001/

The origins of Scientology's efforts to censor the Internet is discussed in
these pages:
http://www.operatingthetan.com/google/
http://www.xtdnet.nl/paul/PrioriyTelecom-Xenu.html
http://www2.thecia.net/users/rnewman/scientology/home.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/~felipe/cos/
http://www.cyberlaw.com/cylw0495.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/Scien30.html
http://www.skeptic.com/03.3.jl-jj-scientology.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/CoS/
http://www.watchman.org/sci/c0$p1.htm
http://atheism.about.com/cs/scientologyvsth/
http://www.lermanet.com/cisar/010319b.htm
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1999/06/07/editorial1.html
http://www.factnet.org/briefing.htm

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