Ron Newman

The Church of Scientology is a religious cult which has unwisely decided to declare war against the Usenet and Internet communities. Since December of 1994, this Church and its followers have committed numerous acts that are hostile to the spirit of free speech on the Net. This web page is intended to document these activities.

Internet users are finding out something that writers and journalists have known for years: the Church of Scientology doesn't take kindly to people who write negative things about it. They've sued and harassed numerous writers of books, such as biographer Russell Miller, who described his courtroom experience in a Punch magazine article in February 1988. In 1994, they picketed and distributed defamatory leaflets about writer Jon Atack, whose story is told in a 1994 Evening Argus article. In mid-August, 1995, they did the same thing to Seattle resident Robert Vaughn Young, the Church's former public relations officer; that story appeared in the Seattle Times on August 26. Los Angeles Times writer Robert Welkos was followed by private investigators and received unsolicited hand-delivered ads from funeral homes; you can read a first-person account in his Quill magazine article.

Ron Newman is a computer programmer. He is most famous for his work in the early development of the X Window System, from X6 in 1985 to X11R2 in 1988.

Newman also maintained The Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval (GKNSA), a set of criteria for Usenet client programs to encourage good posting behavior.

Also of note in the 1990s was his web page on Scientology vs. the Internet, which was at one stage the primary resource on the controversy. Newman stopped maintaining the page in October 1996, following which Operation Clambake became the most prominent critical website on Scientology from early 1997.