When computers are seized because they contain allegedly stolen intellectual property, and police pierce the security anonymous remailers,the days of the Net as a cozy, cocktail party are over. Welcome to a flame war with real bullets. When computers are seized because they contain allegedly stolen intellectual property, or the security of anonymous remailers is pierced by police, alt.scientology.war the days of the Internet as a cozy, private, intellectual cocktail party are over. Welcome to mortal combat between two alien cultures ...

Clients of deprogrammer Rick Ross call him a savior. Perhaps that's why people he's branded cult leaders want to crucify him. Rick Ross is describing how Arizona's cults use mind control to exploit their members. He warns about 70 people gathered at Arizona State University's Memorial Union that they are prime targets for groups that tend to prey on university students. The Moonies have a house on North Central. Scientology has a church in Mesa. There's Scottsdale's CBJ, whose members believe ...

The Founding Church of Scientology dedicated its new center last weekend in the renovated Fraser Mansion at 20th and R streets NW, near Dupont Circle. The mansion, built in 1890 for former representative George S. Fraser, will serve as a spiritual center for local members and as the East Coast center for ministerial training, spokeswoman Sylvia Stanard said. The church, with about 3,000 members in the area, will continue to operate its "celebrity center" on 16th Street NW for counseling purposes, ...

[Shorter version of Are searches in civil cases also violating rights? | Los Angeles Times (California) | 23 October 1995.] IT'S AN issue of copyright against constitutional rights. Some copyright holders, particularly software makers, are using a special court order to send their employees legally into one's home. At 6:30 a.m. on July 26, off-duty U.S. marshals and officials from software maker Novell Inc. rang the doorbell at Joseph and Miki Casalino's home outside Salt Lake City. They were there, ...

At 6:30 on the morning of July 26, a contingent of off-duty U.S. marshals and officials from software maker Novell Inc. rang the doorbell at Joseph and Miki Casalino's home outside Salt Lake City. Thinking her husband had forgotten something when he left for work, Miki padded to the door in her robe and was shocked to find a marshal flashing his badge. They were there, they told her, to search and seize any and all computer bulletin board (bbs) equipment ...

CLEARWATER — A Mexican woman has alleged that the Church of Scientology's security chief chased her and threatened to kill her for leaving the church. The case has been referred to the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office; no charge has been filed. A statement from a Scientology spokesman said the security guard has been suspended during a church investigation. The police investigation began Sept. 28 after Naxilly Sofia Perez-Morales, 22, called 911 about 7 p.m. from the Post Office on Cleveland Street. ...

U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola dismissed the lawsuit Tuesday. The action came after Polozola adopted a report on the matter by U.S. Magistrate Stephen Riedlinger. [...]

The growing popularity of the Internet has spawned discussion groups that offer something for just about everyone, from lovers of Jean-Luc Picard (try alt.sexy.bald.captains) to haters of a certain children's television program (alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die) to obsessives consumed by politics, computer lore, comic books or the hidden messages embedded in a single rock song (alt.meter-maid.lovely.rita). Few newsgroups, though, have drawn the kind of following now evident on alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.), an international debating circle concerning the Church of Scientology. Always controversial, in recent months ...

IN THE ONLINE BRAWL OVER SCIENTOLOGY, INTERNET USERS DISCOVER THAT VIRTUAL REALITY BITES BACK.SHOWDOWN IN CYBERSPACE THE BATTLE OVER SCIENTOLOGY'S SECRETS IGNITES A HOLY WAR ON THE INTERNET. Lawrence Wollersheim's hands shake as he reads his notes, ticking off the damage done to his computers. Surrounding the 46-year-old Boulder resident is a cluster of reporters and, beyond that, a ring of glowering, dark-suited men (and one woman wearing a clerical collar), all packed into a hallway of the federal courthouse in ...

A 23-year-old Seattle-area man was awarded nearly $5 million yesterday for civil-rights violations that occurred when religious "deprogrammers" took him from his home and tried to persuade him to leave the United Pentecostal Church. Federal-court jurors delivered their verdict yesterday after deliberating eight hours, ending a trial that began when Jason Scott sued deprogrammer Rick Ross, Ross' associates and Cult Awareness Network (CAN), a Chicago-based group that monitors cults. Scott's mother, Kathy Tonkin, contacted CAN in 1991 when she became worried ...

Section: News, Page: A1 A federal jury yesterday awarded nearly $5 million to a young Bellevue man who had been kidnapped at his mother's behest to get him to leave his church. The verdict was seen as a stunning blow to cult critics and ``deprogrammers" who seek to go up against unconventional but often well-funded religious groups. Jason Scott, now 23, smiled broadly after the six-member U.S. District Court jury gave him a near-total victory in his civil rights lawsuit against ...

[A classic: Heber Jentzsch going nuts to prevent Dennis Erlich from disclosing information about Scientology's secret levels]

AN Adelaide journalist was yesterday cleared of theft charges in a London court case billed as the battle of the hidden cameras. The Church of Scientology in London used hidden cameras to try to entrap Alison Braund while she was using a hidden camera in the church while working undercover, the City of London Magistrates' Court heard. Ms Braund was preparing an investigative report for a British television company. Chairman of the bench, Hinda Style, said there had been an abuse ...

In a lawsuit to stop deprogrammers from trampling on religious sect members' rights, a Bellevue man yesterday told a federal jury that four men "ambushed" him to get him to quit his fundamentalist church. Jason Scott is suing the Cult Awareness Network and the four deprogrammers hired by Scott's mother for unspecified damages. The mother was trying to get Scott — then 18 — to leave the New Life Tabernacle Church, a member of the United Pentecostal Churches. The attempt failed, ...

Arnaldo Lerma, the Arlington man who took on the Church of Scientology by putting its texts on the Internet, won a partial victory yesterday when a federal judge in Alexandria ordered that the church return 58 computer disks that it seized from him. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema also verbally slapped Scientology lawyers, saying their handling of Lerma's files went far beyond what she had authorized as part of a suit alleging copyright and trade secrecy violations. "This case is ...

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) – A former member and critic of the Church of Scientology should be getting his research on Scientology back from the church. A federal judge Tuesday ordered the church to return the files that another judge had ordered seized. Larry Wollersheim operates a computer bulletin board that distributes information critical of the Church of Scientology. The church claimed Wollersheim violated copyright and trademark laws and demanded the board's materials. But the new ruling says "the public interest is ...

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WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., yesterday permitted The Washington Post to retain a copy of Church of Scientology texts and to use the texts in its news reporting, saying the paper's news-gathering rights far outweigh claims that the documents are protected by copyright and trade secrecy laws. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema refused to issue a preliminary injunction against The Post, saying its excerpts of the church's texts in an Aug. 19 Style section article were brief and ...

With white-collar crimes on the rise nationwide, more and more businesses are looking into ways of preventing internal theft and fraud before it costs them or their clients billions of dollars. The Glendale-based financial firm of Wiseman and Burke, Inc. is an example of a business that takes the threat of white-collar crime very seriously. "White-collar crime costs more than street crime does," said Robert LaRose, vice president of the Business Fraud Division. Last year the company, at 206 S. Brand ...