The death of 36 year old Lisa McPherson while in the "care" of fellow Scientologists at the Clearwater headquarters has led to an ongoing investigation by Clearwater police and has been the focus of numerous stories in the Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, New York Times, local media, NBC Nightly News, and episodes on Inside Edition. Lisa's tragic story began when she joined Scientology upon high school graduation. But two weeks before Thanksgiving, 1995, Lisa "told friends that she was ready ...

A visitor to the Internet World trade show in Los Angeles last month would have come away with the impression that Luckman Interactive was an industry powerhouse. The 3-year-old firm, which makes software and Internet directories, hung a giant banner on the side of the Los Angeles Convention Center—the only company to spring for the expense. Its booth was among the biggest at the show, rivaling those of Netscape, Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems. The company has raised more than $20 ...

WASHINGTON — The State Department's annual survey of human rights conditions around the world will contain expanded, toughened language criticizing Germany for restrictions on the Church of Scientology and its members, administration officials say. The report, to be issued Wednesday, will chastise Germany for what a senior administration official called "a campaign of harassment and intimidation" against the controversial church. He said the United States, seeking to protect religious freedom, has urged Germany through diplomatic channels "not to prosecute people for ...

Movies: The success of the film, targeted by conservatives because it stars Scientologist Tom Cruise, eases studio fears about releasing other films featuring members of the movement. Despite the much-publicized boycott in Germany of "Mission: Impossible" because its star, Tom Cruise, is a Scientologist, the film grossed about $24 million, considered a huge success for the important German market by Hollywood studios, and ranked eighth in Germany for 1996. The results could help assuage the Hollywood studios that are preparing for ...

Europe: Open letter to Kohl draws analogy to treatment of Jews before World War II. Politicians respond angrily. BERLIN — A running battle between German government officials and the Church of Scientology escalated this week, with 34 prominent Americans from the entertainment industry denouncing Germany for allegedly treating Scientologists as it treated the Jews in 1936, and the German foreign minister accusing the celebrities of "falsifying history." "It's out of the question that there's persecution of Scientology in Germany," Foreign Minister ...

The article regarding the renaming of Berendo Street to L. Ron Hubbard Way (Aug. 23) omits the reason that Hubbard should be honored and the reason the church initiated the petition over a year ago. The man is being honored for the work that he did as an educator, his breakthroughs in the field of drug rehabilitation and his other contributions to mankind. The Los Angeles Church of Scientology is making this request after celebrating our 40th anniversary and completing ...

What's in a name, anyway? To some neighbors, Berendo Street in Hollywood is about as good an address as any. But to leaders of the Church of Scientology that is located there, "L. Ron Hubbard Way" is much better. In honor of their charismatic founder–a man adherents call "one of the greatest visionaries of the 20th century" and critics call a fraud–the church has quietly sought a name change from the city of Los Angeles. Just this week the church won ...

[...] Mission: Stop Scientology: Germans youths picketed cinemas throughout their country on Thursday to protest Tom Cruise's movie "Mission: Impossible" because the American actor is a member of the Scientology religion. The protests–organized by the normally placid youth wing of Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic Union–are a token of the growing political pressure against Scientology in Germany, where recruiting has been active. The pickets came after Paul Stefan Mauz, a Christian Democrat member of parliament, claimed that Cruise was a "high-ranking" Scientologist ...

Courts: Online firm agrees to set up protocol for handling copyright disagreements. SAN JOSE — Netcom On-Line Communications Services Inc. has settled a copyright lawsuit by the Church of Scientology that threatened to set new boundaries for speech on the free-wheeling Internet. The Scientologists sued Netcom after the Internet access provider refused to remove church writings posted to its computer network by a former Scientologist minister. In a closely watched decision six months ago, a federal judge in California ruled that ...

Lawsuits: Group with controversial ties to deprogrammers files for bankruptcy and may be forced to shut down in wake of $1-million judgment. Plagued by numerous lawsuits from religious groups and fighting a $1.1-million judgment against it, the Cult Awareness Network has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. "How we will operate or if we will continue to operate in the short term, I don't know," said Cynthia Kisser, executive director of the 12-year-old organization, known for ...

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 ...

TOKYO — Four California activists are investigating charges of religious persecution against Aum Supreme Truth, the sect suspected in a poison gas attack against subway riders here in March. In an interview Friday, Los Angeles lawyer Barry Fisher said he and the others decided to visit after hearing that authorities had conducted mass arrests of Supreme Truth members, that sect children had been removed from their families and that officials were making allegations of mind control against the group. These actions, ...

Thousands of workers participated in seminars that taught them to disregard ethics in the quest for productivity Allstate Corp. acknowledged Wednesday that it hired a consultant who taught "unacceptable" Church of Scientology management principles to the insurance company's agents and supervisors between 1988 and 1992. The company denied allegations some workers were hounded, intimidated and wrongfully fired as a result of the training program. Scientology is a religious-scientific movement founded in the 1950s by the late author L. Ron Hubbard that ...

SAN JOSE - A Glendale critic of the Church of Scientology lost a round in federal court Tuesday as a judge declined to lift an order barring him from transmitting copyrighted religious texts onto the Internet. The order remains in effect against Dennis L. Erlich, a former church member. But U. S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte rejected arguments by church lawyers and lifted restraining orders against a North Hollywood computer bulletin board operator and a San Jose-based Internet access supplier, ...

Something happened recently on the Internet that no doubt sent chills down an awful lot of spines. A government used its power to breach anon.penet.fi. Before you write this off as another of the arcane tempests that generate so much ire among the get-a-life set, take heed. This one goes to the heart of what the electronic frontier is like, how it is changing and what the future holds for this new medium. Anon.penet.fi is basically a computer in Helsinki, Finland, ...

Glendale: Church representatives with court order remove files allegedly containing copyrighted texts from home of outspoken critic. BYLINE: ALAN ABRAHAMSON and NICHOLAS RICCARDI TIMES STAFF WRITERS GLENDALE – Led by a lawyer brandishing a federal court order and backed up by a pair of off-duty police officers, a handful of Church of Scientology representatives searched a Glendale house Monday and seized hundreds of computer disks and files allegedly containing copyrighted religious texts. In the latest twist to a fractious dispute that ...

Courts: Staff members oust founder of Holocaust denial center. They are now entangled in lawsuits and poisonous prose. COSTA MESA — On the sunny autumn morning of the coup d'etat, Willis Carto could be found clinging to the glass doors of his cherished institute like a tough sea barnacle. Swiftly, the mutineers moved to oust Carto, 67, a stubborn and wiry man who had founded and shaped the obscure Institute for Historical Review into a revisionist think tank that critics call ...