Many Internet legal analysts are disappointed by an out-of-court settlement between Netcom and the Church of Scientology because now they'll have to wait for another case to come to light before a court sets a firm precedent on Internet access providers' liability for online copyright infringement. Netcom and the church announced an out-of-court settlement Sunday in a copyright infringement dispute dating from December that many expected to set a precedent for Internet service providers' liability. The case involved church allegations that ...

As part of a settlement with Religious Technology Center, Netcom has posted a protocol in which the company states it will block access to material pending an investigation into claims of copyright infringement. Netcom's protocol states that upon receiving a complaint Netcom "will temporarily remove or deny access to the challenged material, to protect the rights of all involved." "If Netcom concludes that complainant has raised a legitimate claim, it will continue to deny access to the challenged material," the protocol ...

Ron Newman, a corporate Web page designer in Cambridge, Massachussetts, turns on his computer one day last month and signs on to the Net to check in on his favourite newsgroup, alt.religion.scientology, a.r.s. for short. But as his computer modem erupts into the now all-too-familiar squeal that marks the arrival online, Newman begins to sense that something's not quite right. Ordinarily, it takes only a few seconds to retrieve the day's new postings on this electronic bulletin board. Today there are ...

As the mother of an ex-Scientologist, I believe if Henry Bartnik (S-H 19/5) researched official records he would find the autobiographical accounts of Scientology founder Ron Hubbard to be grossly inaccurate. The problem with Hubbard's achievements in education and science is his lack of scientific process. His work is not subject to ongoing public discourse, criticism and reproduction with controlled studies. His most damning legacy is a policy which effectively suppresses critical analyses internally, and attacks external critics with vengeance. Hubbard, ...

Since its founding in 1954, the Church of Scientology has sparked some fear, mistrust and controversy. This doesn't surprise the Rev. Lee Holzinger, 38, minister of the Santa Barbara Church of Scientology. "We are different from other churches in many ways," he said. "How could anything come along that is so fundamentally important to life and society and not rouse controversy?" The church was involved in a 40-year battle with the Internal Revenue Service that ended Oct 1, 1993 when the ...

I am a musician, mainly a bassist, in the local area. My lovely mug has graced the pages of your paper on occasion, featured, you may recall, with my band of a few years back called Brouhaha or, more recently, with Earthwurm. I am also an ordained priest of the Order of Vedantan Monists. If you consult rudimentary reference materials, you will find that Vedanta has been the voice of religious freedom for about the last seven to ten thousand years. ...

Free speech has come under renewed threat because of a little-noticed decision by the Australian Broadcasting Authority. In an ominous echo of moves to restrict free speech via racial hate laws, the ABA has ruled that radio station 3RRR breached acceptable standards on religious vilification. The unprecedented case centred on criticisms of the Church of Scientology by ex-Scientologist Cyril Vosper on 3RRR's The Liars' Club program last year. Among other criticisms, Vosper likened Scientology to an extremist political regime and ...

Earle Cooley, the chairman of Boston University's board of trustees, wants you to know that he believes in freedom of expression. Never mind that the gruff, avuncular 64-year-old, one of Boston's top trial attorneys, has played a leading role in the Church of Scientology's efforts to use copyright law to keep secret church documents off the Internet. Although the church has won some significant courtroom victories, critics, legal observers, and even judges criticize the zeal with which it has pursued its ...

It is simply untrue to state that I did not bother to contact a Church of Scientology representative. I conducted a one-and-a-half-hour interview with Earle Cooley, a leading lawyer for the church — and, based on his past statements, a member. He described for me in great detail his work for the church and his view of a number of church policies and doctrines. What is he if not a church representative? Cooley and his relationship to Boston University was the ...

In "BU's Scientology Connection" (News, April 19), Dan Kennedy tried to make an issue out of Scientology by questioning whether Mr. Earle Cooley, an attorney who has represented the Church of Scientology and is also a Boston University trustee, is a Scientologist. Next, Kennedy will be inquiring whether the president of IBM is a Catholic or demanding how many New York judges are Muslims. Kennedy tries to hang his anti-Scientology diatribe on Mr. Cooley's representation of the church, but he cannot ...

The Church of Scientology has waged a war in cyberspace to keep its secret documents from being seen, and it is on the Internet that some of its best insights can be found. * alt.religion.scientology is the most active cyberstation. Church critics and supporters post several hundred messages a day, and anonymous critics such as the notorious "Scamizdat" upload copyrighted Scientology documents they have obtained. Church critics charge that Scientologists have illegally forged "cancel" messages to erase these postings. Church lawyer ...

To Scientologists, Steven Fishman is an apostate who's spread vicious lies about the church to which he used to belong. To church critics, he's a hero who's exposed the truth about Scientology. Evaluating Fishman's credibility is difficult, to say the least. He's an ex-convict who served a prison term for financial crimes that he claims he was ordered to commit. Church officials deny there was any such order, and they deny just about everything else Fishman has said about his old ...

It was last August 12, a Saturday morning, and Earle Cooley did not seem happy. Cooley was among several lawyers for the Church of Scientology who, accompanied by federal agents, had just raided the Arlington, Virginia, home of Arnaldo Lerma, a former church member who'd become a harsh critic. The lawyers took quite a haul: Lerma's computer, disks, a scanner, and other materials they thought he may have used to post secret, copyrighted Scientology documents on the Internet. The success of ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Saying that the Church of Scientology has been playing "fast and loose with the judicial system," a federal appeals court has ordered the religious organization to pay nearly $3 million in attorneys fees to a former member it sued after he formed his own splinter group. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the unusual sanction against the church for years of litigation spawned by two 1985 suits it filed against David Mayo and others involved with ...

Cancelbunny and Lazarus battle it out on the fontier of cyberspace–and suggest the limits of social contracts. "Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man....It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of warre as this; and I believe it was never generally ...

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YOU ARE PERHAPS SICK OF HEARING that Kate Ceberano, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, John Travolta and various other luminaries owe their glittering fame and wealth to Scientology. You may also have noticed that Scientology is taking ads on buses. The days of the kids with clipboards eyeballing you on the street to ask if you would like to do a personality test are fading. Scientology is moving to big business and the Internet. The Church of Scientology tends to live by ...

Scientology is the religion everyone loves to hate. So how come so many movie stars are devout followers? Moves into the church's Celebrity Centre for an exclusive look at the starway to heaven. AT FRANKLIN AND BRONSON A LOGJAM OF LIMousines crawls toward the mock-French Normandy Chateau. At the grand doorway, celebrities, lawyers, producers, and the children of the well-heeled of the entertainment industry step onto the crimson-carpeted tarmac, chattering through the pink-and-gold lounge to the lawns and fairy-lit trees beyond, ...

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 ...