UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA TAMPA DIVISION Case No. 94-292-CN-T-24A CITY OF CLEARWATER and SIDNEY R. KLEIN, Chief of Police, Clearwater Police Department, Plaintiffs, vs. CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION, INC., Defendant. —– AFFIDAVIT OF PAUL MASER STATE OF FLORIDA COUNTY OF PINELLAS I, Paul Maser, being duly sworn, deposes and says of my own personal knowledge and belief that: 1 . He is employed by the Clearwater Police Department and has been, so employed for 20 ...

The group is unhappy that Clearwater has not resolved a dispute over legal fees in a successful fight against the city. CLEARWATER — Mayor Rita Garvey, City Commissioner Fred Thomas and others are singled out for criticism in the latest edition of Freedom, a tabloid newspaper published periodically by the Church of Scientology. The organization is delivering the 12-page publication this week to about 100,000 residences in Clearwater, Largo, Dunedin and Palm Harbor. The new edition also criticizes the ''St. Petersburg ...

Toronto — Allstate Insurance Co. of Canada appears to have flunked its free personality test last month after word got out that its U.S. parent put managers through training sessions based on doctrines of Scientology, the California-based church with a keen sense of cash flow. Question: Was such training done in Canada too? Allstate's answer: No. Correct answer: Yes. At least a little. Scientology is the brainchild of the late L. Ron Hubbard, a paperback novelist who in 1950 published a ...

Macomb resident contends he was duped while attending vocational school. PONTIAC — Former Scientologist Linda Hostetler isn't the first metro Detroiter to hold a financial and emotional grudge against the Church of Scientology of Michigan. Since the Detroit branch was founded in 1969, at least 14 lawsuits have been filed against the church, according to circuit court records. Of the 14 cases, which sought damages ranging from $10,000-$60,000, six have been filed since the church moved to Royal Oak in the ...

[Picture / Caption: Linda Hostetler, with her husband, Dan, is battling the Church of Scientology.] ROYAL OAK — At first glance, Linda Hostetler appears the vibrant, independent woman who answered a personal ad eight years ago, beckoning her to join the Church of Scientology. But a closer look reveals a puzzled 29-year-old woman, emotionally scarred by years of what she termed "psychological torture," and financially ruined by a much-maligned yet resilient and powerful empire into which she said she not only ...

One thing was undisputed in your March 22 page-one article, "How Allstate Applied Scientology Methods to Train Its Managers," about management seminars delivered to agents at Allstate Insurance Co.: the management technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard works. As one of the sales managers who took the seminar summed it up, Mr. Hubbard's management technology is "very powerful in its simplicity." This sentiment is echoed by hundreds of thousands of business owners, executives, employees and professionals around the world. It seems ...

Two weeks ago, a man was cleared of trying to abduct Kathleen Wilson after he said he was saving her from a cult that had brainwashed her. Kathy doesn't see it that way. At the garage on the road into East Grinstead, the cashier smiles. "Scientologists?" he says. "You'll find them on the way into Turner's Hill. Just follow the road round. "It's a religious sect," he adds, politely. "Ah, yes," I say. "I'm afraid so," he replies. It isn't far. ...

Two years ago, an Allstate agent stood up at Sears's annual meeting to ask what then seemed a bizarre question. "To what extent," he inquired, "are the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology present today in Allstate and in Sears?" Edward Brennan, chairman of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Wayne Hedien, then-chairman of Sears's Allstate Insurance Co. unit, both appeared bewildered. Mr. Brennan said he had no knowledge of any relationship at all. Mr. Hedien said he didn't even ...

THE acquittal of Stephen Cooper is a major setback for the Church of Scientology in its efforts to dispel its image as a sinister and manipulative cult. The decision will go down in the demonology of the cult - or, in its own terminology, on the ever-lengthening list of anti-Scientology 'suppressive acts' - alongside a bench-mark case in the family division of the High Court in 1984. In that hearing Mr Justice Latey presided over a custody dispute between a father ...

A MAN who tried to remove a woman from the Church of Scientology was cleared of attempted kidnap yesterday after arguing that 'brainwashing' by the cult had turned her into a robot without the ability to decide whether she consented or not to leaving. Stephen Cooper's 'victim', 23-year-old former shoe shop worker Miss Kathleen Wilson, told the jury that she was happy to be at the cult's headquarters at Saint Hill Castle in East Grinstead, East Sussex, and did not consent ...

"We believe that all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others." — From "The Creed of the Church of Scientology" IT WAS A GLORIOUS DAY FOR A PICNIC, WARM, CLEAR and bright. Even that old cynic, Sunset Boulevard, looked young and innocent under the sun's radiant benevolence. All around the parking lot of the Church of Scientology's, "Big Blue" headquarters, ...

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, ...

The Church of Scientology last week filed suit in a bitter dispute over Internet postings that raises questions about the responsibility of network managers for policing their end users. The church sued former member Dennis Erlich, a North Hollywood, Calif., bulletin board system (BBS), and Internet provider Netcom On-Line Services, Inc. for copyright violations. The church alleges that Erlich used the bulletin board, which relies on Netcom for Usenet connectivity, to post copyrighted church teachings. The church is seeking monetary damages ...

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 ...

Perturbations, pleasures and predicaments on the information superhighway: The controversial Church of Scientology is not making any new friends on the Internet. In recent weeks, attorneys for the church have threatened legal action against people who they say post church documents in the alt.religion.scientology discussion group. Now the church wants to shut down the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup entirely, claiming its top-secret "scriptures" are being revealed, and its copyrights and trade secrets violated. "We are trying to deal with an anarchy created by ...

It was a strange way to describe an aspect of a theology. But L. Ron Hubbard, the highly successful science-fiction writer who founded the Church of Scientology in the 1950s, had little tolerance for those who challenged his beliefs. And so it was, at one time, that Scientology scripture came to include an unusual litigation clause: "The only way to defend anything is to attack, and if you ever forget that, then you will lose every battle you are ever engaged ...

HAMBURG, Germany — It would take something like an invasion of space aliens — maybe something out of an L. Ron Hubbard science fiction novel — to match the climate of fear and mutual suspicion that prevails between the Church of Scientology that Mr. Hubbard created and its frightened opponents in Germany. "Fear is part of their system — it's a totalitarian organization that seeks to control everybody else, a dictatorship," said Ursula Caberta y Diaz, who heads the four-member working ...

The article that appeared in the Metro Times Sept. 21-27 issue is a perfect example of how the media believe they need "controversy" in order to thrive. A group of people practicing their religion, thriving and learning isn't controvetsial enough, so things get added which are intended to stop any new idea from growing. Scientology is a people's activity, a grass-roots movement, and is taken up and used by individuals who then apply it to their lives. The understanding that ...