Scientology Censorship

Background

A History of Compliance

As anyone who has visited my website knows, I make extensive use of quotations to present the information on my web pages. I do this to be as accurate as possible in conveying the author's original intent since paraphrasing can lead to misinterpretation. I also have been scrupulous to avoid infringing on the copyrights of the material I quote. Consequently not once has anyone forbidden me to quote from his or her works since I began my website from 1994 until the year 2000. In fact, authors have written me to express their delight in seeing their words on the web and several have contributed articles and stories that appear exclusively on this website. (I have also requested and been granted permission to display several images of original art on my web pages.)

Legal Threats by Scientology

What happened in the year 2000 to change this state of affairs? In the section of my website dealing with the study of Gnosticism, I have several pages that discuss Scientology and include passages from Scientology works. (See "A Hierarchy of Demons"). On March 16, 2000, my Internet Service Provider was contacted by the Religious Technology Center (RTC), which is the legal arm of the Church of Scientology (CoS). Ms. Helena K. Kobrin of the RTC warned that I was in violation of Canadian copyright law. Unless I removed unspecified passages of RTC-copyrighted works from my website, my ISP would face a significant financial penalty amounting to tens of thousands of dollars.

When I contacted other webmasters with the same passages on their websites, however, I was advised that I am within my legal rights to quote Scientology works according to the fair dealing provision of the Canadian copyright law. On that basis, I made my decision and the passages stayed.

15 months later the RTC contacted me again forbidding me to post any images of the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Then, in September 2, 2001, Bereskin & Parr, Toronto's largest intellectual property specialist firm which was retained by the RTC, reiterated the original legal threats in a registered letter to me. The letter also finally identified the exact passages that the RTC objected to. They were from a work known as OT III (Operating Thetan, Level 3).

A Fortune to be Made

The ostensible purpose of enforcing the copyright restrictions is to enable the CoS to continue earning substantial profits from the information contained in confidential documents known as Advanced Technology works. After completing the lower levels of Scientology processing, Scientologists can purchase a package of services to take them to the OT III level for $16,940. (This is the discounted amount charged to Scientologists with a lifetime membership according to 2002 donation rates. The "bridge" extends to OT IX and beyond, to future levels that have not yet been released.) The Advanced Technology works are treated with such secrecy that each Scientologist doing the upper levels carries the documents in a briefcase locked to his or her wrist. With so much money at stake, one can understand why the top brass of the CoS would go to such extraordinary lengths to prevent the information in these documents from leaking out to the general public. The question is has the RTC gone too far in its campaign to suppress sources of this information on the internet? Are they acting responsibly within the law or are they contravening the basic rights of individuals by preventing a free exchange of information regarding Scientology?

It may be instructive to know that L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, wrote in Ability, the Magazine of Dianetics and Scientology, Issue 1 (1955):

"The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than win.
"The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly."

In Defense of Free Speech

Legal Implications

From September 2001 to January 2002, Mr. Timothy J. Sinnott from Bereskin & Parr and I exchanged e-mails in an attempt to resolve the issue. According to Mr. Sinnot, however, Canadian copyright law does not afford me the same protection that I would have in the United States or elsewhere in the world.

I can only surmise that the RTC is deliberately targeting Canadian websites because of the perceived weakness in Canadian copyright law. (In September 2001, there was one other Canadian website I know of, "Interactive Bible", which displayed passages from the OT III documents cited above. As of January 2002, this website removed these passages, presumably after also receiving legal threats from the RTC.)

Mr. Sinnott specifically objected to passages on my website from OT III works which the RTC considers "unpublished and confidential". I countered that the president of the RTC had specified under oath which portion of the OT III material contains confidential and unpublished information and which portion does not. His admission that the story of Xenu/Xemu was public knowledge and the fact that L. Ron Hubbard tried to sell a screenplay of the story to Hollywood thus justifies me retaining the passage on my website.

The RTC disagreed. Without the advice of a copyright lawyer, I had no choice but to accede to their demands that no passages from OT III works whatsoever appear on my website. After several exchanges of e-mails, the scope of forbidden material grew to include not only passages from other Advanced Technology works (one from an OT8 work which I located and removed voluntarily) but also images on my web pages which were "automatically linked" from other websites.

Merely a Game?

On December 10, 2001, Mr. Sinnott charged:

You have cost our client and your former service provider nothing but needless and wasted time, resources and money in playing this game.

My response, December 12, 2001:

You may call this a game but we are dealing with an important issue here, the freedom of speech. As you may know, I served in combat during the Vietnam War. I hate to think that freedom can be stolen at home when so many have died and are still dying overseas to protect it. I need to know whether the RTC is acting justly or whether it is attempting to use the threat of litigation to silence me.

Based on seven years of experience on the internet, I have reasonable grounds for doubting the motives of the RTC.

1) I have placed objective scholarship and source material related to the core beliefs of Christianity on my website. As a consequence I was invited to become an associate member of the Jesus Seminar. (I accepted.)
2) I have placed objective scholarship and source material related to the secret rites of the Freemasons on my website. As a consequence I have received favorable comments from several Grandmasters and was invited to join the Freemasons. (I declined.)
3) I have placed objective scholarship and source material related to the secret documents of the Priory of Sion on my website. As a consequence I was invited to join a forum for experts on the subject. (I declined.)
4) I am currently reading a book that presents objective scholarship and source material related to the core beliefs of Islam (a dangerous and forbidden pursuit in many places).

Scientology is not the only organization in history whose leaders are sensitive about releasing material that they would prefer to remain secret. (The Egyptian and Greek mysteries, Jewish Merkabah mysticism, the Knights Templar and the Ordo Templi Orientis come to mind.) Of all the religions, sects, and secret societies I have studied, however, only the CoS uses the threat of lawsuits to prevent scholars from examining source material related of its core beliefs.

"Historians in free countries have a moral and professional obligation not to shirk the difficult issues and subjects that some people would place under some sort of taboo; not to submit to voluntary censorship, but to deal with these matters fairly, honestly, without apologetics, without polemic, and, of course, competently. Those who enjoy freedom have a moral obligation to use that freedom for those who do not possess it."
     - Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford), 1993

I am considering mounting a legal challenge once I receive a proper legal opinion on how to proceed. In the meantime, however, quotes from Advanced Technology works have been removed as well as full-size photos to which the RTC owns the copyright, including those that had been automatically linked from other websites.

A Note of Irony

Before Ms. Kobrin contacted my ISP and myself in March 2000, I was in the process of making the "Illuminations" portion of my website accessible only to subscribers of the Mystae. This included the web pages dealing with L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology that would have disappeared entirely from public view. When my ISP and I were threatened with legal action, however, other webmasters from several different countries urged me to keep these web pages public in the name of free speech. It was during this time that most of the links to sites opposed to Scientology were added to my website. Also it was during this time that my Scientology web pages started receiving a large increase in the number of visitors.

The Scientologist's Net Nanny

Scientologists would have a hard time finding this restricted knowledge on the internet, however, even if they made a concerted attempt. They are unknowingly blocked from websites with this material by an internet filter program (dubbed ScenioSitter by its critics) provided on a CD by the CoS. The program is hidden in a package of Internet access software, which includes Netscape and a web page design tool intended for Scientologists to flood internet search engines with pre-designed pro-Scientology pages. The list of banned words in ScenioSitter has been cracked and my name is on it.

CoS Censorware

Related Sites

Church of Scientology International v. Fishman and Geertz Articles and links about the on-going fight against Scientology censorship (US) Church of Scientology International Pickets Numerous incidents of intimidation to July 1999 Scientology v. the Internet Revealing 1995 article by the Skeptics Society What Judges Say About Scientology Arnie Lerma's extensive and up-to-date articles and news reports