F I D O N E W S -- Vol.12 No.43 (23-Oct-1995)

F I D O N E W S -- Vol.12 No.43 (23-Oct-1995)
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| A newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: |
| FidoNet BBS community | "FidoNews" BBS |
| _ | +1-519-570-4176 |
| / \ | |
| /|oo \ | |
| (_| /_) | |
| _`@/_ \ _ | |
| | | \ \\ | Editors: |
| | (*) | \ )) | Donald Tees 1:221/192 |
| |__U__| / \// | Sylvia 1:221/194 |
| _//|| _\ / | |
| (_/(_|(____/ | |
| (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. |
| | -- JOSEPH PULITZER |
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Submission address: editors 1:1/23 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MORE addresses: |
| |
| submissions=> [email protected] |
| Don -- [email protected] |
| Sylvia [email protected] |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| For information, copyrights, article submissions, |
| obtaining copies of fidonews or the internet gateway faq |
| please refer to the end of this file. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
========================================================================
Table of Contents
========================================================================

1. Editorial..................................................... 1
2. Articles...................................................... 2
To Freedom!................................................. 3
Ribald Orgy On Harbour Ferry................................ 4
Gentlemen................................................... 6
Furthuring the Win95 saga,.................................. 10
Scientology "church" at war with the world.................. 11
First of all ............................................... 17
Response to Mr Robert Hoerner............................... 17
3. Fidonews Information.......................................... 18
========================================================================
Editorial
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FidoNews 12-43 Page: 2 23 Oct 1995

The Geographical Problem Revisited

In last week's editorial, I ranted at some length about the
restrictions of policy four's geographical section. While I
still feel that it is more of a problem than a solution, the
week's reading of echos has made me reconsider the other side of
the coin. While the following hypothetical examples are
extreme, they are meant to be. The issue *is* polarized; the
examples are meant to demonstrate the extremes that have
resulted in that polarization.

Case one: A net in a metropolitan area is run by a small
clique that is rude and obnoxious. The mail feeds may be
unreliable, or perhaps the powers that be jus take a dislike to
certain individuals. For whatever reason, a sysop within the net
is extremely unhappy, and decides that they would rather pay the
LD charges to a neighbouring city, and join that net instead.
The *C structure of the local net files a policy complaint,
attempting to force the sysop to stay within the local net.

Case two: A net in a metroploitan area is run by a small
clique that is rude and obnoxious, but also ambitious. They see
Fidonet as their claim to fame, and a big net as Prestigious. Or
perhaps as a way to justify their T1 line or satelite feed.
Together with a few like minded individuals in other cities,
they attempt to build an empire spanning a huge area. They
actively solicite new sysops in neighbouring nets, and prey on
newcomers that want to join Fidonet. Unfortunately, their
ambition outweighs both their technical ability and their
management ability. Fidonet starts losing members in that
entire area because grunt sysops, particularly new ones, have no
idea that turf wars are underway, and see only a screwed up
network with unreliable feeds, lost mail, and obnoxious people
running it. The *C structure of another net in the same area
files a policy complaint based on the geographical rule, in an
attempt to stop the abuse.

In the latter case, the geographical rule is the solution;
in the former, it is the problem.

Instead of argueing about the geographical rule, perhaps we
should be attempting to find a solution to both sorts of
problems. As editor of this newsletter, I can assure you that I
have seen instances that fit both examples in some fashion
or another.
========================================================================
Articles
========================================================================
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 3 23 Oct 1995

To Freedom!

To Freedom!
By Jimmy Hankins, sysop of the silent scream bbs at 1:147/27
[email protected]

I thought I'd babble in here about something near and dear to my heart.
I'll try not to make it sound like the "obvious and only final solution
to all Fidonet's problems" (grin). As the editor pointed out in a
recent Fnews, one of the main solutions to Fidonet costs seems to have
become it's biggest problem. IMHO, ownership and control of local
net/region/zones has created a power structure that while supposed to be
benign and somewhat interested in "democracy", has created a power
structure that more and more often interferes with node level actions
for the benefit of the *C structure.

A case in point is the recent decision by Bob Satti, the Z1C, that use
of ACR is excessively annoying. After much discussion in a regional
conference, it became obvious (IMHO) that the decision was based on
making it possible for the Z1C and the entire *C structure to use CID
blocking without interference. I don't use ACR. I'm not even aware of
whether it's available in my calling area yet. But I debated against
this decision based on the fact (IMHO) that it went against policy.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not about to quit Fidonet, or go on an
anti-Z1C and *C structure tirade. I think Bob is the best ZC in
Fidonet, and I still like and respect my own local NC who sides with him
on this (grin). But it's becoming clear (IMHO), that even with the best
of intentions, the benign dictatorship is becoming more and more of a
burden to the node.

So is the standard "throw the old bums out and get new bums" rhetoric
going to fly any farther this time than it ever has? No. My feeling is
that this is mainly because there is no serious competition to Fidonet.
The smaller hobby nets don't have the node membership, and the internet
doesn't seem to be slowing the growth of Fidonet down at all. Fidonet
has it's own appeal. For me, it's the echomail conferences and their
offline ease of use. I can't stand Usenet's message structure. And as
far as it "becoming more popular as people grow use to it", uh yeah,
just like WWIV, I'm sure. (grin)

So, how to compete with Fidonet? It occurs to me that there is already
a distribution network in place that grows exponentially every day.
Hundreds, if not thousands of Fidonet nodes already have access to a
means of distributing mail packets internationally at the cost of a
local phone call.

How about; FIDONET2. A democratic network based on a *C structure
elected from the node level up. And distributed through the Internet by
email-attach. Think about it. It's not really a new idea. Fidonet was
started by a bunch of sysops combining 2 technologies to create a hobby
network: computers and telephones. This would just stretch the concept
a baby step up to include the most widely available distribution
backbone in the world. One that more and more of us are hooked up to
every day. INDEPENDENT OF ANY INPUT, CONTROL OR INTERFERENCE BY THE
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 4 23 Oct 1995

PRESENT *C STRUCTURE. The potential for anarchy is with us again. At
the node level. We will NEVER bring democracy to Fidonet by trying to
bring down the powers that be. But there is a tried and true method
that has recently become available to the common node. Immigration to
the new (electronic) world. And before anybody starts yelling "cost!",
Internet access is hovering at $1-$2 an hour, and still falling. How
long would it take for an automatic logon to your local provider to grab
email and logoff? We have the technology. Let's build the bionic node.
And don't yell at me. I'm just an idea man. Besides, after all this
"CRP" stuff, I think it would be fun to watch "power-mongering" *C's
turn into competing and "best service" oriented internet providers.

Please attach an "IMHO" to any assumption I make in the above where I
might have missed it, and you feel it's necessary. To freedom! (grin)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ribald Orgy On Harbour Ferry

Dear Editorbeings,

This article, provided with a catchy title, is submitted by
Charles Herriot of 1:163/110 who lured Doc Logger to the
keyboard with the usual slugbait. Logger was deliriously
raving about squirrel irruptions but was successfully
sedated by a litre of Wild Turkey and a fistful of reds.
Roll da flic Sylvia....

Dear Reverend Visage,

I am somewhat overcome by the irony of several events which
have taken place recently in the Excited States. The first
was O.J.'s acquittal, and the second was Farrikan's
outlandish statements about Jews. It would seem that both
issues will have a tendency to polarize opinion along racial
lines and cause a retrograde movement away from tolerance.

I am also concerned that the crucifixion of Mark Furhman
masked a real issue. There is no doubt that Furhman's
language was loaded with the catchwords of racism and
intolerance. But the question that nags at me is this: Was
he speaking a sort of truth with respect to the levels of
barbarism *he* encountered when dealing with a specific
race? This is a touchy subject and I am trying to approach
it with a great deal of delicacy, but just what are the
crime statistics in Los Angeles? Is there a correlation
between race and criminal charges? Here in the frozen tundra
we are far too politically correct to even keep such
statistics. I am trying to frame this in the perspective
that a law enforcement officer must face on a daily basis.
Undoubtedly, there is an animus which must develop between
the police and various races who feel that they are more
likely to be stopped and questioned than the persons of
lesser colour. But are they being victimized by the police
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 5 23 Oct 1995

or is the real problem the activities of their brethren
which creates the profile? I must have missed the CNN
coverage of whites running amok and rioting after the OJ
verdict was announced.

My problem with this issue isn't one of whether even asking
the questions is racist; but rather with the common
misconception that irresponsibility is acceptable in our
society. Criminals are no longer criminal, it seems, when
they can assert that they were only charged by virtue of
their economic status, their education or their race.
Criminals, in a strange perversion of meaning, become
victims... claiming absolution because "society" has made
them downtrodden.

As to Farrikan, I would dearly love to know who constitutes
his constituency. Surely his views would be embraced by
every poor white trash whose cross-burning adventures were
diminished by the American Civil Liberties Union. Does
Farrikan think the ACLU was founded by Baptists? Does he
think it was Catholic missionaries who went into the south
and employed the power of the law to franchise black voters?

On local matters, Region 12 continues to bubble with the
stew of infantile behaviour. A new legion of geographic
imperialists have set out on a crusade to demand that
*their* nodes confirm to the rules of strict topographical
nicety. I haven't quite sorted out which faction is claiming
the rights of conquest and to be truthful, my eyes have
started to glaze over whenever I read endless arguments
about the scriptural purity of Peefour. What amazes me the
most is that none of the combatants ever seem to notice that
they are battling over *ownership* of something they cannot
own... which is the right of an individual sysop to make
choices. The same collection of mouth-breathing
knuckle-draggers continually bollox up the flow of mail in
their vainglorious attempts to exert control. Most of these
morons don't read or write messages other than their
grapeshot expended over PeeFour inanities. As a good and
decent gesture, Visage, these people should all be sent to
The Dallas Hinton Home for Cloacally Impaired Sysops.

This is turning into a rather longish epistle and I do hope
I am not keeping you from your Glenlivet, but there is one
last issue which has confounded me. I see, each day, and in
numerous appearances, the words: "No Fear." I understand
that it is the marketing slogan for a company that sells
thirty five cents worth of rubber and plastic to gullible
folks who pay hundreds for silly footwear, but it has also
taken on a larger meaning as a kind of anthem for a
generation. I'm a little long in the tooth and can't tell
exactly which generation it is... perhaps the GenXers.

I can predict the appearance of the "No Fear" slogan with
uncanny success. Whenever I hear the heavy thumping of a car
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 6 23 Oct 1995

stereo that sounds like an elephant's heart on Amyls, I know
that soon I will be confronted by a small car driven by a
young male wearing a backwards baseball cap... and the car
will be emblazoned with "No Fear."

What the hell do they mean: "No Fear." Gawd, I come from a
generation who practiced hiding under the school desks in
case Kennedy and Kruschev's games of bluff poker got out of
hand and they unleashed a few megatons of nuclear bombs at
each other. Fear? Hell, when that nuclear air raid siren
went off and we were cowering under our desks I promised to
marry Ruthie MacGregor... and if you'd ever met Ruthie,
you'd know just how hysterically terrified you'd have to be
to make *that* kinda promise. So what kind of fear don't
they have that causes them to loudly proclaim their
deficiency? I mean, are they crazy? They don't and won't
have jobs, they need to wear a suit of rubber just to have
sex, their whole generation was feel-gooded through a
placebo for an education, and the social safety nets have
gotten mean spirited and ugly. Their mommas are going to be
doing their laundry til hell freezes over or until they
finally get turfed out of the house.

Is "No Fear" really an ironic way of stating exactly the
opposite? I need to know this Visage, because if they really
and truly have no fear, then it can only mean one thing: It
means that the street pharmaceuticals have gotten a helluva
lot better since the 60s and we need to look into this, for
purely scientific purposes of course.

I could write all night Visage, but your secretary has
become unreasonable again. She claims that your absence has
caused severe stress in her working environment and this has
really nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I have
thoughtfully saved on carpet cleaning expenses by using a
few well-placed charges of napalm. As the civilized and
humane people that we are, we ought to lock her in a vault
with three thousand BARDROOM echo messages ... messages that
make Spam comparatively appetizing.

Regards,
Doc Logger,
Furlang Giant Clam Symphonic Orchestra,
Furlang Island,
South Pacific

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Gentlemen
From:The Terminator (1:2805/1)

Please instruct Bob Satti to restore 1:14/609 and 1:2805/1 to
the FidoNet nodelist. On Wednesday, 16 August 1995 at 01:08
CDT, I appealed a decision made by Will Wright, Network
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 7 23 Oct 1995

Coordinator of 1:2805, to Tim Pearson, Regional Coordinator of
1:14 (see attached documents). Policy 4.07 clearly states:

9.7 Right to a Speedy Decision

A coordinator is required to render a final decision and notify
the parties involved within 30 days of the receipt of the
complaint or appeal.

I made repeated attempts to contact Pearson, all to no avail.
After 30 days I appealed to Satti. The appeal was dated
Saturday, 16 September 1995 at 16:35 CDT. Thirty days have now
passed with absolutely no word from Satti. More than sixty days
have passed since Pearson received my first appeal. This is
inexcusable. Since there is no International Coordinator, I am
appealing directly to the Zone Coordination Council.

It is interesting to note that Satti has replaced Regional
Coordinators in Zone 1 for denying nodes a level of appeal.
Since there is no IC, I have been denied THREE levels of appeal.
It would certainly be appropriate to remove Satti from his
position for denying multiple levels of appeal.

Sincerely yours,

Brent R. Hamm, 1:2805/1
Network Echo Coordinator

(67) Sat 16 Sep 95 16:35
By: The Terminator
To: Bob Satti, Basic'ly Manager (1:153/6)
Re: C:\FDX\PC\PC.ARJ
St: Pvt File Local Kill Direct

@MSGID: 1:2805/1@fidonet 81909189
@PID: FM 2.12.SW UNREG
@FLAGS DIR
* Original to: Bob Satti (1:153/6)

cc: Tim Pearson

Dear Mr. Satti:

Please instruct Tim Pearson to restore 1:14/609 and 1:2805/1 to
the FidoNet NODELIST. On Wednesday, 16 August 1995 at 01:08
CDT, I appealed a decision made by Will Wright (supporting
documents are attached). Policy 4.07 clearly states:

9.7 Right to a Speedy Decision

A coordinator is required to render a final decision and notify
the parties involved within 30 days of the receipt of the
complaint or appeal.

I have repeatedly attempted to contact Mr. Pearson by routed
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 8 23 Oct 1995

netmail, direct netmail, InterNet e-mail and by voicemail. I
have provided him with my voice number and with my toll-free 800
number. I even asked the NEC of Net 284 to contact him on my
behalf.

I have received no communication from Mr. Pearson whatsoever.
Since 30 days have passed without Mr. Pearson making a decision,
I should be immediately returned to the FidoNet NODELIST.

Additionally, you may consider this an appeal of any unrevealed
decisions that have been rendered against me.

Finally, I would like to remind you that if you should choose to
ignore Policy 4.07, I would be unable to appeal your decision
because there is no FidoNet International Coordinator.

Respectfully yours,

Brent R. Hamm, 1:2805/1
Network Echo Coordinator

(116) Wed 16 Aug 95 1:08
By: Brent Hamm
To: Tim Pearson, LANStar (1:286/703)
Re: Are we having fun yet?
St: Pvt Hold Local Kill

@MSGID: 1:2805/1@fidonet 72011f4b
@PID: FM 2.12.SW UNREG
* Original to: Tim Pearson (1:286/703)

cc: Bob Satti (1:153/6), Jason Steck, Will Wright

Dear Mr. Pearson:

This is an appeal of a decision made by Will Wright, NC of 2805,
on 13 August 1995. Mr. Wright's decision was made without
hearing my side of the story and with no investigation
whatsoever. I shall address the policy complaint by Jason Steck
first.

Mr. Steck claims that "It involves the public cross-posting of
of private netmail, a probable violation of FidoNet policy
regarding in-transit mail."

This is ludicrous. The messages in question were not
"in-transit." I sincerely doubt if anyone in Region 17 would
ever route netmail through Moberly.

Mr. Steck then goes on to state, "But in these two cross-posts
from netmail, Mr. Hamm publicly publishes Dallas Hinton's
unlisted phone number in an attempt to provoke harassment
against him via the telephone syhstem (this I am fairly certain
is a crime) and then proceeds to publicly publish dates when
Dallas Hinton will be out of town in a clear attempt to
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 9 23 Oct 1995

facilitate burglary or other crimes against Dallas Hinton."

In the first sentence, Mr. Steck again claims that the messages
are cross-posts of "netmail" without providing any corroborating
evidence that the messages are indeed "netmail." Admittedly, I
do not know the origin of the messages in question. They
mysteriously appeared in my inbound. I naturally assumed that
they were echomail messages. In any event, I don't even know if
information contained within them is true. Neither does Mr.
Steck. Neither does Mr. Wright.

Mr. Steck then goes on to assign various motivations to the
cross-postings, again without producing any corroborating
evidence. If you examine the messages, you can clearly see that
I didn't add anything to them. Had Mr. Steck contacted me as
required by Section 9.1, I would have gladly told him why the
messages were cross-posted.

Bob Satti, Zone 1 Coordinator, had appointed Dallas Hinton, a
node in Region 17, as interim Regional Coordinator of Region 13.
When I discovered that the first message contained both of their
InterNet addresses as well as Mr. Hinton's phone number, I
promptly posted them in as many echoes as I could find in order
that the nodes in Region 13 who were upset over an out-of-region
coordinator being appointed for them could reach Messrs. Satti
and Hinton to express their concern. As for the second message,
I believe that the members of Region 13 were entitled to know
that their recently appointed RC had decided to go on vacation
just as soon as he had been appointed.

Mr. Steck's complaint should have been immediately dismissed
because he did not follow the procedure set forth in Section 9.1
which clearly states:

The first step in any dispute between sysops is for the sysops
to attempt to communicate directly, at least by netmail,
preferably by voice. Any complaint made that has skipped this
basic step will be dismissed out of hand.

Mr. Steck made no attempt to communicate. The complaint should
have been dismissed.

Section 9.1 further states, "Thou shalt not be too easily
annoyed." Mr. Steck is too easily annoyed. Assuming that
information contained within the messages is accurate, and none
of us knows if it is, Mr. Steck is not the "aggrieved" party and
cannot file a complaint. I find it interesting that Mr. Steck
didn't seem to mind when Allen Taylor at 1:231/45 posted my
voice number in FN_SYSOP even though my feed had been cut and I
had no way to respond. Also, it is important to note that Steve
Winter has been allowed to post unlisted voice numbers with
impunity for well over a year. Why hasn't Mr. Steck chosen to
file a complaint against him?

Mr. Steck is too easily annoyed. His complaint should have been
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 10 23 Oct 1995

dismissed.

I shall now address Mr. Wright's decision.

Mr. Wright's decision violated Section 9.1 which states, "Also,
in any dispute both sides are examined, and action could be
taken against either or both parties." Mr. Wright made his
decision without examining my side. In fact, his decision was
made before I had a chance to respond to Mr. Steck's complaint.

Section 9.1 further states that, "Investigation and response to
complaints requires time which coordinators would prefer to
spend doing more constructive activities," which indicates that
coordinators are required to investigate complaints. Mr. Wright
performed no such investigation.

Section 3.8 states that, "Decisions must be made on technical
grounds." No technical grounds were given.

Mr. Steck made no attempt to communicate and is too easily
annoyed. His complaint should have been dismissed out of hand.

The only portion of Policy 4.07 which Mr. Wright quoted was
Section 2.1.6.1 which pertains only to "in-transit netmail." It
has not been proven that the messages were netmail and the
messages were clearly not "in-transit."

Mr. Wright makes several references to opinions, warnings,
requests, claims, and "netmail from other people." These are all
immaterial. Complaints must be judged solely on the basis of
Policy 4.07.

Accordingly, Mr. Wright's decision should be reversed and he
should be immediately removed as Network Coordinator of 2805
since he has clearly illustrated that he does not comprehend
Policy 4.07.

Respectfully yours,

Brent R. Hamm, 1:2805/1
Network Echo Coordinator

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Furthuring the Win95 saga,
From:Greg Moore(1:221/1202)

You know they've done a brilliant marketing job when you go out
and buy a product the day it comes out, find it has major bugs,
but somehow you're still happy to have it. :-)

Cheers,
Greg
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 11 23 Oct 1995

Scientology "church" at war with the world

Fredric L. Rice
The Skeptic Tank 1:102/890.0
(818) 335-9601

As most of you probably know, the "Church" of Scientology has
been attacking Bulletin Board Systems and Internet users around
the world trying to stiffle critics of their church. Though
this isn't at all new, what _is_ new is the _number_ of attacks
against critics in the past four months, the _type_ of facts
critics are now presenting to the world, and the specifics of
the _methodology_ the church has adopted of late to curb critics
around the world from speaking out.

The intimidation factor includes the vandalizing of people's cars
(such as the Twenty / Twenty television crew's cars in their
parking lot due to an exposure they televised) to the cutting of
people's car's break lines to photographing critics, knocking
on people's doors, and demanding to know "Who do you work for?!"
(They're told that critics all work for some mysterious cabal of
psychologists, strange as it may sound.) Their operatives'
criminal histories also extend to evading arrest and avoiding
process servers. David Miscavige, for instance, is wanted for
impersonating an officer in the state of Florida and a reward is
being offered for any process server who can locate him to serve
him with a subponea (contact me for information on the reward.)

For the past five years or so I've been accumulating all the
information on the Scientology church I could find, deleting all
of the church's secret "scriptures" from the huge mass of court
documents, court affidavits, newspaper reports, television and
radio interview transcripts, and FBI reports of the past criminal
activities of the church's operatives. The list of files grows
daily and I have made an effort to delete anything which isn't
actually informative.

Though the church has focused their attacks upon BBSs like mine
for decades, their focus has been changed to the Internet and
major magazine and newspaper publications like Time and The
Washington Post which have been sued simply because the facts
offered are embarrassing to the church. It is felt by the church
that knowledge of their "religion," their "scriptures," and
criminal activities of the past and present will and have
adversely impacted upon their revenues by alerting potential
"wogs" from signing-up for their very expensive courses or from
taking their "free personality test" which results in all
applicants who pass a "wallet biopsy" from being discovered to be
infested with invisible "thetans," the cure of which demands
hundreds of thousands of dollars to get and thus end up "clear."

Thetans are the fragmented remains of beings which lived some 74
trillion years ago (to hell with cosmology and science, yes) who
were once citizens of the Galactic Empire until Xenu shipped them
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 12 23 Oct 1995

all off to Earth, chained them to a volcano (which is why there's
a volcano on the book "Dianetics") which Xenu then blew to pieces
with hydrogen bombs. The fragmented thetans attach themselves to
humans these days and contribute to the negative "reactive mind"
where only L. Ron Hubbard's "technology" can reach and "cure."

If this sounds like a LSD-induced fantasy, that's because it is.
Hubbard was a heavy drug user who eventually committed suicide as
his paranoia and hallucinations intruded into his wakeful life.
He claims to have created the United States Air Force and to have
personally sunk two Japaneese submarines off the coast of Oregon.
It was found that he lied; it was, it seems, further drug-induced
hallucinations which eventually he considered real.

"Scriptures" which contain this information (and a lot of other
like-minded nonsense such as talking to plants and animals and
controlling people's mind using "tone" -- it gets even more silly
when Hubbard talks about spaceships that look like 747s) have
been introduced into court documents as evidence in litigation
launched by ex-scientologists. Since this information is public,
it's been available on Internet for years. Due to the attacks on
Internet Users and even their Service Providers, however, this
information is available from hundreds of web pages all over the
world, prompting the huge increase in criminal activities of the
church which then results in even more Internet web pages being
created and old ones being updated. (Such as a forged bomb
threat by an as-yet-unknown Scientologist leveled at a vocal,
sometimes rabid (and quite entertaining!) critic in
alt.religion.scientology who called himself "henry." That cost
henry his job, and Internet access and will doubtless drive him
to sue the church for their criminal actions against him.)

The church is trying to sue anyone who makes such court documents
available, claiming that their "scriptures" are copywritten and
not public (which is the only reason why I don't keep them.) The
fact that anyone can go down to a court house and photocopy the
documents for a fee of one dollar a page hasn't escaped the
church. They have members stand in front of court buildings
before they open and check-out the documents, sitting with them
all day so no one else can read them or have them copied. (Most
religions don't act like this, you know. They usually want to
reach as many people as they can with their scriptures. Not the
Church of Scientology, though. In fact, this is an abuse of the
legal system that needs to be addressed with time limits or
perhaps with a lottery if more than one person desires the court
documents at a time.)

Even though nearly every court case against critics finds in
favor of the defendant and the church ends up paying huge amounts
in monetary settlements, (some of which are over 2 million
dollars) the church appears to learn nothing from their activites
and, it is suggested by organized cult watchers, eventually the
heads of the church will be "excommunicated" for mishandleing
critics to the point where all revenues cease. (The church calls
excommunicating their leaders "SUPPRESSIVE PERSON DECLARE AND
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 13 23 Oct 1995

EXPULSION.") Until then, however, the church continues to attack
individuals around cyberspace as well as within the media simply
for offering the world Scientology's own words in full context.

If you're interested in all the ugly details, a list of the files
I've accumulated, examined, and retained so far may be
FileRequested using the magic file name of COS from my system.
In addition, my system has been archiving _all_ issues of the
Computer Underground Digest and the following issues contain
articles on the cult's attacks on people's freedom of speech. As
the church continues to attack Internet and people's freedom of
speech, no doubt the number of CuDs which cover the story will
increase.

CUD706.TXT EFF Open Letter to Church of Scientology

CUD714.TXT The Finnish police have gotten a search&seizure
warrant on my home and the anon.penet.fi server

CUD721.TXT Religious Technology vs. Netcom-on-Line, Judge
Ronald Whyte presiding -- 2/21/95 hearing at
Federal Court in San Jose (10:00-11:00)

CUD725.TXT Background on Church of Scientology and the Net

CUD740.TXT Church of Scientology and the Nets Church of
Scientology v. the Net (background)

CUD753.TXT The Church of Scientology is vigorously litigating
to force a bulletin-board operator to entirely
prohibit all access to a COS critic

CUD768.TXT The Church of Scientology. Perhaps modeling their
behavior on that of America Online, the keepers of
the flame of L. Ron Hubbard have forged
cancellations of Internet messages they don't
like, tried to remove an entire Usenet discussion
group devoted to critical examination of
Scientology, threatened operators of anonymous
remailing services in order to discourage
anonymous criticism of Scientology, instigated a
raid on an anonymous remailing service in Finland,
and sought to intimidate Scientology critic Dennis
Elrlich, his Internet access provider, and Netcom
by suing them on extremely dubious grounds of
copyright violation.

CUD769.TXT WASHINGTON POST SUED FOR VIOLATING SCIENTOLOGY
COPYRIGHTS

CUD770.TXT Church of Scientology Sues Washington Post

CUD776.TXT Report on the September 15, 1995 hearing in the
case of RTC v. Lerma; US District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria, VA
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 14 23 Oct 1995

CUD778.TXT Church of Scientology: Sit Back & Watch the Show:
Reports of CoS' setbacks in its case against Lerma
are swiftly making the rounds on the Net.

At the risk of sounding overly melodramatic...

The loss of freedom of expression and speech affects all of us in
cyberspace, whether we're totally uninterested in the criminal
actions of Scientologists or not. I can't imagine how a church
or business can think that adopting nearly fascist tactics to try
to curb a huge number of citizen's rights to free speech is in
any way ethically or morally acceptable. Certainly the courts
have overwhelmingly found that it's _not_ Constitutionally
acceptable.

The debate isn't about copywrites, anti-religious hate mongering,
or even about the criminal activities of the church. It's about
MONEY and the bilking of the ignorant, the gullible, and the
superstitious. It's about the squelching of individual freedoms
and Constitutional rights to speak out against tyranny and fraud.
It's about opening one's mouth and denouncing pseudo-science and
mind control. If you read a Scientologist trying to claim
otherwise, let me leave you with an extract from one of their own
training courses. Their mendacity is _learned_.

This is an _extract_ from a "TR" -- a "Training Routine"
which is a course that the Church of Scientology offers to
those who are willing to pay the huge costs. It teaches
how to lie successfully.

Title: INTELLIGENCE SPECIALIST TRAINING ROUTINE - TR L

Purpose: To train the student to give a false statement
with good TR-1. To train the student to outflow
false data effectively.

Position: Same as TR-1.

Commands: Part 1 "Tell me a lie". Command given by
coach. Part 2 interview type 2 WC by coach.

Training Stress: In Part 1 coach gives command, student
originates a falsehood. Coach flunks for out TR
1 or TR 0. In Part 2 coach asks questions of
the student on his background or a subject.
Student gives untrue data of a plausible sort
that the student backs up with further
explanatory data upon the coach asking further
questions. The coach flunks for out TR 0 and TR
1, and for student fumbling on question answers.
The student should be coached on a gradient until
he/she can lie facilely.

The rest of the training has been deleted so that no possibility
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 15 23 Oct 1995

of copywrite violation is possible under the provisions of "fair
use." It goes on to provide an example of a student lying to a
"coach" with the coach acting in a confrontational and aggressive
manor. The student is required to appear truthful and not be
caught in a contradiction.

You can bet that any Scientologist you're likely to see on the
television or quoted in a newspaper has been through the course
and passed. They wouldn't let him or her speak otherwise.

I encourage everyone to download the files from my system before
there's a knock on my door and they try to shut me up like all
the others. I also sggest that some of the WEB sites be reviewed
for photographs of operatives -- some of whom are running from
the law and might show up in your area.

-=- For WEB pages covering the issues -=-

Ron Newman: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/
scientology/home.html
David Dennis: http://www.amazing.com/scientology/
Modemac: http://www.tiac.net/users/modemac/cos.html
Jim Lippard: http://www.primenet.com/~lippard/pis.html
Skeptic Magazine: http://www.skeptic.com/03.3.jl-jj-
scientology.html
EFF: http://www.eff.org/pub/Censorship/
CoS_v_the_Net/
Bob "Sloth" Bingham: http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/sci_index.html
http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/organized.html
Tilman Hausherr: http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/
Dave Touretzky: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/
Daniel Tobias: http://www.webcom.com/~dtobias/sosueme.html
Jessie Blalock: http://www.clark.net/pub/jcblal/jcbcos.html
Jerod Pore: http://www.well.com/user/jerod23/clam.html
Martin L Poulter: http://mail.bris.ac.uk/~plmlp
Jonas Flygare: http://www.algonet.se/~flax/scientology.html
Scott Goehring: http://copper.ucs.indiana.edu/~sgoehrin/
scientology/
Discord: http://www.tezcat.com/~tina/scn-index.shtml
Teodor Vaananen http://www.algonet.se/~teodor/cult/welcome.
htm
Steve A: http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/scientology.
html
Felipe (XS4ALL) http://www.xs4all.nl/~felipe/cos/
Sirilyan: http://www.io.com/~sirilyan/inwo/cos.html
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/US/scientology/index.html
Cornelius Krasel: http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/
CoS/
David C. Smith: http://starbase.neosoft.com/~dcs/scieno1.
html
Brett Achorn: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~achorn/cos/cos.
html
Mark Allen: http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~mallen/scam.html
Steve Marinick: http://www.primenet.com/~stevem/scieno_java.
html
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 16 23 Oct 1995

Taneli Huuskonen: http://www.helsinki.fi/~huuskone/ot-levels.
txt
Bruce Scott: http://www.ipp-garching.mpg.de/~bds/COS/COS.
html
Samuel Kaplin: http://www.skypoint.com/members/skaplin
Maureen Garde: http://superlink.net/user/mgarde/opinions.
html
Chaos: http://sunbird.sat.net/~lazarus/cos.html
Don Lindsay: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/
scientology/
Goofy: http://www.stack.urc.tue.nl/~goofy/Co$.html
50 Gt. Conspiracies: http://www.webcom.com/~conspire/

-=- BOOKS -=-

1. Cooper, Paulette--The Scandal Of Scientology
[henry] http://nyx10.cs.du.edu:8001/~anon2c9e/
scandal.txt

2. Wakefield, Margery--The Road to Xenu
[Steve A] http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/xenu.html

-=- F.A.C.T. Net -=-

New home: http://www.lightlink.com/factnet1/

FACTNET kit: http://www.prysm.com/~cuthulu/
(courtesy of cuthulu)

FACTNET kit: http://www.xs4all.nl/~fonss
(courtesy of fonss)

FACTNET kit: http://www.cistron.nl/~newkid
(courtesy of newkid)

-=- LERMA CASE -=-

Faegre & Benson: http://www.faegre.com

-=- PRO-SCIENTOLOGY -=-

Leisa Goodman: http://www.theta.com/goodman
(semi-official Co$)
Brian W: ftp://FTP.PCNET.COM/users/brianw
(FTP)
R E Brooks: http://www.crl.com:80/~rebrooks/
relighst.html

-=- FISHMAN AFFIDAVIT --

There are over 50 sites for the Fishman affidavit because it
contains the court documents which has the church's "scriptures."
Two sites for the affidavit are:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/ClamBed.html
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 17 23 Oct 1995

http://www.stack.urc.tue.nl/~goofy/Sneaky.FishDoc.html
First of all ...
Jeremy Guthrie

First of all I would like to thank the editor for reposting a
REVISED version of my letter. I am sorry for the first message.
I was so frustrated I really didn't care how correct it came out
so long as it came out quickly and with some form of point.(kind
of like this last sentence 8) )

I will say I am surprised, I have gotten at least 50+ messages
in regards to my posting. The unfortunate thing I will publicly
state is that it has been copyrighted already. I have filed all
of the appropriate papers to get the copyright. I do realize
that doing this does hurt many people but I refuse to stand and
sit while I'm being attacked. It was my strongest card I had
left to play. It has tried served two purposes:

1) Make people realize that eventually, you'll step on a bug
that makes a bigger splat than you can cover up.

2) Put some form of stygmatism on those in 238(not everyone in
Net 238) who can't approach myself and show respect of some kind.

I will still finish off the specifications but not under any
form of schedule. I'm hoping I can achieve better results than
3.3m --->800K. If every thing does go well, I may release it
later.

Jeremy Guthrie
[email protected]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Response to Mr Robert Hoerner
by Fredrik Bennison
2:205/300, [email protected]

In FidoNews 1240, Mr Hoerner claims that the Policy addendum
NC_ELECT was adopted in violation of Policy4.

Mr Hoerner writes:

"NC_ELECT describes some procedures about how to elect a network
coordinator and claims to be an addition to policy 4. In policy
4 itself section 8, however, the way how to adopt any new
policies is described. This was not the way this NC_ELECT has
been adopted, not at all."

I'd like to point out that P4 section 8 describes how a new
version of FidoNet policy is ratified. NC_ELECT however is no
new FidoNet Policy proposal, it is simply a Zone policy document
as mentioned in section 1 of FidoNet Policy4.

Robert Hoerner concludes his article by writing:
FidoNews 12-43 Page: 18 23 Oct 1995

"I do not understand what this paper "NC_ELECT" has to do with
democracy beyond the fact, that it has been "set in force" in a
way, that could be described as: "democracy? democrazy!"."

FidoNet Policy 4 does in no way describe how these local policy
documents are ratified, the only restriction is that they must
have the approval of the IC if they contradict FidoNet Policy 4.

NC_ELECT _was_ democratically approved, a vote was held among
all Region Coordinators in Zone 2 and a majority voted to accept
the document.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

========================================================================
Fidonews Information
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------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ----------------

Editors: Donald Tees, Sylvia Maxwell
Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell,
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Tom Jennings
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more addresses:
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FidoNews 12-43 Page: 19 23 Oct 1995

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-- END
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