Raids and Lawsuits
Shortly after the initial legal announcements and rmgroup attempt, representatives of Scientology followed through with a series of lawsuits against various participants on the newsgroup, including Dennis Erlich in Religious Technology Center v. Netcom. The first raid took place on February 13, 1995. Accompanied by Scientology lawyers, federal marshals made several raids on the homes of individuals who were accused of posting Scientology's copyrighted materials to the newsgroup. Raids took place against Arnaldo Lerma (Virginia), Lawrence Wollersheim and Robert Penny of FACTNet (Colorado), and Dennis Erlich (California). Internationally, raids took place against Karin Spaink (The Netherlands) and Zenon Panoussis (Sweden). In addition to filing lawsuits against individuals, Scientology also sued The Washington Post for reprinting one paragraph of the OT writings in a newspaper article, as well as several Internet service providers, including Netcom, Tom Klemesrud, and XS4ALL. It also regularly demanded the deletion of material from the Deja News archive.
Participants in alt.religion.scientology began using quotes from OT III in particular to publicize the online battle over the secret documents. The story of Xenu was subsequently quoted in many publications, including news reports on CNN and 60 Minutes. It became the most famous reference to the OT levels, to the point where many Internet users who were not intimately familiar with Scientology had heard the story of Xenu, and immediately associated the name with Scientology. The initial strikes against Scientology's critics settled down into a series of legal battles that raged through the courts. The Electronic Frontier Foundation provided legal assistance to defendant Tom Klemesrud and his attorney Richard Horning helped find Dennis Erlich Pro Bono defense. Daily reports of the latest happenings were posted to alt.religion.scientology.
In the wake of the Scientology actions, the Penet remailer, which had been the most popular anonymous remailer in the world until the Scientology "war" took place, was shut down. Johan Helsingius, operator of the remailer, stated that the legal protections afforded him in his country (Finland) were too thin to protect the anonymity of his users and he decided to close down the remailer as a result.
Read more about this topic: Scientology Versus The Internet
Other articles related to "raids, raids and, raid":
... took advantage of Mexico's weakness to undertake large-scale raids hundreds of miles deep into the country to steal livestock for their own use and to supply an expanding market in Texas and the United States ... The Mexicans believed that Americans were facilitating and benefiting from the raids ... The Indian raids left thousands of people dead and devastated northern Mexico ...
... Quettetot Quettreville-sur-Sienne Quibou Quinéville Raids Rampan Rauville-la-Bigot Rauville-la-Place Ravenoville Reffuveille Regnéville-sur-Mer Reigneville-Bocage Remilly-sur-Lozon Réthov ...
... and his brother Tecumseh, with which he most often went on raids and forays during the time they were at Running Water ... In one of his early raids, in spring, 1777 he is said to have captured two women while operating around Fort Blackmore, Virginia ... His raids carried him as far north as the Ohio River, as far northwest as deep southwestern Virginia, all over East Tennessee, and even occasionally southeast into ...
... UN troops raided other slums but they were never confronted like the raid to get "Evans" ... This was a second assault of Cité Soleil, but this was an assault/raid to capture a drug lord/gang leader ...
... Reports of Barbary raids and kidnappings of those in Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, England, Ireland, Scotland as far north as Iceland exist from this period ... Famous accounts of Barbary slave raids include a mention in the Diary of Samuel Pepys and a raid on the coastal village of Baltimore, Ireland, during which pirates left with the entire ... Such raids in the Mediterrean were so frequent and devastating that the coastline between Venice to Malaga suffered widespread depopulation, and settlement there was discouraged ...
Famous quotes containing the word raids:
“Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public Treasury.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)