From: [email protected] (James J. Lippard)
Subject: Letter to Ginny Leason, March 10, 1996
Date: 1996/04/22
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
X-Deja-AN: 150917715
sender: [email protected]
organization: Primenet Services for the Internet
x-posted-by: [email protected]
newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
On March 9, 1996, I participated in my fourth picket at the Mesa, Arizona
Org, protesting Scientology harassment of Internet users. Earlier in
the week, I received a telephone call from Ginny Leason of the Mesa Org,
asking if she could meet with me beforehand. Steve Marinick and I met
with her the day of the picket, and she asked what could be done locally
to make us stop picketing. At that meeting, Steve and I observed that
she did not seem to be well informed about what has been going on, and
I told her that I would send her some materials that would help. We
also emphasized that the local Church should demonstrate that it is
willing to listen and respond to complaints, and should become active
on the net.
I followed up with the following letter. Ginny Leason has not responded.
Scientologist John Bryant, who I met at a couple of our pickets, was
briefly active on the net (including a.r.s.) and exchanged some email
with me, but has become silent. When I requested that he ask Leason to
please respond to my letter, he did not answer.
It seems appropriate, then, to post my letter to the net. Why won't
Ginny Leason respond?
Jim Lippard
c/o Primenet
1224 E. Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85034
[email protected]
10 March 1996
Ginny Leason
Church of Scientology
2111 W. University
Mesa, AZ 85201
Dear Ginny:
Thanks for the lunch and the Pepsi.
Enclosed are copies of the _Skeptic_ and _Wired_ magazine articles
on Scientology and the Internet. I have blacked out portions which
quote from or describe the contents of OT materials.
I have a few questions for you.
1. The handout which was given out at one of the previous protests, as
well as to picketers at this most recent protest, headlined "These
'Demonstrators' Support Copyright Criminals" contains a number of
falsehoods which are also probably legally actionable. Why did you
distribute this? Specifically, the first sentence claims that "The
'demonstrators' outside this Church support crime on the Internet."
This is a lie. I do not support crime on the Internet and I do not
know of any other picketer who does. Further, there are no
"criminals" involved in any of the recent lawsuits. Copyright
infringement is a tort--a civil, not criminal offense. That's another
lie. The flyer also misrepresents the actions of Dennis Erlich, who
stated that he would be happy to stop posting materials allegedly
copyrighted by the Church if the Church would simply provide him with
evidence that he was, in fact, infringing their copyrights. The Church
never produced this evidence before raiding his home. In RTC v. Netcom,
the Church voluntarily dropped its claim of "trade secret" for the OT3
materials when Robert Vaughn Young testified that the same scenarios
described in these materials have been freely distributed for decades,
for instance, in Hubbard's screenplay "Revolt in the Stars" (which John
Travolta is trying to get made into a major motion picture). In RTC v.
Lerma, Judge Brinkema essentially threw out all the trade secret claims.
In the Netherlands, the Church dropped its pending lawsuits when it was
unable to provide evidence required by Dutch law to show that it had
valid copyrights on the OT material. The lawsuits were reinstated, but
only regarding OT2 and OT3, when it was able to provide the required
evidence.
2. On the harassment timeline, in the undated incidents, it is
noted that "A Scientologist attempts to prevent Jeff Jacobsen's
employer from being able to attend a seminar where the company
promotes itself." I have learned that you were the Scientologist in
question. Why did you do this?
3. I would like to know whether you condemn the use of private
investigators to intimidate Church critics.
4. I would like to know if you are informed about and condemn the
actions taken by the Church of Scientology against author Paulette
Cooper, which included attempting to frame her for bomb threats
which were fabricated by the Church itself.
5. I would like to know if you condemn the infiltration of government
offices and theft of documents performed by the Church of Scientology
in Washington, D.C. and in Toronto, which led to multiple felony
convictions for Church members. The Church claims that members of the
GO have been purged from the Church, yet there are still members who
were directly involved in the illegal activities who are still in
the Church (including convicted felon Mo Budlong and unindicted
co-conspirator Kendrick Moxon). Another former GO member who is
still a high-ranking Church member is Kurt Weiland. Why haven't
these people been kicked out?
That's enough for now. I hope that you are willing to engage in
dialogue on these subjects.
Sincerely,
/s/
Jim Lippard
--
Jim Lippard lippard@(primenet.com ediacara.org skeptic.com)
Phoenix, Arizona http://www.primenet.com/~lippard/
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