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Kennedy tries to hang his anti-Scientology diatribe on Mr. Cooley's representation of the church, but he cannot disguise the severe bias of his article. He opens with an account of the church's copyright litigation that is pitched heavily towards its opponents, and relegates the most important ruling in the entire litigation -- favorable to the church -- to a three-line aside. This is like describing at length the Pearl Harbor attack on the US by Japan, and then adding a footnote that the Americans did gain one significant victory -- the war itself.
A true statement of the church's litigation is that the church filed five copyright suits in the United States, has been awarded preliminary injunctions against three defendants, and has won its case outright against a fourth, Arnaldo Lerma -- a disgruntled former member who was a key source for Kennedy. The other case is pending.
Kennedy could have learned these facts had he bothered to contact a church representative before the article came out. Since he did not, and had no adequate explanation for his failure to do so -- although he spoke at length to church "critics" -- one can only assume that he did not have the guts to talk to the people whom he was attacking in his article, and intended a slanted and one-sided article from the outset.
No professional journalist would act with such disregard for accuracy, balance, and the obligation to give the subject of one's article an opportunity to respond as Mr. Kennedy has done.
The individuals whom the church has sued for illegal copying and distribution of its religious works have made no serious effort to refute the church's extensively documented case. Unable to mount a coherent defense that addresses the actual issues, they have instead attempted -- unsuccessfully -- to route the attention of the courts and the media away from their unlawful actions and toward other issues such as free speech. Violators of copyright laws traditionally try to hide behind free speech and illegitimate "fair use" claims, and US courts often reject such claims in upholding copyrights.
Just how specious is the "free speech" argument of the apostate infringers is shown by the fact that each of them has continued to post derogatory messages about the Scientology religion on the Internet without incident. Indeed, the newsgroup to which these messages have been posted existed for three years with no action taken by the church against its contributors, even though most of what appears there is highly offensive to Scientologists and frequently obscene. It was not until some of the users of the newsgroup posted messages that infringed on the church's copyrights -- and refused to cease when requested -- that the church took actions to protect its rights through the courts.
Kennedy quoted Judge Leonie Brinkema's critical remarks about the raid on Lerma's premises last year, after the church obtained a court order to conduct a search and seizure in the presence of US marshals. Kennedy left out, however, that at a January 19, 1996 hearing, Judge Brinkema stated that if the search was overbroad, it was because she herself had not worded the court order with sufficient clarity. Kennedy's omission was plainly deliberate, as her comments were made at the same hearing where she awarded judgment for the church -- a decision of which Kennedy was aware.
Had Kennedy wanted to represent the issues honestly, he would have portrayed the church and Mr. Cooley as being protectors of intellectual property rights on the Internet. As any software developer can tell you, copyright law, which our actions have helped preserve on the Internet, stimulates, protects, and rewards individual creativity and ingenuity. Without these qualities, talent, free speech, and unique expression would be a hollow farce. Writers, artists, publishers, companies, and anyone concerned about the protection of intellectual properties have reason to be grateful for what the church has done.
The church fights copyright battles of necessity, but Scientologists prefer to use the Net to tell people about Scientology. In mid March, the church launched a giant, 30,000-computer-page Global Scientology Information Center on the World-Wide Web in English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian.
These new Bites are among the moat technically advanced on the Web. In addition to providing a wealth of data that individuals may take right off the screen and use to improve their lives, the sites contain audio-on-demand, radio readings, animated graphics, and thousands of photo images, all designed for ready access and easy navigation. A Global Locator enables the user to view a picture of any Church of Scientology in the world by flicking on the continent, the country and the city where it is located. Surfers can also experience virtual-reality tours of prominent Churches of Scientology and the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition in Hollywood, or take a multimedia tour of the human mind.
The objective of the Global Scientology Information center is to use the best of the Internet's innovative technical and artistic tools to the end of bringing about a broader understanding and use of Scientology. The high volume of hits on our site shows that there is a tremendous demand on the Internet for information about Scientology.
Kennedy also devoted a large sidebar article to his most uncredible and outrageous source, Steven Fishman. Kennedy himself notes that he had a hard time grappling with Fishman's credibility.
No reader would have had any question about Fishman's complete lack of credibility had Kennedy not omitted key facts. Psychiatrists, prison officials, the FBI, prosecutors, and a federal judge have all confirmed that Fishman in an inveterate liar and a criminal.
In l990, Fishman, who has a lifelong history of psychological problems and has been in and out of psychiatric hands since early childhood, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for fraud and obstruction of justice.
The obstruction-of-justice count arose out of Fishman's attempt to mislead FBI investigators into believing that the Church of Scientology, with which he had had a superficial contact, was somehow responsible for his crimes.
The FBI investigated Fishman's claims and discovered them to be completely false, even uncovering Fishman's attempted "frame job" of the church. He had secretly organized that threatening phone calls and suspicious mailings be made to him, which he then told the FBI came from the church. Investigators also established that his first contact with the church did not occur until two and half years after Fishman began his fraud. As for Fishman's "declaration," cited by Kennedy, it is manufactured garbage and has no more resemblance to reality than the rest of Fishman's claims about Scientology.
Another source relied upon by Kennedy is Steve Hassan, a small-time, anti-religious, Boston-based terrorist with no training or experience in the field of religion at all. He is notorious for his abduction and beating of an adult Christian to try to force the man to give up his beliefs. The affidavit by the man, Mr. Arthur Roselle, so marred Hassan's credibility that in late 1991, Hassan, faced with a lawsuit, tried to get Mr. Roselle to perjure himself and write another affidavit that exonerated Hassan. Mr. Roselle refused.
Hassan subjected Angela Chandler to six and a half days of verbal abuse and emotional trauma about her religion. What makes this doubly deplorable is that at the time she was bedridden and recovering from injuries sustained in a serious auto accident.
Hassan's treatment of these individuals is consistent with his long-term involvement in and support of the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). More than a dozen of CAN's principals and high-ranking members have been criminally charged, indicted, or jailed over the past few years for a variety of crimes. Most recently, CAN has filed for bankruptcy after facing a judgment in excess of $1 million for its involvement in the forceful abduction of a Seattle man to try to change his Christian beliefs.
Most of Kennedy's sources are a small clique of Internet anarchists who think they are above the law. Although these people like to give themselves importance by pretending they are "the Net," they are few in number and less in influence. That they follow a criminally insane person like Fishman should have alerted Kennedy to their unreliability. The judicial rulings summarized earlier show that the false claims of these people burst when they meet reality in a courtroom, where one is required to prove one's allegations.
The Church of Scientology has always been in the vanguard of thorny civil-liberties issues and has set many precedents that helped safeguard important freedoms. For example, the church had to fight a vigorous and decades-long battle against government agencies before it was officially recognized and granted full tax exemption by the IRS. As the Washington Times recently pointed out, our freedom-of-information suits against the government strengthened and clarified the Freedom of Information Act and helped define the relationship between church and state. In 1990, the Church of Scientology of Boston set a nationwide precedent preventing government meddling in church affairs when a federal judge reprimanded the IRS for abusive practices and denied it access to church records it had no legitimate reason to review. The IRS appealed but lost in the higher court.
Real human-rights work is done to protect those who have been abused, not to insulate wrongdoers from the consequences of their unlawful actions, as Kennedy's article seeks to do. In 1986, the United Nations recognized the church's work in the field of human rights in a paper that credited a church-sponsored reform group with having prevented the passing into law of more than 30 pieces of mental-health legislation which would have curtailed patients' rights.
Through its human-rights magazine, Freedom, the church has awarded and acknowledged numerous other individuals who have strengthened and preserved our civil liberties, including freedom of speech. Among those recognized have been a number of journalists, as well as prominent legislators such as former congressman John Moss, father of the Freedom of Information Act, and Paul McMasters of the Freedom Foundation.
The church's support of human-rights issues flows from the nature of Scientology itself. Scientology comprises a body of knowledge which extends from certain fundamental truths. Prime among these truths:
* Man is an immortal spiritual being.
* His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime.
* His capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized.
Scientology further holds man to be basically good, and that his spiritual salvation depends upon himself and his fellows and his attainment of brotherhood with the universe. In that regard, Scientology is a religious philosophy in the most profound sense of the word, for it is concerned with no less than the full rehabilitation of man's innate spiritual self -- his capabilities, his awareness, and his certainty of his own immortality. Furthermore, as religion deals with the spirit in relation to itself, the universe, and other life, and is essentially the belief in spiritual beings, Scientology follows a religious tradition that is at least as old as mankind. Yet what Scientology ultimately represents is new. Its religious technology is new, its ecclesiastical organization is new, and what it means to 20th-century man is entirely new.
The religion is based exclusively on the research, writings, and recorded lectures of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. These encompass more than 500,000 pages of writings, nearly 3000 recorded lectures, and more than 100 instructional films. A fundamental doctrine of the Scientology religion is that the path outlined in these works is to be followed without deviation, for it is an intensively researched and workable route toward spiritual freedom.
Scientologists are also found making valuable contributions to their communities all over the world. Following major earthquakes in Los Angeles, Japan, and Russia; terrorism in Oklahoma; floods in St. Louis; and an explosion in Seoul, volunteer ministers from the Church left their jobs to travel to the disaster areas and provide assistance to the victims. Their contributions were widely appreciated and they received commendations from official bodies involved in the relief efforts.
Here in Boston, Scientologists worked with non Scientologists to produce a concert featuring prominent local bands. The concert, known as "Boston Rocks Against Drugs", benefited a local anti-drug group whose goal is to help recovering drug addicts. A few years ago, the Church's "Lead the Way to a Drug-Free USA" campaign was praised by Boston City Council. And for the last year, the World Literacy Crusade has been assisting illiterate youth and learning-disadvantaged adults in Boston by applying the educational methods developed by L. Ron Hubbard.
The Church of Scientology will continue to help people around the world by assisting them to apply Scientology to bring about improvement in their lives. And the church will continue to take whatever actions are needful to protect our scriptures, while also working with interested bodies to implement broad use of voluntary guidelines for the ethical use of the Internet.
Beth Akiyama
Public Relations Director
Church of Scientology Eastern United States
Click to read Dan Kennedy's response to this letter.