[CC] Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated cyber-terrorism"
George(s) Lessard
cyberculture@zacha.org
Tue Aug 27 14:24:01 2002
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 14:06:09 -0400
To: politech@politechbot.com
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated
cyber-terrorism"
Copies to: mediarelationsdir@scientology.net
Send reply to: declan@well.com
[In a followup message, Linda gave me permission to redistribute the Church of
Scientology's position paper on copyright and free speech. I thank her for
engaging in this discussion. Previous Politech message, from this spring:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03281.html --Declan]
---
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 10:48:30 +0100
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
From: mediarelationsdir@scientology.net
Subject: Re: Church of Scientology position paper
TO: Declan McCullough
I can see from your writings that you have a strikingly different view of
the DMCA that we do. Your inclusion of the Church in some of your articles,
without finding out what actions we take and why, calls for a revisit of the
subject. I am happy to provide you with a position paper that lays out quite
simply our view on the issue of copyright protection on the Internet.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Linda
Linda Simmons Hight
Media Relations Director
Church of Scientology International
6331 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 1200
Los Angeles, CA 90028-6329
Phone (323) 960-3500
Fax (323) 960-3508
e-mail: mediarelationsdir@scientology.net
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL STATEMENT
REGARDING COPYRIGHT INFRINGERS AND GOOGLE
Media reports reflecting partisan opinions and incorrect
interpretations concerning Google's decision to remove links to web
pages containing copyright infringements have largely obfuscated the real
issues. Thus, we are providing this clarification.
I. THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY AND THE INTERNET
Scientology churches have always supported the Internet. The Church uses
the Internet in its dissemination of the Scientology religion to the people of
the world. We recognize the Internet as a brilliant technological advance in
the field of communication; its benefits far outdistance any down sides. The
latter are not inherent in the Internet but are the result of abusive or
unlawful misuse of the Internet by particular individuals.
The Church has established a significant multimedia Internet presence
since its launch in 1996 of one of the largest and most technically advanced web
sites. Our sites comprise more than 140,000 individual pages of material and
include virtual tours of our major churches, images, multimedia files, and text.
These sites are also available in most major languages, with new languages
being added as fast as the translations can be done. They are visited by a
million people each month.
The potential of the Internet to link individuals from all corners of the
world and unify diverse cultures and nationalities makes it a priceless resource
for improving understanding among peoples.
II. ABUSE ON THE INTERNET
The freedom provided by the Internet is open to abuse, as the
experience of the last decade has shown. Unless certain rules are
applied on the Internet, our desired global freedom to communicate and
exchange information will be corrupted by cyber-terrorism that often
masquerades as free-speech activism. Thus, limitless "tolerance" of abuse will
inevitably bring on overregulation if a few dishonest individuals are allowed to
flout the law and corrupt this communication medium for everyone. In any event,
those who were victimized or saw their rights violated will sooner or later rise
to defend themselves and lawfully restore their interests.
In this regard, Scientology churches have taken actions to defend
their rights and the rights of their members on the Internet. Church
actions are confined to two circumstances:
1. Violations of the Church's intellectual property rights
2. Hate speech that advocates violence against the Church or its members
While these are separate issues, they do have one notable factor in
common: neither one involves ~protected~ free speech. How ironic,
therefore, that more often than not, when a Scientology church moves to
remedy such a wrong, these unlawful infringements are immediately
redefined as "free speech" issues. Nothing could be further from the
truth. The determination to protect copyrighted works from unlawful
copyright violation has nothing to do with whether the infringing work is
critical or laudatory of Scientology.
The same holds true for the second phenomenon: hate speech that
advocates violence.
Threatening speech or expressions calculated to incite hate enjoy no
protection under the Constitution. Robust critical speech should always be
sheltered by the First Amendment, as long is it does not trample the boundaries
created by law and jurisprudence in an effort to protect the people from
improper verbal abuse and its adverse consequences.
III. COPYRIGHT ISSUES AND THE INTERNET
Since the founding of the first church of Scientology in 1954,
Scientology churches around the world have consistently championed all
forms of freedom. This includes being one of the first to expose the
existence of South African psychiatric slave-labor camps during the
apartheid era, and the atrocities committed on the people of
Bosnia-Herzegovina in the name of "ethnic cleansing." Scientology
churches were pioneers in the development of the U.S. Freedom of
Information Act and used that law to uncover secret U.S. government
chemical and biological warfare experiments that had been perpetrated on
the American people. The Church's human rights journal, Freedom Magazine, has
won numerous awards for its journalistic integrity and its courageous work in
protecting the rights of minorities.
The Church's own creed states that "all men have inalienable rights
to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and
to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others."
In addition, Scientologists honor free speech as a cherished
Constitutional right.
But free speech does not mean freedom to perpetrate a crime. No
matter how disingenuously copyright violations are postured as an
exercise of "free speech," the unlawful use of protected works was, is, and will
continue to be a crime. If an individual walked into a book store and took away
and sold volumes of an author's writings, or simply gave them away as part of a
super-communist phantasm designed for a shared-and-equal-wealth Utopia, would
any rational person defend this act of theft as "free speech"? Of course not.
They would call the police.
Enshrined in the United States Constitution, and preceding the First
Amendment, is an author's right to determine the manner and extent of the
dissemination of his writings. The Constitution authorized Congress "to promote
the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to
authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings."
Creativity is encouraged when those who engage in it can enjoy the
fruits of their efforts and control the use of those creations. An
author has the right to determine whether his words will be published, by
whom and to what extent. In this way, intellectual property rights
and free expression coexist as fundamental rights.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides a mechanism that helps this
coexistence to be peaceful.
When it became obvious during the last decade that copyright owners'
determination was being tested by a spate of unauthorized distribution of their
works over the Internet, the importance of protecting both copyright owners and
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from potential adverse consequences became
glaringly evident. In a landmark lawsuit brought by two Scientology-affiliated
organizations, the US District Court for the Northern District of California
agreed with their contention that ISPs may be liable for contributory copyright
infringement once they are made aware that infringements are maintained on their
systems. The judge's ruling resulted in a notice-and-takedown procedure to
remedy copyright infringements.
This notice-and-takedown procedure became an important aspect of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It provides the copyright owner with a remedy
and absolves ISPs from responsibility for content and liability if they remove
infringing materials, while depriving the violator of the means to perpetrate
his unlawful activity. The DMCA has thus brought order to one area of the
Internet that was in utter turmoil prior to the Act.
IV. GOOGLE CHILLS
In March 2002, acting according to the provisions of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, the Church asked Google to remove their links
to certain specific copyright infringements. Google responded by
eliminating the links. These actions on both sides were routine and
carried out pursuant to the DMCA.
However, this time the often unpredictable currents of the Internet
pushed Google out of the routine and into a storm of protest. Taken
aback by this reaction, Google rapidly moved to put the Church's cease and
desist letters up on a public website. If the intent of this action was to
appear "politically correct" or to chill the Church's dedication to defend the
copyrighted works of the Scientology religion, no adverse affect has been
created. In fact, the Church views it favorably that anyone who is interested
can see the letters for themselves, uninfluenced by the hysterical rhetoric that
was used by some media to mischaracterize their content and import.
We are scarcely alone in utilizing the DMCA to protect our
intellectual properties. Considering that hundreds of cease and desist
letters are generated by copyright owners every day, it is oddly
disproportionate that so much attention has been focused on the handful
sent out by Scientology churches.
Record companies have used copyright law to halt the pirating of
Digital Video Discs. The Motion Picture Association of America has
endeavored for years to prevent the unlawful copying of video games and
movies. One company in the United Kingdom reports that in the past two
years it has caused the removal of more than 5 million infringing computer files
containing material belonging to its clients. They send out DMCA letters to
American ISPs as a routine.
V. FREE SPEECH VS. HATE SPEECH
It has long been an established legal principle that open incitement to
violence against another is not protected by the First Amendment, neither on nor
off the Internet.
If an individual shouted from his rooftop that he was going to throw a
bomb through his neighbor's window, no one would accuse the intended victim of
attempting to stifle free speech when he called the police.
Hate speech is also a factor that often motivates the Church in its
actions. Unfortunately it usually remains unreported by media, thus
depriving the public of the full picture.
It has been necessary to take legal action on several occasions due
to threats and actual violence against our churches. Hate speech and
extremist propaganda on the Internet have repeatedly driven unstable
individuals to commit felonious acts against Church members and Church
property, as in these examples:
o A Scientology Church was fire-bombed twice with a dozen molotov
cocktails doing extensive damage to the front of the church.
o A staff member was stalked and shot at.
o A crazed gunman went into a church and shot a pregnant staff member
whose unborn child suffered fatal birth defects and later died. The woman is now
paralyzed. He then set fire to the building and took another female staff
member hostage.
o Individuals became inflamed by venom spewed online and then sent
out death threats.
o An individual was convicted for threatening and intimidating
Scientologists through the Internet. He then fled the country to avoid
sentencing.
o Police intercepted a man with explosives in his van, who, it was
discovered by the officers, was enroute to assassinate the president of
a Church of Scientology.
o A man constructed a mail bomb and hid it in one of our churches. It was
detected and defused before it went off.
If these acts are carried out against U.S. citizens by Al Qaeda, it is
called terrorism. Within the microcosm of the alternative newsgroups,
Scientologists face a form of unadulterated cyber-terrorism, no matter how
loudly its perpetrators try to disguise themselves as "free speech" advocates.
* * * * *
Ultimately, the only guarantee of safeguarding the Internet's
potential resides with all who use it. We share the responsibility of
ensuring that abuses by a largely lawless minority are not permitted to
burden all of us with over regulation. We submit that had it not been
for a few lawless individuals, online copyright regulation would not even
have been necessary; ample copyright law already existed. It is up
to the law-abiding majority to ensure the Internet remains truly free.
We welcome the opportunity to work with any individuals and
organizations seeking the goal of a lawful, safe and vastly beneficial
Internet for all.
For more information, visit www.scientology.org
April 2002
Linda Simmons Hight
Media Relations Director
Church of Scientology International
6331 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 1200
Los Angeles, CA 90028-6329
Phone (323) 960-3500
Fax (323) 960-3508
e-mail: mediarelationsdir@scientology.net
*** Via / From / Thanks to the following :
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