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From: milne@crl.com (Andrew Milne)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: So-called "demonstrations" flop again
Date: 9 Sep 1995 15:58:14 -0700
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The so-called "demonstrations" outside churches of Scientology were a flop
yet again.  Hardly anybody showed up. Of those who did, some obviously
knew nothing about Scientology and were being manipulated and fed
disinformation by the hard-core element. In Boston, the staff invited a
couple of these individuals into the Church so they actually could get some
accurate information about what Scientology is. 

Meanwhile, tonight at the Auditors Day event thousands will attend in Los 
Angeles alone. Scientology continues to expand and flourish across the world.

The hard-core element supports crime on the Internet. Their cohorts are a
handful of computer criminals seeking to destroy religious freedom for
millions of Scientologists around the world. 

At issue is the unauthorized and illegal distribution of unpublished,
private Scientology scriptures on the Internet.  These materials were
originally stolen from the Church and later entered into a court case by a
convicted felon, solely and only to make them accessible to the public and
invite further violations of their confidentiality. 

These scriptures are held sacred by more than 8 million Scientologists
around the world and are protected by copyright and trade secret laws. 
The hard-core element support criminals who have knowingly broken the law
and violated the rights of the Church's parishioners. 

Most Scientology literature is broadly available. But its advanced
scriptures are only revealed to parishioners of the Church who have
completed certain prior steps of religious study and counseling. 
Revealing these scriptures only to those spiritually ready for them is as
fundamental to the Scientology religion as the belief in Resurrection is
to Protestants and the absolute sanctity of life is to devout Catholics. 

This is not a battle between the Church of Scientology and its "critics." 
At stake is the right of every present and future member of the Church to
practice his religion as he chooses without being dictated to by a handful
of bigots who seek to destroy it.  Allowing disaffected members of a
religion to dictate how its sacred writings are to be used is equivalent
to giving control of Jewish dogma to a pack of Nazis. 

The Church has contacted those who were illegally spreading its advanced
scriptures and asked that they refrain from distributing this material. 

Those who respected the religious beliefs of Scientology parishioners
willingly stopped distributing the materials. 

A small number refused. 

The Church took legal action through copyright and trade secret
law.  And when judges have deemed it necessary, U.S. Marshals have
seized computers belonging to individuals who continued to illegally
distribute its scriptures.

As with any thief caught in the act, those who had to suddenly face the
consequences of their illegal actions tried to insist they had been
wronged.  Hiding behind the cloak of the First Amendment, they squealed
"Free Speech!" 

Free speech does not mean free theft.  Nor does it mean destruction of the
rights of eight million Scientologists around the world to practice their
religion. 

-=-
Fredric Rice note: In actual fact cult houses were picketed around the
world and reports of the highly successful world-wide picket have been
coming in and made public.  Enough picketers were at enough cult houses
to cause several newspapers and magazines to include articles on the very
first world-wide picket.  Hundreds of thousands of flyers were handed out
to hundreds of thousands of people in front of cult houses and detailed
information about the cult was discussed by ighly knowledgeable a.r.s
participants.

Additionally the cult's membership continues to decline and assets are
being sold off to pay for continued legal fees and lost suits.  The cult
have _millions_ of dollars owed to dozens of people and, in fact, their
leader is in hideing to avoid a summons.