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hhistory 4/10
By Deana HolmesSun, 7 May 1995 19:53:48 -0600 (MDT)
[PART 4 OF 10 OF HISTORY OF COS & THE NET]
The lawyers for Scientology went positively ballistic after this was posted. On February 27, Helena Kobrin sent a letter to Judge Whyte saying that Dennis was in violation of the temporary restraining order. Kobrin's letter follows.
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Faithful Reader,
This letter was delivered, also to the wrong address, today to me and the Judge.
Now I'm in for it.
+--------------------------------+
HELENA K. KOBRIN
February 27, 1995
FAX AND U.S. MAIL
Hon. Ronald M, Whyte United States District Judge United States District Court Northern District of Californi 280 S. lst Street, #2112 San Jose California 95113-3008
Re: Religious Technology Center, et al. v. Netcom Onlin Communication Services, Inc., et al,, No, C-95-2009
Dear Judge Whyte:
As you currently have before you the question of the scope of the preliminary injunction to be issued against Dennis Erlich, we wish to bring to your attention what we believe to be a clear and egregious violation of the temporary restraining order by Mr. Erlich on Sunday, February 26, 1995. We will be submitting the appropriate application to address Erlichfs contempt, but we fel this should be brought to your immediate attention by this
I am including with this letter a declaration by Warren McShane regarding Mr. Erlichts, February 26 reposting of the same Class VIII "Assists" tape transcript which is included as one of the copyright and trade secrets violations of the works of L. Ro Hubbard listed in Exhibit B to the complaint. The declaration details that the posting was the same as the posting on which th complaint is based. It consists of eight pages out of a 25 page transcript, and also includes 19 additional lines of language from Advanced Technology materials in a "glossary" that Mr. Erlich has included at the end.
As discussed in the fair use briefings which we have provided you, this extensive copying can in no way be deemed fai use. It is also egregious in light of your warnings to Mr. Erlich at the hearing to be careful and not to engage in any extensive ostin s and a flagrant violation of the Court's order.
None of these things deterred him from this violation of the temporary restraining order. It therefore appears that nothing short of a full ban on Mr. Erlich's postings of Church materials pending the resolution of this lawsuit will deter him from continuing his violations of RTC's rights, as he will continue to claim ignorance and say he thought what he was doing was permissible.
We request that you take this violation into account in deciding the scope of the preliminary injunction to be issued an whether you will hold further oral argument on the subject. In light of Mr. Erlich's, at best, deliberate decision to remain ignorant of the law or, at worst, wilful violations of the law, it seems appropriate to order that he may not post any of the copyrighted materials during the pendency of the litigation. RTC respectfully requests that the Court issue such an order as part of the injunction.
It should also be noted that Mr. Erlich has a copy of this Advanced Technology material when it was impounded under the Writ of Seizure. His possession of this transcript itself appears to violate the court's intentions.
Respectfully Submitted, Helena Kobrin Counsel for Plaintiffs
HKK:mfh Enc. cc: Randolf J. Rice, Richard Allan Hornin, Dennis Erlich, Thomas M.Small Andrew Wilson
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology From: dennis.l.erlich@support.com Subject: Kobrin jumps on an er 2/2 Message-ID: <9502271941.0RO4A02@support.com> Date: Mon, 27 Feb 95 19:41:47 -0800
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+--------------------------------+
Headed for the barry place. This must be the sad and like weepy part of the story. +---------------------------------------+ Rev. Dennis L Erlich * * the inFormer * * <dennis.l.erlich@support.com> that person (tm)
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Dennis wrote a letter apologizing to the judge for the incident, and admitting that the evidence may have been outside of the judge's amended TRO.
A copy of this letter was sent to CoS attorney Thomas Small, and near as can be made out, was passed to "Vera Wallace" in the Office of Special Affairs, the organization within the Church of Scientology that has been attempting to "handle" Dennis and the Net. "Vera" posted the following (I have censored out Dennis' addresses):
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The following is a copy of the letter which Dennis Erlich sent to Judge Whyte after he posted more trade secret/copyrighted materials on the ars newsgroup earlier this week.
Dennis apologizes but his true color shows through when he says that he will not post anything until such time as the judge has had time to rule on the ownershipo of the material. Dennis hasn't gotten the message yet, there is no question about ownership Dennis, that was already decided in the Vien case.
Here is the letter:
"February 27, 1995, 4:5 PM
"To: Hon. Ronald Whyte "From: Dennis L. Erlich
"Re: C95-20091
"Your Honor,
"I just received your Amended TRO and I'm afraid that yesterday morning prior to reading it, I may have violated the spirit, if not the letter, of it.
"I have endeavored to undo the error by getting the offending post cancelled through Netcom.
"I would not have posted it if I had had your honor's amended order in my hand. I will not post anything that might be questionable again until such time as your honor has had an opportunity to rule on ownership of the material.
"My correct mailing and residence address is XXX XXXXX XXX XXXXXXXX, XX XXXXX. Please do not mail to my place of employment (XXXX XX XXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XX).
"Once again, my apologies to the court and the plaintiffs for this error.
"Sincerely,
"Dennis L. Erlich "in pro per
"cc: Thomas Small"
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Dennis vehemently denied sending the letter to anyone besides the judge and Thomas Small.
(This has been edited to eliminate the original post by "Vera", which also contained Dennis' name and address.)
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A Reader asks:
> Did you post this letter publicly or give Vera permission to
>repost it?
>
> [name deleted]
<snip--ed.>
I certainly did not give permission. My enemies already know where I live and work. Now so do my friends. +---------------------------------------+ Rev. Dennis L Erlich * * the inFormer * * <dennis.l.erlich@support.com> that person (tm)
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Although Homer Wilson Smith has not been on the best of terms with Dennis, he was quite appalled by this and posted the following:
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You mean to tell me that Vera posted a PRIVATE letter from you to your attorney's, the Judge and the Church. Didn't Small Larkin and Kidde get on your case for posting their private letter to you?
I suppose your letter is court record now, but indications are that public record does not mean public domain. On the other hand if public record DOES mean public domain, then I say its time to post the Fishman Affidavit, ALL of it.
Homer
<snip>
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This behaviour was par for the course for "Vera Wallace." At the same time she revealed the real name of "Deeny3," a former Scientologist posting from America On-Line. Maggie Council wrote the following criticism.
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On 27 Feb 1995, Vera Wallace wrote:
> deeny3@aol.com (Deeny3) wrote:
> >
> > Hey, 1) I wasn't; 2) it couldn't have been your pay since YOU WEREN'T
> > THERE. Unless, of course, you're lying about your name. If I *was* guilty,
> > why wasn't I prosecuted Vera?
>
> Tubby, you are the one who is lying and you know it. How about sending
> back what you stole from my pay checks. You admitted on more than one
> occasion that you stole the money. You are lucky that you did not get
> prosecuted. It does not change the fact that you ripped off the money
> and you probably enjoyed spending MY PAY at the trough.
>
*sigh*
Vera, take your transparent dead-agent campaign somewhere else. You came onto a.r.s. with absolutely no credibility. Now you have even less. You see, a.r.s. has this "Credibility Tone Scale," and right now you are operating at -3.0, 'Obvious Hogwash.' Your other posts have been -4.5, 'Thinking Everyone Else Must Be Really Stupid' and -2.4, 'Parroting Idiocy.'
Is this your OSA "hat?" To be the "bad cop?" Maybe you need to take advantage of the Celebrity Centre's free acting lessons...
You have no place here if you won't stay on topic. If you have private business with Deeny, conduct it in private e-mail.
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Helena Kobrin also threatened Grady Ward and Martin Hunt on February 27th. (Nico Garcia had been threatened on the 14th.) Grady's response to Helena's letter follows.
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: Dear Mr. Ward:
: I represent Religious Technology Center ("RTC"), the owner
: of the confidential Advanced Technology of the religion of
: Scientology, and the holder of exclusive rights under the
: copyrights applicable to the Advanced Technology materials.
: Among these copyrighted and confidential materials are the
: Advanced Technology materials of certain levels known as
: "Operating Thetan Section III," "the L Rundowns The L-12 Rundown
: Step 6," and "NED for OTs Series 1."
: We have been informed that you have posted 11 pages of
: "Operating Thetan Section III," 4 pages of "the L Rundowns The L-
: 12 Rundown Step 6," 3 pages of "NED for OT's Series 43," and 5
: pages of "NED for OTs Series 1" onto the Internet without the
: authorization of our client, who, of course, would not have given
: such authorization had it been requested. Your action violates
: our client's legal rights in that it is the unauthorized making
: of electronic copies of the copyrighted material and the
: unauthorized disclosure of trade secrets materials.
: These actions constitute violations of the United States
: Copyright laws entitling our client to damages, an injunction,
: and impounding of materials and equipment used in perpetrating
: the infringing acts. It is essential that you take immediate and
: effective action to remove the unauthorized copies from the
: Internet, and that you refrain from any repetition of this or
: similar acts in the future.
: I will expect an immediate response from you with a
: statement of your willingness to comply with these demands. If
: you do not comply immediately, I expect to be authorized to
: initiate legal action to compel compliance.
: Very truly yours,
: Helena K. Kobrin
Assuming this post is not a prank by some disturbed individual, I am shocked that anyone would believe that I would infringe their copyright under the US and Berne Copyright Convention.
You can be sure that I never have had infringing material in my possession or transmitted the garbage you call your holy scrip. If I did you can be sure that I would dispose of it in a way that would express my disgust at your attempted trampling of the First Amendment rights of the millions of people on Usenet internationally and the continuing, possibly criminal, enterprise of Scientology and/or Dianetics.
I encourage all Usenet users to fully explore their rights under the "fair use" doctrine of the US Copyright Law to expose the sham enterprise known as "Scientology" and to assert their freedom to fairly comment on an important public issue that, you, Helena Kobrin and RTC Inc. have thrust into the vortex of public comment.
Secondly I have heard reports that you, Helena Kobrin and RTC have instituted the tactic of cancelling posts to Usenet by fraud. This interference of data in interstate commerce is a violation of both state and federal law and if substantiated will subject you and officers of RTC to both civil and criminal damages, including civil forfeiture.
Under RICO statutes, you may be liable for treble damages as well as forfeiture of all assets used in such a continuing criminal enterprise.
I will expect an immediate response from you with a statement of your willingness to comply with this demand. If you do not comply immediately, I will file a complaint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the California State Attorney General. Continued harassment may also be grounds for dismissal from the California Bar.
Lastly, since you are aware of the effectiveness of the cryptography privacy and authentication program called PGP (telnet to net-dist.mit.edu and use passowrd "getpgp" for more information) I have reason to doubt that this unsigned PGP message is actually from Helena K. Kolbrin, esq. Please register your key and sign your messages in the future or use standard methods of legal service.
Grady Ward 3449 Martha Ct. Arcata, CA 95521
1.0 707 826 7715 (voice /24hr FAX)