Google / Scientology + Censorship

 GOOGLE, Censorship and Scientology?
21 MARCH 2002

Is GOOGLE supporting efforts to censor the internet?
Are Americans being stopped from accessing critical information about dangers to their society?

The latest scandalous story concerns Scientology. The implications of what has occured in the past 24 hours is of global concern for people who wish to access information that is not carried by the mainstream press.

"Andreas Heldal-Lund, webmaster of http://www.xenu.net/ , got a DMCA [Digital Millenium Copyright Act] notification letter from Google earlier today. In the letter, a long list of URLs were listed as infringing, and Google apparently complied with the DMCA request by removing them." < http://www.politechbot.com/p-03281.html >

http://www.xenu.net/  is Operation Clambake. A Website that provides critical information about Scientology. It is a website dedicated to educating people about abuses relating to the Church of Scientology. (Which, by the way, many countries refuse to recognise as a church.)

GOOGLE responded to a query from Andreas Heldal-Lund with: "We removed certain specific URLs in response to a notification submitted by the Religious Technology Center and Bridge Publications under section 512(c)(3) of the the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Had we not removed these URLs, we would be subject to a claim for copyright infringement, regardless of its merits."

Does this mean that an educational website, for example, that wishes to discuss potential sexism in a Ford automobile commercial cannot replicate the commercial to illustrate its point because they will be blocked by GOOGLE?

Does this mean that satirical humour that uses corporate identities as targets will also be blocked by GOOGLE?

Does this mean that "fair use" is a useless legal concept?

"The doctrine of fair use is described at 17 U.S.C. Section 107. "Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include - (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for or nonprofit educational purposes, (2) the nature of the copyrighted work, (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

GOOGLE is advised to be fair and transparent in these matters. FACTNet recommends that if GOOGLE is blocking websites from coming up in its search engine then they should publish a list of such sites for all to see. And they should also display the reasons these sites are being blocked.

GOOGLE cannot hide behind the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and claim ignorance of larger moral issues.

GOOGLE cannot afford to be seen as being a lackey of either Big Business or other vested-interest groups. 

What is this all about?
The first principle of brainwashing is to stop alternative information. This scandal is just the latest in a litany of attempts by the Church of Scientology to stop critical information from finding its way into the mainstream press. It is not about copyrights. It never was. It is about controlling what people think.

To quote John Stuart Mill:
"On Liberty" (excerpt from Chapter 2)

"....The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error...We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate.

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.

And not only this, but fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but encumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience."

Copyright law should not be used to quell non-commercial public debate issues relating to grave social dangers. Whether information relates to public or private institutions we need open public debate on the issues of the day. We also need both public or private institutions to operate in an open and transparent manner to foster democracy and democratic debate.

We live in dangerous times. GOOGLE needs to stand up and be counted. Freedom of speech or not? Information control or not?

These are our humble opinions,
Lawrence Wollersheim and the staff of FACTNet.

To voice your own opinion - the GOOGLE contact e-mail adresses are:
Suggestions: suggestions@google.com  
Praise and complaints: comments@google.com  
Not satisfied with search results? search-quality@google.com  
Report errors, bugs and broken links: webmaster@google.com  

To watch this scandal being played out in real time:

Log into the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup to see the fur fly!

This current Scientology scandal regarding GOOGLE is being covered by these News websites:

http://ain.com.ua/web/2002/03/22/1029.html 
http://archiv.quintessenz.at/archiv/msg01903.html 
http://barrapunto.com/article.pl?sid=02/03/21/235206&mode=&threshold=
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020322/n22206750_1.html 
http://boston.internet.com/briefs/article/0,1928,2371_1009321,00.html 
http://busca.terra.com.br/wired/politica/02/03/21/pol_2.html 
http://cbc.ca/stories/2002/03/22/xenugoogle020322 
http://cs.nyu.edu/courses/spring02/V22.0004-004/nytimes.html
http://computers.sympatico.ca/news/stories/0,1856,7,00/0,1572,51233-7,00.html
http://computersweden.idg.se/text/020322-CS52
http://danny.oz.au/free-software/ 
http://davenet.userland.com/2002/03/21/scientologyAndGoogle 
http://derstandard.at/?id=922738
http://derstandard.at/?id=901725
http://dmoz.org/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Opposing_Views/Scientology/News_and_Media/ 
http://everythingisnt.com/ 
http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/phpcomments/index.php?newsid=84606&sid=1&page=1&parentid=0&crapfilter=1 
http://geek.com/news/geeknews/2002mar/gee20020322010860.htm 
http://itavisen.no/art/1298446.html
http://jim.gilliam.com/archive/2002_03_01_default.htm
http://journalism.fas.nyu.edu/opensource/readme/index.php?art_id=129&page=1
http://library.northernlight.com/FD20020415890000201.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc
http://lists.infoanarchy.org/pipermail/p2pj/2002-March/000606.html 
http://lists.insecure.org/politech/2002/Mar/0079.html
http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/dmca-activists/2002-March/000006.html
http://megarad.com/article.php?sid=625 
http://microcontentnews.com/articles/googleupdate.htm 
http://msn.com.com/2100-1107-867708.html
http://napps.nwfusion.com/compendium/archives/00000008.html 
http://netscape.com.com/2100-1105-866058.html 
http://netscape.com.com/2100-1105-866574.html 
http://neworder.box.sk/smsread.php?newsid=3686 
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-865936.htmlá 
http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?section=Politics&storyId=361627&topic=clambake  
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1949000/1949879.stm
http://nyheter.idg.se/display.pl?ID=020417-SOS1
http://ojr.usc.edu/content/ejc.cfm?request=1097#6 
http://overlawyered.com/ 
http://portal.bg/news.php?cat=main&read=20022203001
http://radio.weblogs.com/0101901/2002/03/03.html 
http://resourceshelf.blogspot.com/?/2002_03_01_resourceshelf_archive.html
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=WRKEFR0K1SCWGCRBAEOCFEYKEEARKIWD?type=internetnews&StoryID=730033 
http://ricn.ru/scandals/material/3542/
http://rollberg.antville.org/topics/Zensur/26729/ 
http://scriptingnews.userland.com/myOpinionAboutScientology
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/02/sd0415-google-dmca.html 
http://sewatch.com/sereport/02/04-dmca.html 
http://slashdot.org/yro/02/03/21/0453200.shtml?tid=99á 
http://slashdot.org/yro/02/04/12/1742220.shtml?tid=153 
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=76&ncid=76&e=2&u=/nyt/20020422/tc_nyt/google_runs_into_copyright_dispute 
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020322/wr_nm/tech_google_dc_2 
http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51233,00.html 
http://www.abctella.it/article.php?sid=205
http://www.agsd.ch/7aktuell.htm 
http://www.anchordesk.co.uk/anchordesk/commentary/columns/0,2415,7111976,00.html 
http://www.applelinks.com/articles/2002/04/20020415121749.shtml#104 
http://www.at-web.de/google/operation_clambake.htm 
http://www.beebware.com/directory/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Opposing_Views/Scientology/News_and_Media 
http://www.berlingske.dk/artikel:aid=177120/
http://www.bitvise.com/news.html 
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/03/22/xenugoogle020322 
http://www.cietnis.lv/?id=929069
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/03/22/google.reut/index.htmlá 
http://www.cosmiverse.com/tech03220202.html 
http://www.clickz.com/search/opt/article.php/1014461
http://www.dailynews.com/news/articles/0402/07/new15.asp
http://www.davosnewbies.com/2002/03/22 
http://www.davosnewbies.com/discuss/msgReader$842
http://www.davosnewbies.com/discuss/msgReader$843
http://www.digi.no/digi98.nsf/pub/md20020322084101_pcs_42384069
http://www.digl-watch.com/copyright.htm 
http://www.digitoday.fi/digi98fi.nsf/pub/md20020322115133_kni_17573815
http://www.dir.search.ch/World/English/Society/Issues/Intellectual_Property/Copyrights/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act/G 
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/16817 
http://www.emerce.nl/archives/nieuws/Regelgeving/13734.html
http://www.etsectera.com/update/scientologi/google.html 
http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=1870&a=24517,00.asp
http://www.exmosis.net/xenu.shtml
http://www.fitug.de/debate/0203/msg00148.html 
http://www.fitug.de/news/horns/horns210302100046.html 
http://www.fnl.nl/news/shownews.php3?TickerID=2002.03.21-bho-000 
http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2002/03/22/rtr549273.html 
http://www.fourstatenews.com/ 
http://www.golem.de/0203/18971.html 
http://www.grrl.com/phun/phun264.html
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jo-21.03.02-001/ 
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jo-21.03.02-001/á
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/html/result.xhtml?url=/tp/deutsch/special/auf/12187/1.html
http://www.hindustantimes.com/neweconomy/internet220302a.shtml
http://www.homepagedesign.ch/source/news_archiv_detail.asp?ID=186 
http://www.hypocrites.com/article.php?sid=4185
http://www.iactual.com/iActual-Home.cfm?Action=Noticia&IDN=16305
http://www.idealrhombus.com/archives/week_2002_03_17.html
http://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/200203/22/20020322133700653_CS52/20020322133700653_CS52.dbp.asp
http://www.iht.com/articles/55593.html
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=154205&group=webcastá 
http://www.inficad.com/~thurmunit/internet/observer/ 
http://www.infoanarchy.org/story/2002/3/20/2037/19185 
http://www.infosec.ch/faelle/f_infonews.htm#fall1739 
http://www.intern.de/news/2693.html 
http://www.internet-magazine.com/news/view.asp?id=2387 
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article/0,,10_1009321,00.html 
http://www.itweek.co.uk/News/1130581
http://www.km.ru/news/view.asp?id=2F18124DAAE24EA7B5B1D3183690D69C
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/3/20/8222/92911á 
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/business/technology/2910195.htm 
http://www.librarystuff.net/archives/2002_03_24_index.html 
http://www.linuxfw.org/articles/government_article-4659.html
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5997 
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5997&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5997&amp;mode=thread&amp;order=0&amp;thold=0
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6007&amp;mode=thread&amp;order=0&amp;thold=0
http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6041
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/government_article-4659.html 
http://www.lisnews.com/article.php3?sid=20020415145829
http://www.lisnews.com/article.php3?sid=20020423205023
http://www.lisnews.com/article.php3?sid=20020322111203
http://www.livenet.ch/news/details.php?n_id=4104&cat_id=10
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/business/technology/3200100.htm
http://www.membrana.ru/articles/internet/2002/03/22/173400.html
http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/15684 
http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/googlechurch.htm 
http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/googleround3.htm 
http://www.morons.org/articles/7/1472 
http://www.msnbc.com/news/728041.asp?0si=- 
http://www.netslaves.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=005&action=display&num=1016861532&start=0 
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175421.html 
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/utenriks/1741866.html
http://www.onepointzero.com/comments/entry1272 
http://www.operatingthetan.com/google/á
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-insinsonlinespeech042802apr28.story?coll=orl%2Dopinion%2Dheadlines
http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/16938.html    
http://www.paradox1x.org/archives/00000397.shtml 
http://www.pcwelt.de/news/internet/22662/ 
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/technology/2910195.htm 
http://www.plastic.com/article.pl?sid=02/04/12/2151230 
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=scientologyá
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03281.html     
http://www.poynter.org/tidbits/ 
http://www.post-gazette.com/interact/20020425radin3.asp
http://www.privacydigest.com/2002/04/12
http://www.privacyparts.com/archives/000725.html 
http://www.punto-informatico.it/p.asp?i=39820
http://www.pushby.com/queue/archives/cat_intellectual_property.html
http://www.quicktopic.com/13/H/X7PBh2nZVWBhb 
http://www.rc3.org/ 
http://www.redwolf.com.au/fiction/ 
http://www.religion.dk/artikel:aid=17751
http://www.reuters.co.uk/printerfriendly.jhtml?StoryID=733723 
http://www.roelands.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=738 
http://www.rp-online.de/news/multimedia/online/2002-0322/sekte.html 
http://www.searchutilities.com/news/archive/49/1510.html
http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner?30REQEVENT=&REQAUTH=21046&14001REQSUB=REQINT1=52212 
http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner?30REQEVENT=&REQAUTH=21046&14001REQSUB=REQINT1=52674
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/3185788.htm
http://www.star.niu.edu/forum/articles/032502-our.asp 
http://www.suchfibel.de/news/ScientologyerzwingtSeite.htm 
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/aktuell/sz/artikel146484.php
http://www.symlink.ch/articles/02/03/21/1422209.shtml 
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-040402B
http://www.techfocus.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=377 
http://www.techfocus.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=377&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/opinion/story/0,24330,3377400,00.html 
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/archive/23-4-19102-23-45-30.html 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24533.html 
http://www.travelersdiagram.com/
http://www.truerwords.net/index/2002/03/21 
http://www.unser-augsburg.de/community/article.php?sid=312
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/22/google.htm 
http://www.usethesource.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?sid=02/03/24/1745222 
http://www.uzine.net/breve790.html
http://www.virtualchase.com/tvcalert/apr02/3apr02.html
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130581 
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum44/59.htm
http://www.webwereld.nl/nieuws/10695.phtml 
http://www.winterspeak.com/2002_03_01_archive.html#75029769 
http://www.x86.pl/1/default.asp?IDN=12725&T=2&IDD=
http://www.xenu.net/news/
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20020326wo62.htm 
http://www.zataz.com/zataz/news.php?id=776&file=02.html
http://www.zvedavec.org/pocitaceSQL.php?clanek_id=288
http://www1.asisomos.com/canales/one_news.asp?IDNews=252 
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-866058.html 
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-867708.html 
http://zgp.org/linux-elitists/3C9ADA57.5CD45FE@kuro5hin.org.html 
http://zork.net/pipermail/free-sklyarov/2002-March/005213.html

The origins of Scientology's efforts to censor the Internet is discussed in these pages:

http://www.operatingthetan.com/google/ 
http://www.xtdnet.nl/paul/PrioriyTelecom-Books/RoadToXenu/xenu.html 
http://www2.thecia.net/users/rnewman/scientology/home.html 
http://www.xs4all.nl/~felipe/cos/ 
http://www.cyberlaw.com/cylw0495.html 
http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/Scien30.html 
http://www.skeptic.com/03.3.jl-jj-scientology.html 
http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/CoS/ 
http://www.watchman.org/sci/c0$p1.htm 
http://atheism.about.com/cs/scientologyvsth/ 
http://www.lermanet.com/cisar/010319b.htm 
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1999/06/07/editorial1.html 
http://www.factnet.org/briefing.htm 
http://www.antisectes.net/google.htm
http://www.antisectes.net/google1.htm
http://www.antisectes.net/google2.htm
http://www.antisectes.net/google3.htm

Snapshot of the Google-DMOZ Directory covering this topic - January 2003

Governments in Opposition to Scientology:

This article in TIME Magazine about Scientology called "Scientology: The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power" is one of the most famous and is a vivid introduction to the subject of Scientology and the potential pitfalls of becoming a Scientologist.

Special Scientology copyright trade secret disclaimer

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