NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Alt.religion.scientology

The newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (often abbreviated a.r.s) is a Usenet newsgroup started in 1991 to discuss the controversial philosophy known as Scientology, as well as the Church of Scientology, which claims exclusive intellectual property rights thereto and is viewed by some as a dangerous cult. A.r.s has become the focal point of a violent, aggressive battle known as Scientology vs. the Internet, which has taken place both online and in the courts. Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A Scientology Center on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California Scientology is a system of beliefs, teachings and rituals, originally established as a secular philosophy in 1952 by science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, then recharacterized by him in 1953 as an applied religious philosophy. ... Official Scientology Cross Symbol The Church of Scientology was founded by author L. Ron Hubbard as an organization dedicated to the practice of Scientology, an applied religious philosophy formulated by Hubbard. ... In law, particularly in common law jurisdictions, intellectual property or IP refers to a legal entitlement which sometimes attaches to the expressed form of an idea, or to some other intangible subject matter. ... In religion and sociology, a cult is a group of people (often a new religious movement) devoted to beliefs and goals which may be contradictory to those held by the majority of society. ... Scientology versus the Internet is the colloquial term for a long-running online dispute between the Church of Scientology and a number of the Churchs online critics. ...

The original Usenet newgroup message used to create the newsgroup was formatted in a manner to disguise the actual identity of the poster. A bogus email address, "miscaviage@flag.sea.org" (a misspelling of "David Miscavige," the current head of Scientology's Religious Technology Center), was inserted into the newsgroup creation message. Because of this, persons speaking in favor of Scientology frequently claim that "a forgery" was used to create the newsgroup. Scientology has used this argument in its requests to have the entire newsgroup removed from Usenet, but this argument has been nearly unanimously rejected by system administrators and ISPs alike. David Miscavige is the chairman of the board for Religious Technology Center, an organization that was founded by the Church of Scientology to control all of the copyrighted material authored by church founder L. Ron Hubbard. ...

The online "war" first came to the attention of Internet users in general when Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin attempted to remove the entire newsgroup from Usenet. On January 11, 1995, an rmgroup message (a command designed to remove a newsgroup) was posted to Usenet containing the following statement: January 11 is the 11th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

"We request that you remove the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup from your site. The reasons for requesting its removal are: (1) It was started with a forged message; (2) not discussed on alt.config; (3) it has the name "scientology" in its title which is a trademark and is misleading, as a.r.s. is mainly used for flamers to attack the Scientology religion; (4) it has been and continues to be heavily abused with copyright and trade secret violations and serves no purpose other than condoning these illegal practices. -- Helena K. Kobrin, Counsel for trademark and copyright owner" [1]

This message was largely ignored (and openly protested) by system administrators who carried the newsgroup. Rather than removing it from Usenet, the newsgroup's popularity exploded. For a period during the first half of 1995, the newsgroup was one of the most popular and active on the entire Internet, with message traffic greater than the vast majority of newsgroups.

As time passed and the Scientology online battle continued without end, the newsgroup's popularity lessened somewhat. It still maintains heavy traffic, averaging three to four hundred messages per day.

Critics of Scientology claim that Scientologists are forbidden from reading or accessing the newsgroup. As proof, they point to a software package distributed by the organization to its members. This software package, described as an "Internet filter," blocks anyone using the program from accessing the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, many Web sites containing information critical of Scientology, and all references to the names of many vocal critics of the organization. This Internet filter program has been dubbed "Scieno Sitter" by critics.