Hon. Ronald M. Whyte United States District Judge United States District Court Northern District of California 280 S. First Street, #2112 San Jose California 95113-3008 May 14, 1996 [cc: Magistrate Judge Edward A. Infante] Re: Religious Technology Center, v. Grady Ward No. C 96-20207 Dear Judge Whyte: Once again the plaintiff Religious Technology Center has tried to intimidate me rather than litigate issues in a reasonable manner. After filing my Motion to Dissolve Injunction on May 11, 1996, I received the following electronic letter from Helena Kobrin: Return-Path: Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 19:02:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Helena Kobrin Subject: To: grady@netcom.com cc: trh@hoganlaw.com Dear Mr. Ward, I am e-mailing you regarding a posting to the Internet of your Motion to Dissolve Injunction. The titles of the works contained in the NOTs Series, set forth in Exhibit A to your motion, contain copyrighted material. Your filing of these titles in Court without placing them under seal constitutes a violation of the Preliminary Injunction entered by Judge Whyte, as does your distribution of these documents to others. The mere fact of your filing a motion to dissolve the injunction does not relieve you of your responsibility to comply with the injunction. Therefore, if you do not arrange for all copies of this Exhibit A which have been posted to the Internet to be taken down immediately, and retrieve copies of Exhibit A from each person to whom you have distributed them, we will have no choice but to file a motion for contempt. As you have not met your obligation of filing this under seal, we are also requesting that the Court seal it. Furthermore, I am placing you on notice to preserve all information regarding the identity of anyone to whom you have furnished this document either electronically or in hard copy. Sincerely, Helena Kobrin The Motion that she challenges that I filed to your court contains an exhibit with the titles of the respective NOTs documents, not the documents or any portions thereof themselves, as forbidden by my preliminary injunction. The titles run from one common English word to twelve words with a median of five words. They can hardly be said to reveal any proprietary processes claimed by the plaintiff nor to exceed even a strict construction of the fair use Section 107 of the Copyright Act. Using the plaintiff's logic, how much identification of the documents in question must I be limited to in order to carry out my defense? Perhaps using the words "HCOB" or "OTS" or "NED" will engender a contempt threat, perhaps listing the dates of their conception such as "22 September 1978 Issue II" will engender such a threat; perhaps mentioning that there exist exactly 54 issues will be the basis of the next threat? While Ms. Kobrin is free to be a religious zealot as her privilege under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, she needs to distinguish between her duty under law as an officer of the court and her rather extreme view of her client's legitimate intellectual property. While I am certain that left to the plaintiff that she would like to seal everything surrounding this litigation and the other litigation that scientology enterprises are engaged in, I hope I hope that the court sees fit to keep the proceedings as open as possible while at the same time preserving the legitimate and reasonable claims of property rights due to the plaintiff. Respectfully Submitted, Grady Ward Defendant, in Pro Per cc: Thomas R. Hogan, SBN 042048 Magistrate Judge Edward Infante