Article 23484 of alt.religion.scientology: Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,comp.org.eff.talk,misc.legal.computing,alt.clearing.technology Path: news.cybercom.net!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!col.hp.com!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!sthomson From: sthomson@netcom.com (shelley thomson) Subject: LERMA HEARING: BULLETIN from **Biased Journalism** Message-ID: Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 01:52:14 GMT Lines: 123 Sender: sthomson@netcom22.netcom.com Xref: news.cybercom.net alt.religion.scientology:23484 comp.org.eff.talk:8793 misc.legal.computing:2567 alt.clearing.technology:1463 **Biased Journalism** : a net magazine designed to compensate for the shortcomings of the professional news media. Copyright 1995 Shelley Thomson; all rights reserved. Mail, articles and comment may be directed to . Netiquette will be observed with all communication, except for the following: harassing or threatening mail will be posted to the net immediately. Read at your own risk! This is **Biased Journalism**! BULLETIN: LERMA HEARING SPECIAL EDITION, August 25, 1995 First Amendment activist Arnie Lerma, the Washington Post and two Post reporters confronted emissaries of the Church of Scientology in a court of law today. A great deal of lawyer talk ensued. **Biased Journalism** is grateful to our on-site observers, who must remain anonymous. As most readers will know, on August 12 the Church entered Lerma's residence, conducted a search, and seized his computer equipment and floppy disks. This was a catastrophe for Lerma, who earns his livelihood with his computer and is, furthermore, a writer and publisher. The seized computer contained his private correspondence and all his business records. It was has not been returned. At the hearing, observers said there was long argument between the Washington Post and the Church. The Post introduced evidence of the past conduct of the Church. However, Judge Brinkema deferred ruling on the Temporary Restraining Order issued against the Post. The Judge agreed with Lerma's attorneys that the computer should be in the hands of a mutually agreed upon third party. The party currently holding the computer on behalf of the Church, I-Net of Gaithersburg, said that so far three word searches had been done in Lerma's computer data: for "Hubbard," "OT Course" and "Thetan." The judge asked Earle Cooley [Church attorney] "Isn't this too broad?" Cooley yammered. [Don't blame **us**. This is exactly what our correspondent said.] Judge: I understand you want to do another search? Cooley: yes. The judge thereupon gave a direct order to I-Net: *no more searches.* I-Net was also ordered not to alter the hard disk. Judge Brinkema stated that there certainly was not enough evidence to uphold the action against the Post, and that the material in the Post article fell within fair use. The case was taken under advisement. No rulings were made today. Another source reports: The Post introduced evidence documenting past abusive actions by the Church of Scientology. There were allegations made that private mail on Mr Lerma's computer was the only available source of some claims made by the Church against the Post. The judge did not like this, and stated that another occurrence would result in immediate sanctions against the Church of Scientology. Any readers who suspect that they are being harassed on account of private correspondence they may have had with Mr. Lerma are encouraged to notify him . [A note of clarification: for simplicity, we have used "Church of Scientology" in this article. We assume that the actual plaintiffs are Bridge Publications, Inc. and the Religious Technology Center, who have been responsible for the recent spate of copyright/trade secret infringement lawsuits. In fact it has not yet been established that Bridge Publications and RTC have standing to sue; this is one of the issues in the Dennis Erlich case. Who really owns the copyrights? How do Bridge Technologies and RTC relate to the Church of Scientology, International? These questions will be addressed in court in the coming months.] --Moving right along-- **Biased Journalism** recently received a threatening letter from Mr. Elliot Abelson, apparently representing the Religious Technology Center. This was surprising inasmuch as **Biased Journalism** has never published a single line of alleged copyrighted or trade secret material. It appears that some people lack a sense of humor. Stay tuned. The End