When computers are seized because they contain allegedly stolen intellectual property, and police pierce the security anonymous remailers,the days of the Net as a cozy, cocktail party are over. Welcome to a flame war with real bullets. When computers are seized because they contain allegedly stolen intellectual property, or the security of anonymous remailers is pierced by police, alt.scientology.war the days of the Internet as a cozy, private, intellectual cocktail party are over. Welcome to mortal combat between two alien cultures ...

[Shorter version of Are searches in civil cases also violating rights? | Los Angeles Times (California) | 23 October 1995.] IT'S AN issue of copyright against constitutional rights. Some copyright holders, particularly software makers, are using a special court order to send their employees legally into one's home. At 6:30 a.m. on July 26, off-duty U.S. marshals and officials from software maker Novell Inc. rang the doorbell at Joseph and Miki Casalino's home outside Salt Lake City. They were there, ...

At 6:30 on the morning of July 26, a contingent of off-duty U.S. marshals and officials from software maker Novell Inc. rang the doorbell at Joseph and Miki Casalino's home outside Salt Lake City. Thinking her husband had forgotten something when he left for work, Miki padded to the door in her robe and was shocked to find a marshal flashing his badge. They were there, they told her, to search and seize any and all computer bulletin board (bbs) equipment ...

The growing popularity of the Internet has spawned discussion groups that offer something for just about everyone, from lovers of Jean-Luc Picard (try alt.sexy.bald.captains) to haters of a certain children's television program (alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die) to obsessives consumed by politics, computer lore, comic books or the hidden messages embedded in a single rock song (alt.meter-maid.lovely.rita). Few newsgroups, though, have drawn the kind of following now evident on alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.), an international debating circle concerning the Church of Scientology. Always controversial, in recent months ...

IN THE ONLINE BRAWL OVER SCIENTOLOGY, INTERNET USERS DISCOVER THAT VIRTUAL REALITY BITES BACK.SHOWDOWN IN CYBERSPACE THE BATTLE OVER SCIENTOLOGY'S SECRETS IGNITES A HOLY WAR ON THE INTERNET. Lawrence Wollersheim's hands shake as he reads his notes, ticking off the damage done to his computers. Surrounding the 46-year-old Boulder resident is a cluster of reporters and, beyond that, a ring of glowering, dark-suited men (and one woman wearing a clerical collar), all packed into a hallway of the federal courthouse in ...

It was 9:30 and Arnie Lerma was lounging in his living room in Arlington, drinking his Saturday morning coffee, hanging. Suddenly, a knock at the door — who could it be at this hour? — and boom, before he could force anything out of his mouth, they were pouring into his house: federal marshals, lawyers, computer technicians, cameramen. They stayed for three hours last Saturday. They inventoried and confiscated everything Lerma cherished: his computer, every disk in the place, his client ...

ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 13 — The Church of Scientology is battling a band of on-line dissidents who have used the Internet to mail out globally its secret scriptures, for which some members must pay thousands of dollars. On Saturday, as a result of a copyright infringement lawsuit, United States marshals here seized the computer of a former church employee who had electronically posted a 136-page text that he said was available in court records. The former employee, Arnaldo P. Lerma, 44, ...

"We believe that all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others." — From "The Creed of the Church of Scientology" IT WAS A GLORIOUS DAY FOR A PICNIC, WARM, CLEAR and bright. Even that old cynic, Sunset Boulevard, looked young and innocent under the sun's radiant benevolence. All around the parking lot of the Church of Scientology's, "Big Blue" headquarters, ...

The Church of Scientology last week filed suit in a bitter dispute over Internet postings that raises questions about the responsibility of network managers for policing their end users. The church sued former member Dennis Erlich, a North Hollywood, Calif., bulletin board system (BBS), and Internet provider Netcom On-Line Services, Inc. for copyright violations. The church alleges that Erlich used the bulletin board, which relies on Netcom for Usenet connectivity, to post copyrighted church teachings. The church is seeking monetary damages ...

Perturbations, pleasures and predicaments on the information superhighway: The controversial Church of Scientology is not making any new friends on the Internet. In recent weeks, attorneys for the church have threatened legal action against people who they say post church documents in the alt.religion.scientology discussion group. Now the church wants to shut down the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup entirely, claiming its top-secret "scriptures" are being revealed, and its copyrights and trade secrets violated. "We are trying to deal with an anarchy created by ...