The Fishman affidavit is an affidavit filed in an earlier California case involving the Church of Scientology. The affidavit, which included paraphrases of portions of some of the Church's "OT" documents, was part of the public record in that case and was open to the public for inspection and copying for two years. Soon after the Fishman affidavit was posted on a.r.s, the Church of Scientology obtained an ex parte court order to seize the computer equipment and written documents of the Virginia man who posted the affidavit.
The Church also brought a lawsuit against him claiming copyright infringement and trade secret violations. When the Washington Post published two articles about the seizure, including quotations from the OT documents that the Post obtained from the California court files, the Church of Scientology sued the Washington Post, claiming that the newspaper had conspired with the individual from Virginia in order to harm the Church.
The second lawsuit involves F.A.C.T.Net, a Colorado organization operating a bulletin board system as an electronic library and archive of information about cults and religious organizations that it believes to be dangerous. The man who posted the Fishman affidavit on a.r.s. was a recently appointed director of F.A.C.T.Net. After the seizure and lawsuit against the director, F.A.C.T.Net posted a notice supporting him on a.r.s. Less than two weeks after the Virginia seizure, the Church of Scientology obtained another ex parte court order to go into the homes of F.A.C.T.Net's Colorado directors, seizing all their computer equipment, disks and paper documents and effectively taking the F.A.C.T.Net library off-line.
In both cases, the respective U.S. District Courts recently have denied the preliminary injunction requests submitted by the Church, expressing doubt that the Church can prove its allegations of copyright infringement and trade secret violations. In addition, the Church has been ordered to give up possession of the materials that were seized. Appeals from these orders have been lodged by the Church with the Fourth and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals.
These cases have been heavily publicized, receiving publicity through the major newspapers, TV stations and wire services, both in North America and in Europe. The European coverage of the cases intensified when the Church of Scientology threatened to seize the computer equipment of a Dutch internet provider who had allowed one of its users to post a copy of the Fishman affidavit on a personal web site. The Dutch internet users were shocked by this action, and responded by posting the Fishman affidavit on numerous additional web sites, some even went so far as to plaster hundreds of paper copies of the affidavit throughout the streets of Amsterdam.
Faegre & Benson is counsel for the defendants in the Virginia and Colorado cases discussed in this article. For more information about these cases as they develop, look at Scientology Ruling or on the web site at www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/scientology/home.html, operated by Ron Newman.
Questions
If you have any questions, please contact Dan Tysver by e-mail at dtysver@faegre.com.
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