**Biased Journalism** : a net magazine designed to compensate for the shortcomings of the professional news media.

Copyright 1996 Shelley Thomson; all rights reserved.

Mail, articles and comment may be directed to <sthomson@netcom.com>. Netiquette will be observed with all communication, except for the following: harassing or threatening mail will be posted to the net immediately.

**Biased Journalism**

Volume II, issue 3: February 2, 1996.

Contents:

  1. US Government Bans Free Speech on the Net;
  2. Startling new Information About OTIII;
  3. Robert Dole's Exploding Head and the Telecom Bill;
  4. Guilty as Charged.

Read at your own risk. This is **Biased Journalism**!

1. US Government Seizes Control of the Net

Late news reported that Congress passed, and the President is sure to sign, the new telecom bill. This bill represents an enormous giveaway of power and wealth to a number of large corporations, and may be the death knell of small internet service providers and independent bulletin boards. Large companies with ambitions in the field spent fortunes above and below the table to bring this bill to pass. A beleaguered President Clinton, facing a difficult election year, is eager to sign it.

The bill contained language allowing very extensive regulation of speech on the net, with serious penalties for transgressions. If applied to libraries, the shelves would be stripped almost bare. Internet service providers are made responsible for policing the communication of their users. This affects web pages, irc chat and email as well as posts to newsgroups.

The bill permits the consolidation of communications facilities in the hands of a few large corporations. Apparently the desired result parallels cable television service, in which the hapless subscriber must pay whatever his local monopoly demands or do without. If the bill stands, small independent service providers and bulletin boards will go the way of the small independent newspapers.

If our format allowed for a political cartoon, we would offer one today in which Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore, Dianne Feinstein and sundry other politicans are pissing on the Bill of Rights. Indeed, we wish we could depict this scene for our readers, but we must point out that this political cartoon is prohibited under the new telecom law and it is quite possible that our description of the hypothetical cartoon is also unlawful.

As Lenny Bruce said, "If you can't say 'fuck,' you can't say 'fuck the government.'"

As we wrote an article recently, in the midst of our concentration, we were startled. "It's hot and throbbing," a male voice said persuasively. Without conscious intention we swiveled around, and saw a Teledyne shower head commercial. [We had left the television on to catch the nightly news flavored entertainment.] Suppressing our disappointment, we wondered why it is permissible to use these themes for prime time television advertising, and unlawful if the same words are applied in cyberspace to a human body.

We had a parallel realization a short time ago at an urban flea market frequented by some of our staff. We were on the way to the book stall, which stocks vintage Philip K. Dick, when we happened to notice a pile of Barbie dolls. They lay naked in a forlorn heap, perhaps a dozen of them. All told, they showed the same anatomical detail you can find in alt.binaries.furries, for instance. How can the display of these dolls be lawful, and a cartoon image unlawful? The law makes no sense. Whether something is indecent, we believe, depends on its context. The Teledyne advertisement, with its raw innuendo, was _indecent_. The Barbie dolls were items in a junkyard, and merely tasteless (we also feel that way about dressed Barbies). The furries, in the lively medium of the net, are merely funny. The idea that someone should go to prison for posting a cartoon is _obscene_.

Does the phrase "blatantly unconstitutional" ring a bell with anyone in Washington D.C.?

**We call on every citizen of cyberspace to resist this bill to the limit of his conscience and his means.**

2. About Those Copyrights

In a surprise decision on January 19, Judge Leone Brinkema granted summary judgment to the church of scientology [Religious Technology Corporation] in the matter of copyright infringements of scientology stages OT2 and OT3. Arnie Lerma had posted these items as part of a large file on scientology doctrine and behavior, the notorious Fishman Affidavit. The judge found that Lerma had infringed the copyrights held by RTC on these materials.

We recently discovered that Geoffrey Filbert published essentially the same materials in his book "Excalibur Revisited," which has been available on America Online since December of 1994. Mr. FIlbert's copyright is dated April 25, 1982. It is our understanding that this predates the RTC copyright claim, which is dated May 12, 1982. The church is aware of the Filbert copyright, but has never challenged it.

We follow with a brief fair use exerpt from Mr. Filbert's book. Scientologists who do not wish to view these materials should page down to the next section. Netizens who have copies of the Fishman Affidavit might like to get it out and follow along.

EXCALIBUR REVISITED
THE AKASHIC BOOK OF TRUTH
by Geoffrey C. Filbert

(c) Akashic Applications of Scientology 1982

[begin excerpt:  page 262]

OT II
Incidents to be erased: (Run only as many as are necessary for EP of OT 
II) 1. Arrow shot through one in space.
2. Dancer (will either be around a campfire or in a palace).
3. Pole (will either be bounced back and forth between two poles or
stuck on one trying to get off, or a barbershop pole going up and
down),
4. Cave incidents.
5. Triangle implants with dummy, apparently live, with you flowing 
Clearing Course type goals at the dummy you think is a real person,


Dummy is to the front of you, emitter of goals is 
behind you, and Implanter is to the left. It opens 
with -For 2/12 years I have lived with you...+ These 
Clearing Course type goals you thought you implanted 
into another: The BB GPM ,
The above uniformly produce an OT II EP.
If the EP is not attained, extend with running:
1. Bear Goals 8. Religious Implants
2. Cargo Implants 12,000 B.C. to E Level
3. Aircraft Door Implants 9. Bank Snatching Magic 
Track 4. Helatrobus Implants 10. 1st Picture Incident 
With 5. Gorilla Goals Earlier Beginning For Code
6. 9-Flow Implants of Honor Violation
7. Picture Implants 11. 1st Break of Code of 
Honor BB GPM Line Plot:
To create To not create
To experience To not experience
To protect To not protect
To have To not have
To resist To not resist
To invalidate To not invalidate
To challenge To not challenge
To suppress To not suppress
To abandon To not abandon
BB GPM Endwords
The first 150 GPMs:

[a long list of GPMs follows, concluding with the insightful remark
below]

Probably 98% of what is going on in society is simply an act out of
this particular bank. This whole bank will normally erase on the pc
between the 16th and the 50th GPMs. If they have to go ahead and 372
of them, well fine, I have never seen a pc run beyond -concurrence+.
Thus, they attain the state of OT II. So, then you take an attestation 
on that they have gained the ability to confront the whole track and 
they have gotten freedom from their inability to confront the whole 
track. Usually, they can see the whole thing. Your key way of knowing 
if this is properly done is that they will exteriorize with very 
excellent perception, never again play these games in society, and they 
will see that that is what society is totally into.
Now, they go on to OT III.
265


OT III
1. Check for any BTs (E-meter, theta perceptics, intention, pressure 
areas, telepathy is HOW) on and in:
a. Body surface (WHERE)
b. Body inside
c. In thetan+s space (Approx. 40+ X 60+) d. On thetan
2. Run Incident 2, then Incident 1, until BT(s) have gone and are 
released. Then, check for additional Incidents 1+s and 2+s until
dry (on the meter).
3. Return to Step 2, to find new ones to run. Use ruds while running 
if necessary. There is an effort to stop and hurry on Incident 1.
4. When complete, exact date and run both of the incidents on self. 
5. If a bog, do Millazo Pack. Write down some -mutual associations+. 
Re each one on this list, FIND THE INCIDENT THAT MADE THEM
ONE, and run that. Then, run OT III, Incident 2 and 1 after that 
cluster is broken up. Occasionally, BTs will have an incident that 
made them one other then Incident 2, thus this action.
INCIDENT 2: Dates approx. 75 million years ago, earth years, 
location, Earth, named TEEGEEACK at that time
(meaning planet of sorrow), involved 33 planets of this
sector, each with populations of 80 - 200 BILLION PER 
PLANET. XENU, the ruler, and -Renegades+ decided to 
solve overpopulation as follows, but was halted and 
XENU placed in a mountain trap after over 5 years of 
war. 
Incident 2 Patter: DETERMINE IF A LOYAL OFFICER, 
RESIDENT OF EARTH. or FROM ANOTHER PLANET. *If the 
latter
two, start at their being picked up and shot and if 
from another planet, frozen in an ice cube, transported 
(flying saucer), taken to mountain, a volcano always, H 
BOMB EXPLOSION, TERRIFIC WINDS, EFFORT TO
ORIENT, MAGNETIC STRIP UP FROM CENTER OF VOLCANO OR 
DOWN FROM AN AIRPLANE, EFFORT TO GET OFF AND FIND REST 
OF SELF, PROTEST, BEING PULLED ON STRIP, VISUAL DISPLAY 
OF INSTRUCTION BY A -GO TO THE PILOT+, WHO SAYS
-HE+S MOCKING IT UP+. There are 26 - 29 days of 
implanting (the CC and OT II, God and Devil material, 
reasons for this being done, helicopters, etc.) that 
need not be run. SOME WERE PACKAGED INTO CLUSTERS
in the HAWAII and LOS PALMAS ISLANDS (8 to a
cluster). If a loyal officer, the sequence is SURPRISE 
at being shot, placed at the volcano. Use meter to 
determine* and determine volcano. Watch for earlier 
beginning (pulled in for a tax audit), run only up to 
the -HE+S MOCKING IT UP+ as BTs can go into -free 
fall+, spin and get sick from the 29 days implanting, 
with pneumonia and death the implanted phenomena of 
free
fall in addition to insomnia. Coltus, the Reigning 
planet, Hubbard a part of the -rescuing force that put 
an end to it+. Don+t force or push them off, and answer 
the BTs questions. There were probably not any good or 
bad 266
guys in this incident, although Hubbard insists the
sector to have been a cultural desert since. Very SP BTs 
can usually be brought around with adept 2WC, Charm, Ruds, 
but if not use Power Processing on the rare hard core.
Incident 1: Dates 4 QUADRILLION YEARS AGO (which is 15 
zeros or 4,000 trillion years ago).
Incident 1 Patter: LOUD SNAP, WAVES OF LIGHT, HORSES 
DRAWING CHARIOT RIGHT TO LEFT, CHERUB COMES OUT,
BLOWS HORN, COMES CLOSE, SHATTERING
SERIES OF SNAPS, CHERUB FADES,
RETREATS, BLACK MASS
IS DUMPED ON THE THETAN.
Volcano List
HAWAII Pacific Ocean
MT HOOD Pacific NW
MT BAYER Pacific NW
MT RAINIER Washington
MT ETNA Mediterranean
MT ST. HELENS Washington
MT EREBUS Antarctica
MT FUJI Japan
MT EVEREST Himalayas - Nepal & Tibet
MT KILIMANJARO Northeastern Africa
LAS PALMAS Canary Islands off NE
Africa MT SHASTA California
MT VESUVIUS Italy
MT KRAKATOA Indonesia
MT PELEE Martinique
MT MCKINLEY Alaska
Volcanoes existed at these locations then, but no longer
New Zealand
Philippines
Mexico
South America
North Dakota
Vermont
Scotland
Iceland
Note: These were the most common locations. 600 other volcanoes did and 
do exist, which I did not list.

You clear up that a BT is a body thetan, The instructions are self
explanatory, Basically, the reason they are doing this is to where they 
won+t be confused with hundreds of different thoughts so that they can 
have some peace and quiet, and so they won+t be other-determined. After 
they have run all these remnants of folks out by telepathic auditing on 
267
them, they attain the state of freedom from overwhelm and a return of 
full self determinism. One cleans off those 4 areas in the order listed. 
It is generally underrun, it is rarely overrun, What you have been doing 
all the way up the Bridge is breaking these clusters apart. With 
Expanded 
Dianetics, Grades and all the previous auditing, you have been taking 
these off. About 1/2 of the BTs come off and leave and go live their own 
lives by doing the lower Bridge right, and the other 1/2 come off here
by doing OT III correctly. So, if you don+t do the lower Bridge
correctly on someone and they do a real good job on OT III, they will
get about 1/2 of it done. It is pretty wild material to run and the
gains of it are beyond description. It is not a crazy idea at all. The
irony of it is that it happened alot more than once. It is listed as an
event that happened 75 million years ago. It probably happened to the
preclear dozens of times.  So, watch out for your dates.
After that you do not do OT VII, and then put them on OT III again, like 
the churches do. You do OT IV which is included here. After they have
done that they have attained the state of certainty of self as a being
and freedom from uncertainty of self.
On OT V they attain the state of freedom from fixated introversion into 
MEST and gain the ability to refamiliarize as a thetan exterior with the
physical universe.
268

[end excerpt]


Overall, this impressed us as the most concise and logical description of OTIII that we have yet seen. Certain of its particulars have been attacked. For example, the chronology conflicts with generally accepted beliefs about the age and development of the universe. The statements about volcanos have been criticized from a geological perspective. More than one religion encompasses scientifically implausible beliefs, however. It can be difficult to determine where science ends and metaphor begins.

3. Al Gore: No Sense of Humor

[This story reached us courtesy of AEN News]

Secret Service raids "dangerous" Web site!
The Exploding Head Page
http://www.vv.com/~gilmore/head

Here's what the "raidee" had to say about it:
=============================================

Well, it couldn't go on like this forever.

Sometime in December 1995, a story on the Exploding Heads page ran in the Dallas Morning News, featuring a picture from the site, and the URL. On January 4th, we at Virtual Visions received a call from the Secret Service, saying they'd had complains from "a citizen" about "pictures of a political nature".

A couple hours later they showed up, demanding to see the pictures and asking us questions about why they were there, what our intentions were, and so on. Apparently they were concerned with our Bob Dole exploding head. We politely explained that we had only put them up there in fun as a political satire; apparently this explanation satisfied them, but they still wanted me (Gilmore) to come down the next day for an interview of some kind. While they were getting printouts of the pages, we managed to snap some hidden video of the agents (they declined our request for posed pictures) which I'll try to post here soon.

The next day I went to their office for an interview. Overall they were pretty slack about it -- just wanted to know if I'd ever been arrested, owned a firearm, been in a mental hospital, etc. They snapped pix of me and said that'd be the last I'd hear from them.

So kids, try to learn a lesson from all this: DON'T FUCK WITH BOB DOLE. And don't try to use your home Scanner powers to explode the heads of presidential candidates.

And for the record -- I don't wish Bob Dole any harm. I hope he lives a long and fruitful life, happily exploiting the masses, oppressing the downtrodden, and taking huge 'contributions' from corporate-funded PACs, until he dies a peaceful natural death WHEN HIS HEAD EXPLODES MUAHAHAHA oh god no scratch that last part.

===================================

Comment:

We finally understood just what it is that bothers Al Gore and the political establishment about the net.

The existing media are controlled by large corporate interests (the same interests which bought the rights to cyberspace in Washington D.C. this week). Every politician says whatever his/her advertising agency and pollster direct. The "political process" is a scripted performance over which the citizens have no meaningful control.

A political campaign cannot be run on the net by an advertising agency. The net is an undending press conference in which the most difficult questions are raised. Evasions and false statements are attacked without mercy. On the net there is nowhere to hide.

The Information Superhighway, as proposed by Al Gore, will be another version of the solid media, with a few large interests and rigid controls on the content of messages. Individuals who wish to post (and can afford the new fees) will have to find service providers who are willing to host their messages. In the politically correct climate of the future, disliked messages will not be heard. The voices of the net will be silent.

Will net citizens allow this to happen? If not, what will the next Tea Party look like?

4. Guilty As Charged: everyone with a modem

For readers who like to keep track of the crimes they are committing, we include the following story.

We first saw this story in the Computer underground Digest.

Sent from: emmanuel@2600.com (Emmanuel Goldstein)

Ed Cummings, known to many in the hacker world as Bernie S., has been living through a real-life version of a Kafka tale since March 1995. It was then that he was arrested for selling crystals which had the potential to be used for fraudulent purposes. The United States Secret Service then stepped in and had Cummings locked away in federal prison because he had in his possession a modified tone dialer which could have been used to make free phone calls. He was never accused of actually having done this but, under a quietly passed law in October 1994, mere possession of hardware or software which *could* be used in a fraudulent manner carried the same legal penalties as committing the fraud itself. [Read this again. Yes, that's what it says.-ed.]

Cummings was held for seven months without bail and without trial. When the time finally came for him to make a plea, he chose to plead guilty for two reasons: 1) He could face many years in prison if he pleaded innocent and was found guilty; 2) As the law reads, he was guilty of possessing hardware or software which could be used fraudulently. The fact that a large number of law-abiding citizens, if not the majority, are also technically guilty of this crime, was irrelevant. After accepting his plea, the judge sentenced him to the exact amount of time he had already served and Cummings was finally released in October 1995. But this was not the end of his troubles.

A couple of years ago, Cummings had an almost comical run-in with a local police department. He and two friends were being questioned by a police officer and an item the officer took particular interest in was a tone dialer in Cummings' possession. When the officer left the room for a few minutes, the batteries to the tone dialer were removed. Since they were not under arrest and since they had not been instructed to not touch anything, this clearly did not seem to be that serious an action. But the local cops went ballistic and charged Cummings with "tampering with evidence". Cummings insisted that he wasn't even the person who took the batteries out but preferred to pay a fine and plead "no contest" rather than turn a friend in. The story should have ended there. But when the events of March 1995 transpired, Cummings was found to be in violation of the two years' probation handed down by the local authorities. And so a hearing was scheduled shortly after his release.

After five postponements (two requested by Cummings' attorney, two procedural delays, and one court-ordered delay, the hearing was held on Friday, January 12, 1996. In addition to the judge, Northampton County probation officer Scott Hoke, Secret Service agent Tom Varney, and Haverford Township detective John Morris were in attendance. (The Haverford Township police were the ones who originally suspected Cummings of taking part in a drug deal when he was spotted selling crystals to black people in a 7-11 parking lot. Detective Morris would later threaten a college student with libel for criticizing the actions of the police over the Internet.) Varney and Morris arrived in the same car.

Ed's attorney was unable to attend because his car had been plowed under in Philadelphia. He said he doubted the hearing would take place because of the weather but told Ed to drive up just in case. Ed drove several hours through blizzard conditions and arrived at the courthouse for the fourth time. Scott Hoke, however, did not take this effort into consideration and told the judge he would not tolerate any more postponements, despite the fact that most of the postponements had been requested by the court itself and that Ed had been wanting to get this over with from the start.

Hoke complained that Cummings had been "walking around on the street" for three months. He did not mention that Cummings has been fully employed during that time and has not violated any laws since his release. The judge chastised Cummings for his lawyer's failure to appear and refused to allow him to say anything throughout the hearing.

Tom Varney of the Secret Service then told the judge that he believed Cummings to be a major threat to society and that he was concerned because of the upcoming presidential campaign. It was unclear if he was actually implying that Cummings would somehow be a threat to the president but the judge and the police listened intently. This was the first time a Secret Service agent had come to their town. Varney continued to describe the threatening items that had been found in Cummings' residence: a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook, publications from Loompanix, a mag stripe read head (no electronics) which "could have been used" to commit fraud, and material thought to be C4 but later proven not to be. However, Varney said, the fact that it could have been showed how serious this was.

Nobody questioned his logic.

Prior to this hearing, the Secret Service made an extra effort to contact the county probation officer to insist that Cummings be imprisoned because he was such a threat. They made quite an impression upon him apparently. It also became known through various contacts that the Secret Service was particularly angry at Cummings because he had given pictures of Secret Service agents to local media (FOX 29) in Philadelphia. These pictures made the Secret Service agents look foolish. Later, Secret Service agents would say to a friend of Cummings: "Don't fuck with us. We're the biggest gang in town."

The judge determined that a probation violation had indeed taken place and that Cummings should be held and a sentencing date scheduled within 60 days. The judge had just done the same thing for a man who had just committed his third DWI offense. In fact, he had killed someone. The judge ordered that person held on $50,000 bail. Ed Cummings, however, was another matter. The judge ordered Cummings held on $250,000.

So Cummings is currently being held on a quarter of a million dollars because he's thought to have taken batteries out of a tone dialer years ago. He's in a 5 by 8 holding cell 22 hours a day with no windows and no clock. He never knows what time it is nor whether it's day or night. The temperature reaches a maximum of sixty degrees and he has only one layer of thin cotton clothing and one blanket. To add to his misery, he was just notified that the Haverford Township police will destroy the property they seized from him last year unless he picks it up by Friday, January 19.

The hearing to determine how long Cummings will be imprisoned for will be scheduled within 60 days. He could get a maximum of two years.

[1/16/96]

Cummings has been transferred into the "Phase One Inmate Unit" which is where inmates are held for the first 30 days. There are three phases in total, the third occurs after 60 days. Right now he's actually in the cell known as "the hole" which is supposed to be used for solitary punishment. Because of overcrowding, he's been put in there with two other inmates, one of whom is a convicted child molestor serving time for DWI. Cummings described the conditions as "really bad" - the prison is cold and filthy. The prison itself was built right after the Civil War. There are tons of roaches and grafitti in all the cells which dates back to the fifties - the last time it was painted. There are 1200 inmates.

We will continue to forward any email he receives at the bernies@2600.com address. You can write to him directly or send reading material to:

Ed Cummings Northampton County Prison 666 Walnut Street Easton, PA 18042

[1/22/96]

We just found out that Bernie S. will be sentenced this Friday morning at 9 am in Easton, PA for the crime of removing batteries from a tone dialer several years ago. This is defined as a victimless misdemeanor for which the judge in this small town (under considerable influence from the Secret Service) set bail at $250,000. He could get two years in prison at sentencing. Press attention could be very helpful in avoiding a sentence as irrational as the bail setting - right now the only influence these people are getting is from the Secret Service and they want to put Bernie S away for as long as they can. If you're not entirely up to date on this story, finger bernies@2600.com for all of the details.

If you know of anyone who will cover this story, please get ahold of them right away so they can plan on being there. If anyone is interested in going, let us know so we can hopefully fill some cars from NYC.

Sentencing is scheduled for Friday, January 26 at 9 am
Courtroom 5
Northampton County Government Center
7th and Washington Street
Easton, PA 18042-7492

(610) 559-3020 (district attorney)

case # 2173-1993
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Edward E. Cummings
Misdemeanor 2 - tampering with physical evidence

Please help spread the word.
---

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 05:50:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Emmanuel Goldstein <emmanuel@2600.COM>
Subject: File 1--Bernie S. 1/26 hearing

The events of 1/26/96 were about as unbelievable as the events that have transpired throughout this case. The only positive development is that more people are slowly starting to realize what's happening.

Two and a half hours after the sentencing was to be held, the judge arrived in the courtroom. His demeanor seemed significantly more upbeat and open than his previous appearances. Perhaps this had to do with the fact that Ed's lawyer and members of the press were in attendance. The judge allowed everyone involved in the case to speak: Probation Officer Scott Hoak, Haverford Township Detective John K. Morris, Secret Service Agent Thomas L. Varney, Ed's attorney (Ken Trujillo), and Ed himself.

Throughout the hearing, the main issue was whether or not Cummings was a threat to the community. Varney was adament in his assessment of Cummings as a danger but when pressed by Trujillo could come up with nothing more substantive than the books found in Cummings' home. These books came from publishers like Loompanix and dealt with such things as making bombs and establishing false identities. The other damning evidence was a list of Secret Service frequencies (from an issue of Monitoring Times), a copy of a magazine article that listed Secret Service codenames for President Reagan (dated 1983), and a material that the Secret Service had suspected was C4 but which later turned out not to be. For some reason they feel compelled to mention this at each hearing as if C4 had actually been found when in fact the substance was something dentists use to mold dentures (the owner of the house was a dentist).

Trujillo successfully managed to get Varney to admit that no guns or explosives of any sort were found. No evidence was presented to indicate that Cummings was ever a threat of any sort to anybody. What's more, Cummings proved his responsibility by immediately getting a job after the Secret Service locked him up for most of last year and also by dutifully showing up for each hearing that was scheduled in Easton, even though the threat of more prison time loomed.

Cummings apologized to the court for his "odd curiosity" of the past, insisting that he merely collected books and information and never caused harm to anyone. His lawyer pleaded with the judge to allow Cummings to pick up the pieces of his life and not be subjected to any more inhumane treatment.

In the end, the judge was not interested in whether or not Cummings posed a threat. He saw a probation violation and therefore withdrew the probation. Sentencing was postponed to March 5th. But the judge showed some compassion. He lowered the $250,000 bail to $100,000.

Currently Cummings is imprisoned in the maximum wing of the prison where people with the highest bail are kept. He's with murderers and rapists. Conditions are appalling. One of the prisoners is on death row - his name is Joseph Henry and he bit off a woman's nipples and clitoris before strangling her with a slinky. These are the kinds of people the Secret Service has condemned Cummings to be with.

When Cummings was originally put on probation years ago, the probation officer told him he thought the whole thing was a big waste of time. The only thing he was accused of, after all, was taking batteries out of a tone dialer that a cop was questioning him about. And the really ironic part was that Cummings wasn't even the person who took the batteries out - it was one of his friends. But he was not about to turn a friend in for something so absurd. After all, this was a very minor thing - he paid a fine of nearly $3,000 and was put on probation and that was it.

When the Secret Service threw Cummings in prison for possession of a red box in early 1995, they knew he could be screwed again when he finally got out since being arrested is a probation violation. And Special Agent Thomas Varney spent a great deal of effort to see that this is exactly what happened. He made multiple trips to Easton and convinced the local authorities to lock Cummings up as if he were the most sadistic of killers.

On Friday, Cummings' probation officer did an aboutface and told the court that he thought Cummings represented a very great danger to the community. Outside the courtroom, he and the other local law enforcement people crowded around Varney like kids surrounding a rock star. He was their hero and maybe one day they would be just like him.

It would be good to say that the press showed up and the rest of the world finally got to see one of the greatest injustices perpetrated by the Secret Service. But the only headlines to come out of this charade said things like "Judge Hangs Up On Phone Hacker - Bail Revoked After He Continues To Commit Telecom Fraud". Not only has Cummings never been convicted of any kind of fraud - he's never even been accused of it. This is a case based entirely on perceptions and a sick vendetta by a government agency that has turned into a genuine threat against free thinking people everywhere.

When Cummings is sentenced on March 5th, he could be put into prison for years. This is what the Secret Service will attempt to ensure. They have to be stopped and they have to be held accountable for what they've already done. We need to be able to protect individual rights against this kind of abuse and so far we have all failed miserably. We have little more than a month to get it right.

------------------------------

5. Errors and Omissions

[Note: I corrected all of the errors listed below when I converted the previous issue to HTML -- Ron Newman]

We apologise for the typo festival in our previous issue. The following corrections to henri's story should be made: he is expert with VAX/VMS systems. Please insert a ~ before his name in his web page address.

In the Rodent Report, we said that John Travolta was renegotiating his contract, and trying to force Miramar to produce an epic film on the theme of OT3. We should have said "Miramax." We apologise to both companies for the confusion. [We confess we hope Travolta is successful. We assume he will star in the film, and we think it will become a cult classic.]

The End

[In the next issue: Lerma case update; more on Gerry Armstrong; Guns vs. Vitamins (Your Tax Dollars At Work); more on the auction.]