The Church of Scientology vs. Keith Henson

This page created by Ron Newman.
Last revised on Saturday, May 4, 1996; a few links updated on March 24, 1997.

On April 4, 1996, the Church of Scientology filed a federal lawsuit against Keith Henson. The first hearing was held Friday, April 12 at Judge Ronald Whyte's court in San Jose, California; here's a transcript of the hearing. This hearing is also described at great length in the April 14 issue of Shelley Thomson's **Biased Journalism**.

Lawyers for the Chruch of Scientology are scheduled to depose Keith on Wednesday, May 8. They have filed a broad, sweeping "Demand for the Production of Documents and Things", asking Henson to provide, among other things, copies of all correspondence between him and Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyers Mike Godwin and Shari Steele. See the April 19 issue of **Biased Journalism** for details.

This page will eventually contain more details; meanwhile, here are some documents to look at.

• A letter Keith Henson sent to Judge Whyte on March 26, in the Grady Ward case. Four days later, after Judge Whyte's clerk assured Keith that he was not subject to Grady Ward's temporary restraining order, Keith also posted a copy of this letter to alt.religion.scientology and several other newsgroups. The original version of Keith's letter (which I've expurgated) contained a complete copy of a CoS document known as "NOTS 34" or "HCO BULLETIN OF 14 NOVEMBER 1978". Henson claims that "NOTS 34" is evidence that CoS is violating US laws against practicing medicine without a license, and thus the public interest demands that the document be disclosed.
• Keith's reply to an e-mail from CoS attorney Helena Kobrin, demanding that he cease posting this document and also cease soliciting copies of other documents that she claims are copyrighted trade secrets. Keith repeats this solicitation, and challenges Helena to file for an injunction aginast him.
• The complaint filed against Keith Henson, 4/4/96
• The request for a Temporary Restraining Order, also filed 4/4/96
• Warren McShane's declaration in support of the TRO request, also filed 4/4/96
• Judge Whyte's actual Temporary Restraining Order, granted and served to Keith on 4/5/96
• Keith's request that Judge Whyte recuse himself, filed 4/8/96, which he soon turned into a more formal motion for recusal the following day
• Scientology's opposition to Keith's recusal request, filed 4/11/96, and Keith's reply in support of recusal, filed 4/12/96
• A transcript of Keith's April 12 court hearing.
• An April 16 filing by Keith on a variety of matters, including a request that Grady Ward be present at his deposition, and a request for a protective order preventing Scientology from further harassing him, his family, or his associates. In this filing, Keith reveals that a Scientology detective has called his ex-wife in an (unsuccessful) attempt to obtain "dirt" on him
• The April 8 issue of Shelley Thomson's e-zine **Biased Journalism**, which covers this lawsuit
• The April 14 issue of **Biased Journalism**, which describes Keith's April 12 court hearing in considerable detail
• The April 19 issue of **Biased Journalism**, which includes Scientology's breathtakingly comprehensive list of "Documents and Things" that Keith is supposed to produce before the May 8 deposition.
• Keith's FTP directory on Netcom, ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hk/hkhenson/ may contain some files that aren't listed here.

• Keith dead-agents himself in an April 11 posting to alt.religion.scientology
• The Great Mambo Chicken & The Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over The Edge, a book by Ed Regis (Addison-Wesley, 1990), a book about cryonics, space colonies, nanotechnology and the like
• Memetics, an article by Keith Henson published in Whole Earth Review #57, pages 50-55. If you know of an online version of this, please send e-mail to rnewman@thecia.net so I can link it to this page.
• Memes, Meta-Memes and Politics, an essay written by Keith Henson in 1988.
• The Guru Trap, or What Computer Viruses Can Tell Us About Saddam Hussein, an essay published by Keith Henson in Computer Underground Digest #3.31 in 1991
• Cryonics, religions and memetics, an essay written by Keith Henson in 1993. (This one actually mentions Scientology by name in passing)

See also The Church of Scientology vs. Grady Ward.

Return to The Church of Scientology vs. the Net main page.