Tentoongesteld

AANGEZIEN SCIENTOLOGY MIDDELS een tentoonstelling “meer openheid” beloofde, leek het een aantal critici een goed idee om deze tournure te testen. We vroegen een demonstratievergunning aan, maakten een stapel folders waarop feiten stonden die Scientology zelf nooit wil toegeven en togen naar Hotel American waar Scientology acte de présence zou geven.

Binnen tien minuten was het raak. Een groep leden omsingelde een van ons en begon tegen hem te schreeuwen. “Wat zijn je misdaden? Wie heeft je betaald?” Scientology leert haar leden namelijk dat critici uitsluitend verdorven mensen zijn en gelooft heilig in complotten: wie kritiek op ze heeft moet derhalve zelf fout zijn of is opgestookt en omgekocht.

Iets verderop, langs het Leidsebosje, deelde de rest van ons clubje folders uit aan de passanten. Informatie over cursusprijzen en de verplichte “donaties” (wie de hogere cursussen wil volgen is al snel een paar ton kwijt), over de hoogste leer van Scientology die zelfs voor leden lang geheim wordt gehouden, over de dagelijkse praktijk in de sekte en over de kadaverdiscipline. Scientology, ook niet mal, stuurde leden naar buiten die prompt ook begonnen te folderen. Wat wij best vonden.

Minder aardig was dat die leden expres pal voor ons gingen staan of zichzelf schielijk tussen ons en een reikende hand manoeuvreerden om te voorkomen dat mensen ons materiaal aannamen. Er ontstonden potsierlijke rondedansjes waarbij wij achter hun rug wegliepen, folders uitdeelden, gespot en opnieuw geblokkeerd werden en daarna weer achter hun rug wegstapten.

Scientology heeft als leus: “Denk voor jezelf”. Veel waarde hechten ze kennelijk niet aan die leus, want terwijl ze voorbijgangers hun foldertjes gaven pikten ze meteen onze flyers af. Sommige passanten graaiden de gejatte flyers resoluut terug, anderen waren verbijsterd en boos, of kwamen ons om een nieuw exemplaar vragen. Gaandeweg begonnen we mensen die een folder van ons wilden te waarschuwen: pas op, die man daar verderop zal proberen u dit af te nemen. Dan keek zo’n passant ons bevreemd aan, liep aarzelend verder, bekeek de flyer even, keek op en zag ineens die grissende hand naderen. In een reflex hielden ze onze folder dichter bij hun lichaam, deden nog een paar passen, draaiden zich om, keken in opperste verbazing naar die zot die hen dat papiertje had willen ontnemen, lazen het foldertje aandachtiger, en dan viel het kwartje: “Verhip. Die vent is natuurlijk van Scientology. Jakkes, wat een engerd.” Bingo.

Het is zo makkelijk om tegen Scientology te demonstreren. Ze doen niets dan ons gelijk aantonen.

De politie kwam. Ze waren diverse malen gebeld door “bezorgde burgers” die hadden gemeld dat wij agressief waren jegens de scientologen en de voorbijgangers. De agenten geloofden dat van die “bezorgde burgers” niet zomaar. Wij ook niet. Bovendien kenden wij die truc. Waarna Scientology zich bij de agenten bekloeg over de tekst van onze folders en eiste dat we die ter goedkeuring voorlegden of anders ophielden met folderen. Welnee, lachten de agenten, dat hoeft helemaal niet, vrijheid van meningsuiting enzo. Maar nu ze er toch waren, mochten zij misschien even de demonstratievergunning van Scientology zien? Zij deelden immers ook folders uit?

Bleke gezichten, geschrokken ogen. Oh hemel, een vergunning, ja ehm, nee wacht… Nu bleek dat Scientology helemaal geen vergunning had. De politie droeg hen op te stoppen met uitdelen. Waarna wij zeiden dat ze wat ons betreft best mochten doorgaan, een grootmoed die naar wij dachten tot een wapenstilstand kon leiden maar die de scientologen slechts bitterder maakte. De verbeten blikken werden heftiger, de staarsessies frequenter. (Scientologen geloven dat ze hun “intenties” aan iemand kunnen opleggen door hem langdurig en onafgebroken aan te staren.)

Aan het eind van de demonstratie kwam een scientoloog naar me toe. “Ik hoop dat je morgen nog kunt lachen,” beet hij me toe. Ik reageerde niet. De man liep weg en kwam na een paar seconden terug. “Ik hoop voor jou echt dat je morgen nog lachen kunt,” snauwde hij nogmaals. Weer liep hij weg en kwam hij terug. “Morgen zullen jouw sadomasochistische praktijken wereldwijd worden uitgemeten,” kreet hij ditmaal, en spreidde zijn armen om aan te geven hoe breed de wereld wel was. Hij stond even stil met zijn armen in de leegte gestoken, als een Jezus aan een luchtkruis. “Nu, dan hoop ik het flatteuze foto’s zijn,” antwoordde ik, en negeerde de man verder. Woedend stapte hij weg.

Pure intimidatie, maar niet effectief en bovenal dom. In Nederland kijkt niemand nog echt op van seks, niet sinds Kamerleden het voor de Playboy op het pluche van het Binnenhof deden, en zeker niet sinds Broertje Büch de tv ermee overlaadde. Deed ik aan SM, dan zou ik me daar niet voor schamen, maar ik denk niet dat Panorama of De Telegraaf dergelijke foto’s zonder mijn toestemming zou publiceren. Zou Scientology ze in hun eigen blaadjes afdrukken, dan schokken ze er vooral hun leden mee en jagen ze de publieke opinie tegen zich in het harnas.

Wat denkt Scientology met zo’n mal dreigement te winnen? Als ze zouden nadenken wisten ze het antwoord: niets. Maar ze denken niet na, ze volgen slechts Hubbard, hun goeroe aan wiens woord niet getwijfeld mag worden. Hubbard schreef: “Stel vast wie ons belaagt; onderzoek al hun overtredingen en misdaden .. en voer de pers bewijzen van hun sensationele, bloederige sexpraktijken. Accepteer nimmer lijdzaam een onderzoek naar ons maar pak onze aanvallers waar je maar kunt.” (Hubbard, HCOPL 25-2-1966). Een aanpak die niet alleen getuigt van demonisering van tegenstanders, maar ook ontstellend achterhaald is. Dat komt ervan als je je ideeën in de jaren vijftig en zestig hebt ontwikkeld en sindsdien verplicht hebt stilgestaan: het koude-oorlogsdenken en de benepen seksuele moraal druipen ervan af.

Maar goed. We hebben de privé-detectives gehad, mijn vuilniszakken zijn maandenlang onderzocht (zodat ik elke keer met de groeten aan Scientology de kattebak erin leeggooide), ik word al vijf jaar met rechtszaken belaagd (die ik steeds win, en dan gaan ze weer in beroep), en nu zijn we toe aan de “lurid sex crimes”. Wereldwijd tentoongesteld, maar liefst.

Bij een volgende demonstratie moest ik mijn zweepje maar eens meenemen.

Hyperlinks, of kutzwagerschap

AFGELOPEN WOENSDAG WERD eindelijk uitspraak gedaan in de bodemprocedure die Scientology tegen mij en pakweg vijftien internet providers heeft aangespannen. Eerder had ik een kort geding over dezelfde kwestie gewonnen. De sekte eiste dat ik een verbod kreeg opgelegd om te citeren uit hun OT-levels, het hogere cursusmateriaal (teksten die leden alleen mogen inzien nadat ze honderdduizenden guldens aan de sekte hebben besteed.)

De rechters vonden dat ik mocht citeren. Sterker, ze vonden dat ik “relatief weinig” aanhaalde uit de originele OT-werken en dat er derhalve geen vuiltje aan de lucht was. Mijn homepage werd opnieuw volstrekt legaal verklaard: http://www.spaink.net/fishman/home.html mag.

Uiteraard was ik die dag uitermate opgelucht – rechtszaken zijn slopende en kostbare dingen, bodemprocedures nemen altijd aanzienlijk meer tijd in beslag dan je zou willen, en denken dat je gelijk hebt is een ding maar winnen een ander – maar de uitspraak had bredere consequenties dan alleen deze ruzie tussen een sekte en een skepticus. De rechters waren immers gedwongen zich uit te laten over het Internet. Het net is relatief nieuw, en brengt derhalve allerlei noviteiten met zich mee.

Voor het eerst zijn plaats van handeling en plaats van uitvoering van elkaar gescheiden; internationale wetten kunnen derhalve met een klik omzeild worden. Wat je hier niet mag zeggen, kun je via een Amerikaanse homepage wel zeggen, en vice versa. Bovendien is wettelijk volstrekt onduidelijk of wat een gebruiker doet onder diens eigen verantwoordelijkheid valt, of de provider – de internet-variant van de PTT, zogezegd – aansprakelijk is. Moet de provider een klager doorverwijzen naar de gebruiker, of is de provider zelf gehouden stappen te nemen wanneer iemand klaagt over een posting of een homepage? Niemand weet dat.

De rechtbank heeft in mijn zaak uitgesproken dat in laatste instantie de providers aansprakelijk zijn, mits zijzelf op de hoogte gesteld zijn van enige auteursrechtinbreuk door een gebruiker en “in redelijkheid” niet kunnen twijfelen aan de claim van de klager. Dat geldt derhalve voor andere claims in dezelfde mate.

Dat klinkt uitermate – erm, redelijk. Het probleem is echter dat dergelijke claims niet makkelijk op hun merites zijn te beoordelen. In het geval van Scientology is nu vastgesteld dat ze aanspraak kunnen maken op het auteursrecht van OT II en OT III; maar eerder claimden zijzelf aanzienlijk meer dan dat, en het was alleen aan de skepsis van de providers te danken – “mogen we daar dan alsjeblieft bewijzen van zien?” — dat die claims niet onmiddellijk ingewilligd werden. Hadden ze dat wel gedaan, dan waren Scientology meer claims toegevallen dan de sekte later bleek te kunnen waarmaken, en was ook mijn pagina van het net gegooid.

Soit. Voor een deel is dit een discussie onder ingewijden, en een kwestie van je rug sterk houden. De providers die geen krimp gaven en Scientology’s claims niet meteen geloofden, werden in deze in het gelijk gesteld. Zo ook ik. Fijn. Hiephoi, enzovoort.

*

WAT VERRASSEND WAS in de uitspraak waren de links. Een link is zo’n ding waarop je kunt klikken en dan beland je meteen op de bron ervan: alsof je, in een boek, meteen via de voetnoot de betreffende tekst te zien krijgt waarop de auteur z’n mening baseert. In boeken behelst een voetnoot niet alleen een vindplaats, maar ook een onuitgesproken instructie: “als je dit boek neemt, vind je hier de alinea waarop ik me baseer”. Een link verenigt vindplaats en instructie. Klik en kom daar. Het is een veredelde voetnoot.

De rechtbank besloot in mijn zaak dat links naar inbreukmakend materiaal zelf onwettig zijn. Dat klinkt heel rechtschapen: als een pagina niet mag, is een verwijzing daarnaar – een aanklikbare link die je meteen op de plek des onheils brengt – zelf ook onwettig.

In de praktijk is het strafbaar stellen van een link naar onwettig materiaal aanzienlijk lastiger – en potentieel zelfs fnuikend voor het net. Bovendien: zo’n verbod legt strengere restricties op aan het net dan aan alle ander media. De krant mag schrijven dat dit-en-dat een ingeburgerde manier is om geld wit te wassen: zoiets is een beschrijving van een strafbaar feit, of een halve instructie, maar niet strafbaar. Alleen het daadwerkelijk witwassen van geld is strafbaar: er is een cruciaal verschil tussen daad en woord. In deze uitspraak werd dat verschil van tafel geveegd. Een link bevat zelf geen inbreukmakend materiaal: het vertelt je alleen waar dat te vinden zou kunnen zijn.

Waar het vonnis volledig aan voorbijgaat, is dat Jan en Alleman links heeft naar homepages zonder dat ze überhaupt weten wat daar precies op staat. Ik link naar Marie omdat ik haar ideeën over de scheepvaart interessant vind (zonder te weten dat ze een auteursrechtelijk beschermd artikel van zus-en-zo op haar pagina’s heeft staan). Piet linkt naar mijn homepage omdat hij mijn boeken zo interessant vindt, maar weet niet dat ik ook spul heb waarop Scientology auteursrecht claimt. Moet ik een dwangsom opgelegd krijgen over wat Marie doet, of Piet over mij? Moet iedereen elke dag controleren of de pagina’s waarnaar hij linkt, auteursrechtelijk in orde zijn gebleven?

Dat geldt de vrijwillige links. Er zijn immens veel – belangrijke – pagina’s waar keuze geen rol speelt. Zoekmachines bijvoorbeeld speuren het net af en indexeren alle pagina’s op het net. De zoekmachine verwerkt alles wat ze tegenkomt, zonder onderscheid. Hoe kunnen zij bepalen of een pagina waar ze naar linken (“U zocht: Scientology en geheimen. U vindt: …”) beschermd is? Hoe weet Nedstat – een bedrijf dat mensen gratis van tellers voorziet, en lijsten bijhoudt van haar gebruikers – of een pagina legaal is of niet? Moeten zij nu gaan nagaan welke van deze pagina’s legaal zijn? Massa’s mensen hebben links naar omstreden materiaal, of hebben zelf omstreden spullen op hun homepage: variërend van vermeend auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal tot teksten waarover anderen boos worden.

Ze zeggen wel: als je het narekent en de vrienden van je ex telt, en dan hun vrienden of ex’en, ben je in tien stappen de wereld rond en ben je verbonden met iedereen. Dat heet: kutzwagerschap. Op het web ben je in vijf stappen de wereld rond. Moet het web dan maar ophouden, omdat er altijd wel zal klagen en de rest daar stapsgewijs naar de beklaagde pagina linkt?

Tribune, augustus 1998

Interview met Tribune (partijblad van de SP), over de orenmaffie en kwakdenkers (New-Agegroepen die geloven dat ziekte wordt veroorzaakt door ‘verkeerd’ denken’ en dat genezing alleen via de geest kan worden bewerkstelligd), over internet, en over de rechtszaken van Scientology.

» Artikel Tribune: ‘De slappe lach krijg je nooit in je eentje’

Unbiased columnism # 1.7

Final pleas, or: unprecedented legal costs

Stockholm, Wednesday, June 3 1998

[Previous installment: Questioning McShane. Note: I had had to go back to Amsterdam during the weekend. Zenon did the rest of the trial by himself and wrote this.]

True to my copyright terrorist instincts and traditions, I am happy to serve you the last UC of this bunch: a fake one, written by me in the absence of Karin, meant to ruin her reputation as a writer.

Today was the last day of the hearings. Somehow I couldn’t believe it would be. I had told Magnusson (and the court) that I would be in Holland tomorrow no matter what, and that I would not come to court, even if the hearings weren’t finished. I was absolutely sure that Magnusson would do everything he could to take up all day today, in order to force me to leave without pleading.

I also had double-crossed him and booked a flight that would allow me to to plead tomorrow anyway. This way, I estimated, he could make a fool of himself by taking up time and yet be disappointed at the results. Did he then? Of course he did. You press the button and he reacts as expected time and over again. Never fails. There’s a man you can trust.

But I must admit he started off nicely. “In flagrant violation… total disrepect of the law and courts…continued infringements…” steady pouring, good pace, firm tone. One hour. One and a half. Then he noticed the time, slowed down a bit. And a bit more. By 11.30 he was glancing at the clock on the wall every some 10 minutes, reducing his pace every time. He ended up spelling the words, just like last Thursday and Friday. Body language in court indicated a spreading unrest, irritation, boredom, disgust. I was affected the worst: waiting for the second boot kills me.

I was wondering how far the situation would go. I could protest, but it would be to no use. At worst, the chairman could propose a break, which would give Magnusson the opportunity to waste yet more time. Twice I saw Magnusson’s aide yawning. The chairman is a master of masters in keeping a stone face through anything, but even his irritation was somehow transpiring, although I couldn’t pinpoint how. At some point I grabbed my cigarettes and started making a move out. One more second and I would have left the courtroom in the middle of Magnusson’s plea. I controlled myself. I saw Magnusson himself trying to suppress a yawn. Then I realized that we were not going to have a lunch break before Magnusson decided to finish. The lunch break is usually at an appropriate moment in the proceedings, around 11.30-12.00. It was 11.50 and Magnusson was going on. The chairman looked less irritated. 12.10. The chairman began to look almost relaxed. It might be just my imagination – I was looking at very slight changes of face and posture – but I think I’m right. I think the judge decided to let Magnusson delay everybody’s lunch for just as long as he pleased, and let him feel that he was doing so. Around 12.20 Magnusson was still slowly leafing his papers, pronouncing a word per minute, desperately looking for either something more to say or a decent way to close. He failed with both. At 12.25, almost in the middle of a sentence, he gave up. Ready. Lunch. I was shaking.

At 13.45 we resumed and it was my turn. It seems I can’t get anything done except under pressure. I started working on the case late last Monday evening, on the eve of the hearing, trying to go through and sort out some 2 thousand pages which by then were still in disorder in a carton. Tuesday evening I put them in binders and started going though them, finishing at eight in the morning and going straight to court. I didn’t learn my lesson. I relaxed during the weekend, wasted most of Monday, run a million errands on Tuesday and began to preapare my plea around nine on Tuesday evening. It was ready at six in the morning, whereafter I slept for one hour and went to court. The question now was, was there any logic and coherence in the plea I had prepared in my half-ruined state at night? I hadn’t reviewed it.

It turned out there was plenty, but just a bit short of enough. The final touch, the polishing of the arguments, their correct order, it all could have been better. Yet, I think I made my points quite clear. It’s not easy: RTC’s case is one pile of legal shit, where all energy has been put into cheap rhetorics and none in sorting out the causes and effects and legal conditions and consequences of things. Typical CoS litigation, simply. If you clean out the irrelevant and sort the mess, what is left is just a few very simple issues that can be decided just as correctly in one way as in the other: matters of opinion. Which in turn means that there is no way of knowing – or even guessing – what the ruling will be. Due to holidays it’s expected on August 31.

So far so well. The next chapter deals with legal costs. These are generally fairly low in Sweden compared to other European countries and cannot be compared with what is awarded (or not awarded) in the US. The basic rule is that who loses a case pays his counterpart’s legal costs, within reason. To give you an idea, the lawyer that represented me from October 1996 to October 1997 and did a very good job at it, was paid by the state for about 120 hours of work some SEK 150.000 (USD 19.000). 20% more would still not have been unreasonable, but that’s about it. Plus necessary and reasonable costs. In her case it was another SEK 4.000 (USD 500). If the parties partly win and partly lose, they carry the legal costs proportionally to their gain and loss.

Now, hold your pants. RTC has only demanded SEK 25.000 (USD 3.125) in damages and I have all along expected that it was with the backthought that by trying to win the entire amount, they could aim at hitting me much harder with legal costs. I was expecting a bill of half a million and I was well prepared to dispute it. But when the time came, Magnusson’s aide got up and handed the bill to the chairman and to me without a word. I leafed past the introduction and looked at the figures. Fees SEK 4.500.000. Costs SEK 345.326. USD 562.500 and 43.000 respectively. I started to laugh. I tried to stop, to no avail. The amount is so absolutely ridiculous, so utterly absurd, so completely ludicrous, that you begin to wonder about your own sanity: no-one can be that insane as to ask for such a sum, therefore you must be hallucinating yourself. I looked up. The chairman was pronouncing the figures as if he was tasting every one of them and – first time – he had lost his stone face. A second judge had evidently a hard time to stop himself from looking too amused. I looked down again and turned the paper. It carried on. RTC’s costs for work and expenses: SEK 2.122.992 (USD 265.000). Legal opinions SEK 190.009 (USD 23.700). Notary public SEK 116.010 (USD 14.500). Witnesses SEK 181.115 (USD 22.600). Among them, Mikael Nyström, the computer expert, was billed with SEK 17.000 (USD 2.125) for one hour on the stand. Grand sum SEK 7.684.581.

RTC asked for legal costs. The amount they demand is unprecedented in Swedish legal history: 7,684,481 crowns, that is: circa 1 million US$. Scans of their calculations are included:

  1. Legal bill 1/8
  2. Legal bill 2/8 Explanation: 2.5 – Kerstin Calissendorff is Zenon’s former lawyer; the professors mentioned have been asked for their expert opinion.
  3. Legal bill 3/8
  4. Legal bill 4/8 Explanation: 5 — William Hart is Cowboy Boots, a hired lawyer for RTC.
  5. Legal bill 5/8 Explanation [this is where the fun starts]: Magnusson claims to have spent 3,000 hours on the case; there are two tickets Stockholm / US for a magnificent amount; he claims to have made 100,000 xeroxes. Altogether, Magnusson’s office claims 0,5 million US$ in fees and costs.
  6. Legal bill 6/8 Explanation: RTC claims to have spent an additional 1,000 hours on the case itself; McShane charged another 60,000 crowns; Bill Hart claims 450 hours at a rate of US$ 390 per hour [one would think him to be able to afford better boots, on such a salary].
  7. Legal bill 7/8
  8. Legal bill 8/8 Explanation: The grand total of 7,684,581 crowns, that is: something like 1 million US$. And it’s signed, too…

Discussion ensued. Magnusson defended the bill. I was still laughing, but I felt very tired. What is the point in spending so much time and energy in a case, if you are going to ruin any impression of seriousness you might have made, with such a bill? What is the point of spending two years in court against someone who ridiculed you, if the last thing you do to crown your case, is to ridicule yourself? How is Magnusson ever going to face a judge or a collegue in that court without thinking that they know him as “the famous bill”? Is this what Hubbard does to people, or are they born this way? Somehow I could neither pity Magnusson, nor despise him. The chairman said some words in a deliberately explicit low calm tone that reminded of his tone when he was trying to make us settle, and the hearing was closed. Tomorrow I’ll be back in Holland.

To sum it up, it was all a waste of time and money and legal resources. To begin with, we had a case that could have been refined to set some of the important delimitations between contradicting legislation; to determine where one right ends because another right begins. There won’t be much of this. RTC deliberately derailed the case into confusion, showing all too plainly that it neither believes in the legal system, nor in its own case. But if they don’t, why then bother to sue? The net result of this lawsuit and its offsprings is an irreparable damage to the CoS’ reputation in this country for all overseeable time. Why spend millions on that? I do dislike the CoS profoundly, but I still would like to understand what goes on in the heads of its heads, what makes them self-destruct in the way they do. I had a chat with McShane, and found it far easier than trying to talk to any low-level scieno I have met so far. I might be very naive, but I get the feeling that the top and the bottom of the CoS are mutually completing and equally mislead by their own total lack of independent critical thinking. Somehow I get the feeling that the entire CoS, top and bottom, is an asylum for people that should have been helped elsewhere.

Anyway, this is not the end. As soon as the ruling comes, RTC will appeal against it. They are bound to lose on some point at least (if only on their amazing bill) and we all know they always appeal. In the meanwhile I have invited them to sue me in Holland. I might feel sorry for them sometimes when I’m tired, but that is no excuse that they can use. If there is any chance that they really have spent half the amount they asked for in this lawsuit, I’ll gladly see to it that they spend another as much on a second front. That will keep them from using the money to more destructive ends (and keep providing amusement to alt.religion.scientology).

[Unbiased columnism is a series of seven court reports on the proceedings of Scientology versus Zenon Panoussis. This series covers the May 22,1998 – June 3, 1998 sessions. This was the last episode. In January 2001, I wrote another series during a second Scientology v. Zenon Panoussis court case.]

Unbiased columnism # 1.6

Questioning McShane

Stockholm, Friday, May 29 1998

[Previous installment: You know that you’re being sued by Scientology when] 9:35. Court resumes. Magnusson speaks.

That is, he utters a word, waits five seconds, then utters another, waits, scratches his head, says a word, waits, leafs through his papers. The judge looks puzzled. Now what is this man doing, he wonders. “Are you done?” he asks. “… erm, … No…” Magnusson replies, and moves to the next word. Zenon and I exchange glances. Yesterday, Zenon asked Magnusson what the fuck had been amiss with him earlier that day, when he literally spelled his words. Gotten out from the wrong side of the bed? Ill? Fight with the missus? “No, not at all,” Magnusson had answered, “I was just trying to emphasise my words.” Instead of attracting he’s losing everybody’s attention. “OT2… OT3… NOTS… materialet… erm… hemlig… ehh… RTC… materialet…”

His aide gets up and hands a set of papers to the three judges and the clerk, then sits down. “Erm, shouldn’t you give one to Panoussis as well?” the judge reminds the aide. The aide smiles bashfully, gets up again and does so. It turns out to be a fifty-page brief containing a phrasal of the grounds, ‘grounds’ being the legal reasons you put forwards as to why your opponent is in the wrong. The judges sigh. “Now which parts did you revise?” the chairman asks Magnusson. “You don’t expect us to read all this again, do you?” Yes, I think he does. Worse, Magnusson expects them to carefully compare these grounds to the ones he previously handed in. Perhaps the court should hire a notary public to compare the two sets; now, that would be a novel idea!

There is a discussion about the damages RTC claims it has suffered because of the availability of “the material”. Zenon insists that RTC should specify its claim (it has been proposed as a lump sum). Zenon again mentions ‘Excalibur Revisited’, written by Geoffrey Filbert, a book that deals with OT3 stuff too and which was registered with the Copyright Office before Hubbard’s OT3 was. McShane immediately confers with Magnusson.

From my comments & summary re: OT3: “Excalibur Revisted was published in electronic form, and Mr Filbert has given it to the public domain in the fall of 1994. It is, amongst others, available via America Online and has been since December 1994. The material is in fact copyright by Filbert; he received his copyright registration on April 25, 1982. Scientology received their first copyright filings for their OT 3 material in 1986… So I guess Filbert predates them.” Filbert describes something very similar to OT3 in pages 266 – 268 of his book.

10:20. McShane takes the witness stand again. I didn’t understand most of Magnusson’s questions so I’ll leave these open; McShane’s answers are more or less verbose. (There will be a tape via the court later, so don’t take my word for it.)

Q ..
The majority of L Ron Hubbard’s works are freely available, perhaps 95% is there for all to read. There is a small percentage that is confidential, that he designated as such, and we believe that this material should remain confidential and unpublished and is only to be seen by and sold to individuals who have reached a certain qualified spiritual level.

Q ..
No you do not.

Q ..
Before a member can have access to, for instance, OT2 he has to go through all prior steps and levels, which can take a considerate amount of time, and only then he becomes eligible to apply for permission to have access to OT2.

Q ..
Once he has qualified spiritually, having met the prerequisite requirements, he then has to apply to RTC to get access. RTC then makes sure that he has indeed met the correct spiritual requirements and that he has the correct ethical — now that is a church term, it means ‘moral’ — requirements to study OT2.

Q ..
Yes we do.

Q ..
No there is more.

Q ..
Once RTC has authorised a person to be allowed access to the level, he then has to sign a confidentiality agreement, and if it has been verified that all requirements are met, he then is invited to study the material. He will take that invitation. The confidentiality agreement is an agreement that the members signs and whereby he agrees that he will never copy the material, never take notes of the material, that he will never disclose the content of the material, that he will maintain the security of the material. That he maintain the security of the material while he is on that particular service. ‘Service’ is a word we use for a special course or counselling you will be receiving.

Q [hands McShane a binder; the attachment under scrutiny is a confidentiality contract] … Can you briefly …
The example here in the book is a typical confidentiality agreement that the member will sign before he is allowed unto the level, and it specifies exactly what is required from this member. For example, the second page of the agreement, where you have no 3, it says that the parishioner specifically agrees that the Advanced Technology, including those portions which have been trusted to him,

Q ..
FSO stands for Flag Service Organisations, one of our largest service centers, and it is located in Clearwater, California.

Q ..
Under 4a it says: “the parishioner shall not disclose verbally [stuff which I missed] …”. That kind of encompasses the meaning of this document in general terms.

Q ..
Next he would take this signed agreement and go to the RTC representative in the Advanced Church, and he would receive an invitation to study this specific level he is applying to.

Q ..
Once he has done those two steps, he has to read the security regulations which gives him more information as to what is required of him while he is on the course. This reference gives him specifics as to how to access the security rooms where this material is kept and where he will do his course. For instance, he is not permitted to let anybody into the room that does not have his own security card, which is a card you need to gain access to these rooms.
This binder contains photographs of the procedures that are followed by all parishioners who are selected to do an OT course. Although the photos are depicting the procedure [..], this is the procedure which is followed by all members who are allowed access. I will go through them as quickly as I can. [blabla. McShane explains the security procedures in great detail and keeps at it for half an hour. Cards, guards, chains and locks.]
The courses contain more than just the confidentiality material, there are also confidential tapes that contain Mr Hubbard’s lectures. These tapes never leave the room. .As for the NOTS, members are not allowed on that course, it is allowed only to the ministers of the Advanced Organisations.

Break.

11:30. McShane continues.
There are only seven churches in the world that are authorised by RTC to deliver this material.

Q ..
No, there’s none in Sweden.

Q ..
The general purpose of these magazines is to inform the members what is happening in the church – events, marriages, conferences — and also they promote the services that that churches offers. [He is obviously trying to repair some of the damage Zenon has done when he quoted form CoS promo material.]

Q ..
No, it talks about all the services which contain a lot of the non-confidential services and some of the confidential services that are delivered by these organisations.

Q ..
Yes, these are two organisations which are licensed by RTC.

Q ..
That means that — ‘clear’ is a specific level which is one of the services these organisations deliver. Panoussis had it wrong, he believed the OT levels come first, then clear, which is not true. [A couple of the critics exchange surprised glances. Zenon never said so. Zenon knows that ‘clear’ comes first.] The level of ‘clear’ — although there is a course involved that is confidential, the clearing course — people can reach the state of ‘clear’ without doing that course. It is a very significant level in the church. After a person has achieved the state of ‘clear’ he would then be eligible to continue on with the OT levels. The number I believe that is listed in there for OT levels is not how many OT’s have been produced but how many levels those people did.

Q ..
You have OT1 to OT8, those are what we call the OT levels. And once a member completes for instance OT1, he then becomes eligible to become OT2, and so on. So, for instance, if there was just one person in that part church who did seven levels, the magazine would list them as seven completions.

Q .. [I think: whether it is possible to do all levels in the time covered between the release of two issues of a magazine]
It’s possible.

Q ..
For instance, here, on page x, it says ‘over 2000 level completions’, a number from which you can’t tell how many individual people have done these levels.

Q ..
On the first page it says 2500 clears; ‘clear’ is not an OT level And then it says over 1000 OT’s per year, which means that there could be a 1000 different persons who did a level, for instance OT1.

Q .. [how many people did them]
I can give you a fairly accurate estimate. Since 1968, when OT2 and 3 were delivered for the first time, there are in between 20,000 and 25,000 people who have gone through the specific requirements and past all the other requirements. That’s a pretty good estimate. In comparison to the membership of Scientology all over the world, that is pretty small.

Q ..
The NOTS course itself is for specially trained ministers of the church and there’s a — my best count is 325 ministers.

Q ..
The course itself, for instance the OT2 course, contains many different texts, tapes and videos by Mr Hubbard, and together that makes up the OT2 course. So it’s more than just the OT2 materials that go into the course.

Q ..
Unfortunately, in 1983 several ex-members of the church, three, impersonated high executives of the church and went in to the Advanced Organisation in Denmark and stole material that was specifically the NOTS material; and another theft occurred in the Advanced Organisation in the UK, also in 1983, where an employee stole a copy of OT2 and OT3. One of the people who stole the material in Denmark was arrested and imprisoned for the theft and the authorities recovered the original material, including OT2 and OT3, but unfortunately, the pirated copies were not all recovered. These individuals intended to start and in fact did set up a competing organisation in the UK where they provided services utilising these materials for their own personal profit.

Q ..
No its not standard; it usually take a couple of years before one becomes eligible.

McShane leaves the witness stand. Another discussion about schedule & time ensues. Magnusson talks again about Filbert. There’s some arguing about publication dates of his work and Hubbard’s OT3.

12:15. Lunch. Zenon and I go through our notes. Zenon has decided that I will be his aide again and will sit next to him in court, with my computer, ready to flood him with information if necessary.

During lunch, journalists show up again. The press has been covering this trial rather well. We are presented with copies of the Swedish edition of “Freedom” that deals with Zenon, me, and Newkid.

13:15. I sit next to Zenon, laptop ready, just like he has his. This side of the court represents the net section, that much is for sure.

Zenon asks the court whether Magnusson has finally decided if he can have a copy of Attachment 126 section 143, which contains comments on and a summary of OT3. Zenon has crossed out all of Hubbard’s quotes and accepted that these will be left out of the RTC-approved copy he is asking for, and yet Magnusson and RTC refuse to decide whether to provide Zenon with one. They consider 126/143 to be sealed and copyrighted. Magnusson is not yet sure. He stalls again. Erm, well, yes, now, erm, [scratches head] “Perhaps on Tuesday?” On Tuesday it shall be, the court decides, and not at the end of the afternoon, the chairman adds emphatically.

Our turn to interrogate McShane. [My notes here are more concise; I worked, meanwhile.]
Zenon asks about Filbert and ‘Excalibur Revisited’.

McShane: “Yes, I have read Mr. Filbert’s book. It was never published. What he took from Mr. Hubbard is small and was taken from Mr. Hubbard’s work. If you put those bits together, it’s only a paragraph or two — if you can put them together at all — out of as many as two hundred pages.”

Zenon wants to know about Attachment 126/document 134. Why does RTC not want to give him a copy?
McShane: “It’s just too many quotes.”

Zenon asks about the requirements to become OT.
McShane: “As I explained previously, they have to have acquired all necessary spiritual levels.”

Zenon: “Can you do those on your own?”
McShane: “No.”

Zenon refines the question, wishing to know whether in that case it is CoS’s help which is necessary to study the OT-levels.
McShane: “I don’t know what you would do, you’ve started your own church. All I know is what the CoS would do.”

Zenon refines again. Magnusson objects. The court allow Zenon his question. “Can you study to become OT without the CoS’s help?”
McShane: “No one could obtain the same level without the church, but people have tried, for instance with material obtained from the net.”

Zenon wants a definite answer: is the help of the church a prerequisite to become OT? Magnusson interrupts and objects again. The court allows Zenon to continue. He states his question again: Does CoS believe that only they, and no one else, can train people adequately to become OT? Yes, or no?
McShane: “Yes.”

Zenon: “In preparations to become OT, can you just do parts of an OT level? For instance, will studying parts of OT3 do?”
McShane: “No.”

Zenon: “The same goes for OT2?”
McShane: “Yes.”

Zenon: “What is the exact number of pages?”
McShane: “Erm, I’m not sure… I think the whole course is 200 pages.”

Zenon: “Maybe 300?”
McShane: “Possibly. I do not have them on me.”

Zenon: “OT3?”
McShane: “I think 200 pages.”
Zenon: “That is correct.”

Next subject: security. Since when was this massive security implemented? Magnusson objects and wants to know what the relevance of this question is. Zenon retorts: “The relevance of this question is that you have just interrogated your client about these security measures for one hour.” The audience laughs. “And can I please have my next interruption now?” Zenon adds. He’s fed up with Magnusson’s continuous bickering.
McShane: “There has always been some, depending upon the available technical possibilities.”

Zenon: “And since when do you apply this confidentiality agreement?”
McShane: “Since 1968, when OT2 and OT3 were released.”

Zenon wants to know whether people had ever been allowed to take them home.
McShane: “People have never been allowed to bring them outside the church.”

Zenon: “And the materials have never circulated outside the church since 1968?”
McShane: “No.”

Zenon: “Are you familiar with the name Sherm Frederick?”
McShane: “Who? No.”
Zenon informs him that Sherm Frederick was the editor to a Las Vegas newspaper that wanted to print part of the OT materials. When CoS sent somebody [RV Young] over to investigate, in August 1980, it turned out Frederick had full copies of OT 1-5.
McShane claims he does not know.

Zenon wants to know what an ‘SP’ is.
McShane: “An SP, or a Suppressive Person, is somebody who engages in anti-social and destructive acts, acts that go against humanity. For instance, Hitler.”

Zenon: “Why was Bill Robertson declared to be an SP on 26 May 1982?”
Magnusson interrupts. The court allows Zenon his question. Zenon: “So, did Bill Robertson get declared SP for starting Galactic Patrol and using OT levels?”
McShane: “The material was his own creation.”

Zenon: “Have you ever heard of the magazine ‘Heretic’?”
McShane: “Heretic? No.”

Zenon: “I’m happy to inform you that it discusses the OT levels and carries quotes of it.”
McShane: “I am not aware of that.”

Zenon: “Were there ever copies of OT documents in the Clearwater Court, open to the public?”
McShane: “Not to my knowledge.” [Comment: as a matter of fact, there were: in 1985, documents containing OT levels were in the Clearwater Court. CoS went through the same routine as they are now performing in Stockholm’s Tingsrätt: asking for it day in, day out, and preventing others from retrieving it. Yet the LA Times got themselves a copy.]

Zenon: “Are you familiar with ‘Revolt in the stars’?”
McShane: “Yes, I am. I have read it.”

Zenon: “Are there parts of OT3 in it?”
McShane: “No.”

Zenon: “Is there anything from OT3 in it?”
McShane: “I do not know what you mean by ‘anything’.”

Zenon: “Something which you would consider to be a quote.”
McShane: “No. There are no quotes in ‘Revolt in the Stars’ which were taken from OT3. ‘Revolt in the stars’ is a screenplay, it is fiction, and it deals with characters, some of whom — who live some of the things that are described in OT3. It is a fictional work.”

Zenon: “Does the US government or any of its authorities have copies of OT levels?”
McShane: “No, not that I am aware of.”

[Comment: RVY has testified that, when CoS requested files from the US government and the FBI, under the Freedom Of Information Act, it turned out that they had copies of the advanced technology-material. According to RV Young, this was in 1974, ’75.]

Zenon: “Are you familiar with the following quote from a recent court case you were involved in?” Zenon starts reading him the quote and yes, Magnusson interrupts. After some hassle Zenon is allowed to continue. Seeing that the quote is in English, he decides to bring my computer to McShane: that way he can read it directly and the court’s interpreter can interpret it for the court: “Despite RTC and the Church’s elaborate and ardent measures to maintain the secrecy of the Works, they have come into the public domain by numerous means. RTC’s assertion that the only way in which the materials have escaped its control was through two thefts in Denmark and England was not supported by the evidence. A former senior Scientology official testified to ongoing difficulties the Church incurred in keeping the Works secret, including members losing materials in their possession.” (Judge Kane, RTC v FactNet, Civil Action No. 95-B-2143, September 15, 1995 at Denver, Colorado.)
McShane: “I do not remember the quote.”

Zenon: “It was an important case.” He mentions judge and case.
McShane: “… This was a ruling in a preliminary hearing. [Or did he say: ‘summary hearing’? I’m not quite sure.] I do not recall it.”

Next subject. Or rather, a previous one.
Zenon: “In your opinion, can people outside the church who have access to the material, become OT?”
McShane: “The only Scientology churches are those that are authorised by RTC.”

Zenon: “That is not what I asked. Can only CoS properly educate people to become OT?”
McShane: “We have no view on other groups outside the church. Except when they use infringing material. If they use other material — that they believe is Scientology material — we don’t care.”

Zenon: “I am not asking about infringements. The question is, what is the stand of RTC towards congregations outside the CoS that use RTC material that is not infringing, such as for instance published RTC material that has been legally bought?”
McShane: “If there is a group that uses Scientology material that was authorised I have no view. If they are using infringing material we try to make them stop. It’s illegal.”

Zenon: “Are there people that RTC is currently suing over, not over copyright but over trade secrets? How many of such actions has Scientology initiated in the past four years?”
McShane: “Seven cases — it’s more copyright, some of them involve specific trade secret claims as well — in the US, in Holland, and here.”

Zenon: “I meant trade secret.”
McShane: “Oh I thought you meant either way. I think three.”

Zenon: “When you confiscated my hard disk, you stated -” Magnusson interrupts. Zenon: “Again?” There is some debate between Magnusson, the court and Zenon.
Zenon: “When you confiscated my hard disk, you had some search terms. Among them, was there ‘Ward’ and ‘Vorlon’?”
McShane: “Possibly. I do not remember.”

Zenon: “Are those words in OT2 or OT3?”
McShane: “No, it’s people who posted the infringing material to the net. We were looking for the people who posted that.”

Zenon: .. [didn’t get that]
McShane: “I believe so. I figured that if she [= the bailiff] found those names, she’d find those infringing works.”

14:20. Break.

After the break, it’s the computer expert’s turn again. He is again asked about Zenon’s message of May 2, in which he announced he was going to post the NOTS. Magnusson wants to know whether headers can be manipulated (yes, they can) and what this experts thinks the chance is of this one being authentic. “Ninety-nine percent,” he answers. They go on about the message. When it’s Zenon’s turn, he tries to explain to court, via the expert, that anybody who has a direct connection to the net, can inject postings in a newsfeed. The expert admits that this is possible. But only big companies have direct connections to the net, he says, and it sounds as if only Volvo can have one. “Does your company have one?” Zenon wants to know. “Yes.” “And how many people work there?” “Forty. But we do webpages and code and stuff.” “Wouldn’t such companies be precisely the ones where the knowledge to inject such a posting can be found?” “Yes,” the expert agrees.

15:15. The expert is done.

Zenon asks for McShane’s tapes, including those of the closed hearing when Magnusson, McShane, Zenon and the court went through attachments 24, 37 and 126. Magnusson says he can reply on Wednesday. Zenon insists: he needs them in order to prepare for his final plea, which is to be on Wednesday, and apart from that nothing from “the material” was read aloud. Magnusson hesitates again. He would need to confer with his client in order to reach a decision so that — “For god’s sake,” Zenon exclaims, “the only secret words mentioned there were ‘BT’ and ‘cluster’. There. Now, can I please have a copy of the tape?”

The court adjourns. Next session: Wednesday, June 3.

[Unbiased columnism is a series of seven court reports on the proceedings of Scientology versus Zenon Panoussis. This series covers the May 22,1998 – June 3, 1998 sessions. Next: Final Pleas.]

Unbiased columnism # 1.5

You know that you’re being sued by Scientology when…

Stockholm, Thursday, May 28 1998

[Previous installment: Brochures with a bite.] Every morning, it’s the same routine. We get up too early, quickly prepare some coffee, smoke, wash, check our mail, smoke, dress, phone a taxi and hurry to Tingsrätt where Zenon then needs to buy cigarettes in a shop opposite the court.

There’s so much stuff to take along. Two computers. Cables. Batteries. My wheelchair. And most important, a stack of five crammed binders with all pertinent files. Some of the stuff is piled on my lap and Zenon carries the rest. We feel like we’re becoming regular housemovers.

In court, we see the same people again and again. There’s a girl whose friend is a member of Scientology and who is worried because the friend wants to join the Sea Org in Copenhagen; there’s Karsten, from the Danish Dialog Centre; there are a couple of journalists who follow most of the court sessions and report on an almost daily basis; there’s a woman who has organised a support group for former cult members (today, she will give Zenon a vase of flowers, with this nice little card attached to it: “For all you’ve done for humanity”); there’s friends of Zenon’s who attend.

We take a lot of taxi’s. In this one week, we will spend 2700 kronor – circa 325 US$ — on transport alone.

9:35. The bailiff is called to testify. On RTC’s behalf, she confiscated Zenon’s hard disks etc.; a computer expert was hired to search it.

However, as the bailiff didn’t have the original texts, she didn’t know what to search for. Zenon finally decided to help by handing in a copy of the OTs and NOTS to the bailiff. That way, the bailiff could do the search, and Zenon could get his hard disk back, which he desperately needed. In this way, the bailiff retrieved what was purportedly a NOTS pack from Zenon’s hard disk and put it on diskette. Search terms she was asked to use in case Zenon hadn’t helped her to retrieve these files, were ‘volcano’, ‘BT’, ‘GP/M’, ‘Vorlon’ and ‘Ward’ (as in: Grady Ward). The notary public later compared this diskette to Attachment 37, and found that they were the same.

Small wonder. Attachment 37 is a print-out from a file on Zenon’s hard disk. A print-out from the file he himself helped to retrieve. Zenon has stated that much. The bailiff is apparently brought in to establish a chain of evidence: hard disk — diskette — Attachment 37. Which is silly, because this chain of evidence is completely unnecessary and doesn’t need to be established in the first place: after all, Zenon himself has verified that Attachment 37 is a print-out from this file on his hard disk. Why this detour? To confuse the court? To insinuate that he had yet ‘another’ copy of a NOTS pack, i.e. the diskette? But they had him make that…

9:45. Exit bailiff.

Magnusson speaks about the net, more specifically about Zenon’s homepage, e-mail and postings to Usenet (i.e. alt.religion.scientology). He explains that ISPs have rules about not abusing one’s account and stipulates that Zenon did indeed abuse his account at Wineasy, by putting the NOTS on his homepage there.

Magnusson is stalling. Speaking teasingly, almost lethally slow, as if he were verbosely dictating a letter to an apprentice secretary instead of presenting a group of intelligent people with a coherent set of arguments. Also, it would seem, he’s putting forward either the obvious or repeating stuff everybody by now knows Zenon and Magnusson disagree about. Zenon becomes visibly impatient.

Magnusson wishes to discuss a posting of May 2, 1996, allegedly sent by Zenon, in which he announces that in two days he will post the NOTS to alt.religion.scientology. To everybody’s dismay Magnusson starts spelling headers. “N N T P dash user dash …”

Magnusson discusses the financial damages RTC suffers due to the dissemination of their secret material. Also, RTC has suffered a ‘kränking’ by Zenon’s behaviour, they have been ridiculed, treated without any respect whatsoever.

The president asks Zenon for a reply. Zenon maintains that “the material” lacks in originality. Also, RTC claiming that with parts of the OTs he has copied a 100% isn’t saying much because often ‘a work’ is very short, just a paragraph, and one OT-level consists of many such ‘works’. Whether they are copies at all is impossible to ascertain, because the material filed at the Copyright Office is masked.

There is a discussion about exactly how many copies of the NOTS Zenon has made. Magnusson counts literally everything as a copy: copies in RAM, copies that are printed directly from files, copies in cache, copies here, copies there, copies everywhere.

Zenon, of needs, delves into another explanation of computers. Many copies which one makes are volatile, temporary. As a matter of fact, it is not you but the computer who makes one, and you can’t prevent that. For instance, when you open a file in Word and meanwhile start doing something else, the computer will automatically reallocate memory and move the Word-document to a different place in RAM, or on RAM-disk; without you even being aware of it, you’ll have lots of temporary copies all over the place. [This really needs to be explained, seeing that RTC includes temporary copies in their calculations. The damages that RTC demands are fixed, but the principle that volatile copies shouldn’t count is important to defend.] Zenon explains that some copies RTC claims he has made, are not real copies: it’s cache memory, or RAM, or a swap file; in other words: you cannot evade making such copies as soon as you do anything with a computer.

Regarding RTC’s remark about his ISP: the ISP is not responsible for what their users do, Zenon maintains, it is users themselves which should be held accountable. ISPs are nothing but common carriers, companies that provide the technical environment. This remark causes a slight uproar in the CoS-benches behind me. One of the Swedish CoS-members scribbles a note which is handed to Magnusson, who receives it and nods happily. It would seem the two men behind me — a very young Swede, 26 at most, and a blond, almost bald American — are doing a god job. They whisper with Cowboy Boots, who seems relieved and starts leafing through a file. The three of them point at a paragraph; Cowboy Boots nods vehemently and gives the two men a thumbs-up.

Regarding Magnusson’s dissecting of Zenon’s May-2 posting, Zenon explains that you can forge every header. Headers provide no proof, only logs do. And headers often seem convincing, even when they obviously are manipulated. For instance, Zenon reminds RTC, recently there were two postings on a.r.s. purportedly made by their own lawyer Helena Kobrin. Both had valid and, to all intends and purposes, similar headers; yet the second messages claimed to be by the ‘real’ Kobrin and alleged that the first one was a forgery.

11:15. Coffee break. Smoke break.

11:35. Magnusson’s aide has traded places with the young Swedish Scientology member who sat behind me. The next witness enters: Mikael Nyström, the computer expert, who is going to be heard about the net.

The net is basically a lot of computer networks linked together, he explains, and they provide for the Web, mail and news. The Web caters to the general public, everybody can access these documents; what is in them, is decided upon by the homepage owner. Newsgroups are discussion platforms; news propagates via news servers. Which groups you can access depends on your ISP’s news server. Once you’re on, you can read and post to a selected group. News is archived at DejaNews, a searchable database. Also, there’s ftp: retrieval or delivery of files. You need it to put files on your homepage, because the homepage is located at the ISP’s disks. Then there’s mail, distributed via mail servers, whereby people can send messages to one another and copy messages from the mail server to their own computer.

[Nice that he mentions copies, temporary copies and cache. Now he is telling the judges that there are many kind of copies and that most of them are technical necessities. Unfortunately, the judges seem most unfamiliar with computers in general and with the net in particular, and they are definitely getting an information overload on the subject. Every three minutes they beep for time in order to process what they’ve heard.]

Zenon’s turn. Zenon makes the witness admit that all headers can be forged and that some people even consider it a sport to do so.

The young Swede’s turn. How can you post via e-mail to a newsgroup? [He’s bent on proving that Zenon must have made a copy of his own NOTS file to Mozilla in order to post the NOTS. Yet another copy RTC wants to be paid damages for.] Zenon grills the expert witness, who explains that yes, you can easily send off e-mail and postings at once, without making extra copies on your own computer, via Mozilla.

12:40. Exit witness. Discussion about procedures, time and witnesses.

Zenon and Joe Harrington

13:00. Lunch break.

You know that you are being sued by Scientology…
… when the people working in the court’s cafeteria not only start greeting you, but also know what you want for lunch. When Zenon goes to the counter, he does no longer need to ask. One coffee, one cappuccino, two ham sandwich rolls, one apple. And an ashtray.

13:45. Yet another argument about time. Zenon would of course like as much time for his final statement as Magnusson is going to take. But it is already Thursday, and there’s two witnesses, and then McShane will be heard, and Magnusson expects this to take a long time, and …

14:00 Thomas M Small, from RTC, is called in to testify. A court interpreter translates his words for the judges. The dots represent the questions.

“I am a patent lawyer and intellectual copyright lawyer. … I compiled the agreement [between CST and RTC] before it was signed. … I was at the time representing RTC and to some extent CST as well, because they were co-operating. I attempted to put their wishes on paper. … This document was designed to give all rights to the Advanced Technology Scientology material outside the US to RTC. … That includes the OTs and NOTS, those are part of the Advanced Tech. … The agreement was intended to transfer all intellectual copyrights. Basically, it consists of two parts. One part is the confidentiality of the documents and the other is the [couldn’t hear that, but I assume he refers to the license] … The protection of this confidential material is part of the contract. The license gives the right to use and make copies of the material. There are specific terms to it, which I will explain later. … There’s a provision in the agreement that RTC would protect these rights and, if necessary, sue infringements. … This was in RTC’s name. They were granted the exclusive right to use the materials and they can sue on their own. CST only sues when the need to do so arises. … (Magnusson gives him some papers.) … There were none other that I know of; at the bottom of the page it says that the Estate has the rights to pull [xxx] and these serve as [xxx] the ecclesiastic use of the materials. … This is religious document, agreed upon between the leaders of a religious groups and there’s a number of limitations on how these materials can be used; not in the copyright sense but rather in the ecclesiastic sense. … The rights remain the same. The role of the trustees was simply turned to RTC. …”

Zenon’s turn. “Are you saying that RTC and CST were co-operating partners in this?”

Small: “They were co-operating although RTC had not really [xxx]. The interests of CST and RTC were the same, yes. … CST did then not yet have a direct interest in the matter; that was the Estate at the time. … whether RTC and the Estate had opposing interest at that time? No they had not. … It was a exclusive license, an transfer of copyright, … the right to use and to authorise others to use is covered by the license, the copyright remains with the license holder. … that was the desire of the partners, they had no intent to transfer copyrights to RTC or to anybody else. Mr Hubbard kept his own copyrights and Mr Hubbard made provisions that the rights went to CST and they were entitled to hold the rights. … the limitations are as I intended them to state: the Scientology scriptures state that this is the way they are to be used, after all it’s Mr Hubbard’s writing.”

Zenon asks why the contract does not deal with possible conflicts between the contract partners and third parties, and why RTC’s right to sue third parties in its own name is not regulated.

Small: “Well, that right is right is a matter of law, it wasn’t necessary to say any more in the license then it now states. … This contract was made in the US between US parties, and this subject is covered by US law.”

Zenon: “But the contract states explicitly that is only applies to the use of the copyrights outside the US, in countries with their own law, that might differ. Why was it not explicitly stipulated that the RTC has the right to sue in its own name?”

Small: “It is possible that there is a country where RTC would not have the right to sue, and the contract states that in that case CST could. I also add that this is not just a copyright agreement but also a confidentiality agreement and therefore its important for RTC to guarantee this confidentiality.”

14:35: exit witness.

The court attempts to phone Thomas K Vorn [born 10 Aug. 1964] who is vice president of CST and authorised to represent CST. They meet with some difficulties: after Vorn has stated his name, the connection dies. After a bit of a hassle, the connection stays up. Magnusson asks him some questions.
Q How long have you held this position?
Small: “Since October 88. I oversee the work done by RTC. I archive all to preserve the Scientology religion.”
Q [something about the copyright of OT2, OT3 and NOTS]
Small: “RTC is the protector of the copyrights. Mr Hubbard’s estate was transferred to CST, and RTC brings litigation in case of infringement.”
Q Could you describe CST’s position about the license to RTC?
Small: “In 1993, after the copyrights were turned over, [xxx]”
Q Which rights?
Small: “RTC had three basic rights. To authorise Scientology organisations to use the tech and provide those organisations with copies; the exclusive right to protect these copyrights; and to collect the [xxx] [money, I assume].”
Q Does this also mean, according to CST, that RTC can also start litigation in its own name?
Small: “Huh?”
Q According to CST: may RTC take legal action when it comes to protect this copyrights?
Small: “Yes.”
Q In RTC’s own name?
Small: “Yes.”
Q According to CST, are there any remaining rights not included in the license agreement and _not_ given to RTC?
Small: “No.”
Q Could this mean that RTC [xxx]
Small: “Yes.”

Zenon’s turn.
Zenon: “Why did CST sue Spaink in Holland, if RTC takes care of this?”
Small: “– ehm. I don’t understand the question.”
Magnusson interrupts.
Zenon: “If RTC is supposed to sue in its own name and that is sufficient, why did CST sue Spaink et al in Holland?”
Small: “I cannot say.”
Zenon: “No further questions.”
15:00. That Zenon has no further questions is fortunate, because the connection fails again before the judges can formally thank Mr Vorn. The judge asks Zenon for a clarification.
15:15. Smoke break.

15:30. We re-enter. Magnusson has announced to Zenon that he will need 2,5 hours to question McShane on the materials (closed doors again), plus 1 hour to question him on RTC/CST. Zenon wants to question him as well, which means we’ll be well into Friday morning before we can start with the final arguments & points — time of which Magnusson will take up the lot, too, probably. They are trying to fuck up the schedule.

The judge reminds both parties — and does so with great emphasis — of the need to be concise and to adhere to schedule.

By now, it is nevertheless obvious that the trial needs to be prolonged. There is no time for all these witnesses plus two final pleas. [Magnusson’s final plea will take a lot of time because he speaks so tediously slow; Zenon’s will take time because Magnusson insists on interrupting him and trying to prevent him from discussing specific subjects.] Dammit. Prolong the hearings, but when? Zenon needs to be back at work on Monday; we have booked planes on Sunday. Monday is a holiday, so the earliest day the court can resume its proceedings is Tuesday. That means that Zenon has to take another two days off from work, needs to cancel his plane and book another — probably rather expensive — return flight. It also means that I cannot be present during the final plea and can not help Zenon in his preparations.

McShane doesn’t care about the prolongation. He can easily stay. Or even go home for the weekend. He doesn’t need to take leave from work. As a matter of fact, being in court is his work, as both the RTC and the CST witnesses have just explained.

15:55. McShane will be called to testify and will be asked about “the” materials. The doors will be closed: chances are that parts of Scientology’s Advanced Tech will be mentioned, and we can’t have that, can we?

16:00 Doors close. I pack my stuff and leave with the rest.

16:35 Doors open. Now that was quick!

There’s an argument about planning. Again. And about protocols. Cowboy Boots -hired lawyer Bill Hart, as we have learned meanwhile — kindly warns me not to unpack: chances are the court will recede within ten minutes. They do indeed. Zenon and I go off for a smoke, a drink and a meal. And yes, we will work all evening again.

[Unbiased columnism is a series of seven court reports on the proceedings of Scientology versus Zenon Panoussis. This series covers the May 22,1998 – June 3, 1998 sessions. Next: Questioning McShane.]

Unbiased columnism # 1.4

Brochures with a bite

Stockholm, Wednesday, 27 May 1998

[Previous installment: To want a pie and eat it. This court case – the main case in the many Scientology vs Panoussis series – deals with copyright infringement. Did Zenon violate RTC’s rights when he had OT2 and OT3 on his homepage, and did he post the NOTS? Day one of this case was mainly spent discussing settlements.]

9:15. Yesterday, Magnusson hadn’t finished his opening statements — in which you state your position — and is allowed to continue. He doesn’t take long and speaks only about OT2, OT3 and the NOTS, the authenticity of which will be proved later on, amongst others during the hearing of witnesses. “You can’t use witnesses to put forward new statements in a case like this,” the president of the court reminds him; “You can only use them to prove a previously stated argument.” Hmm. Anyway, Magnusson states, the most important proof has already been filed: the registration number copies. These prove the authenticity of the NOTS and testify to the fact that they are copyrightable: only material that has a certain amount of originality (“value”, or “dignity” in Swedish law: meaning, they must be distinctive, creative, testify to a personal style or something) can be registered, Magnusson explains. And yes, the OTs and NOTS therefore must have met this necessary level of originality. “Excuse me,” Zenon interrupts. “will you please state which material was filed with the Registration Office? Were those masked or unmasked OTs and NOTS?” Zenon asks. “Masked,” Magnusson replies. Exit argument. Who on earth can judge the level of originality of a masked text?

OT2 & 3 and the NOTS are a recurring subject. Magnusson mentions that Zenon had copies of the OT/NOTS on his disks — but which version, Zenon wants to know? To which NOTS were they compared? Attachment 37? 24? 126?

Zenon starts his opening statement. How can something that is on the net end up on his disks? Where did he get this stuff in the first place? He lectures about e-mail, Usenet, the Web, about downloading, browsers, urls, hyperlinks, headers. He speaks a couple of sentences and then waits for the judges to finish their notes before he continues. Smart. This is a verbal case; files are assumed to be used for referral only, and the judges will base their decision upon their assessment of what they are told. [Also, he later explains me, the judges asked him twice or thrice to please slow down.]

“I found OT2 and OT3 on the Web,” he explains. “There were lots of copies.” He mentions the case in Holland which triggered him: RTC sued over OT2 and 3 and lost: the Dutch court in March 1996 allowed my mixture of summary, comments, notes and quotes. “This same file that RTC sued somebody else over, is now by the way being claimed as copyrighted by themselves in this case,” he remarks, referring of course to file 143 of attachment 126. Magnusson uneasily shifts in his chair.

Zenon proceeds with his historical outline, argument and position. The announcement of his homepage, the ensuing Kobrinogram, his provocative tone, the aggression RTC had displayed against ISPs, their cancel messages, their demands that providers terminate users’ accounts, how what he is doing is in sync with what others on the net are doing, how he has always been totally open about who he was, what he did, why, and even told them how they could stop him. A Swedish Scientology member who is sitting two rows behind me makes derogatory noises. “Psah. Pfah!”

Now, can OT2 and 3 as included in the Fishman Affidavit, be considered to be quotes? The originals, McShane has at one point testified in cross-examination, total to 300 and 200 pages respectively. The Fishman OT2 and OT3 quotes may be huge, but not in proportion to the total amount of text. The Fishman Affidavit contains no more than 7 or 8 percent of the total number of pages. And yes, there are many questions surrounding the authenticity of OTs/NOTS: RTC has the habit of claiming everything to be theirs. Including, in this case, dialect versions of NOTS (Swedish chef, Jamaican, Nuyorikan); my rendering and criticism of Hubbard; cut-up, mixed and reshuffled versions of NOTS. It would appear that whenever a Hubbard phrase shows up in any text, no matter whose, RTC claims the copyright to the wholeof this text.

Zenon refers to documents and attachments quite often. The nasty bit is that he will often use Magnusson’s own filed stuff in order to make a point for himself: he’s using Magnusson’s material against RTC. And something else becomes clear. The judges need to look up most of the document Zenon refers to. They are not very familiar with the files. Magnusson has simply been spamming the court and his own virtual flood of files has prevented the judges from preparing well. And they don’t like it.

Coffee break.

Zenon discusses September 1996, when he filed a NOTS pack at Riksdagen (the Swedish parliament) and the Administrative Section of the court — which is how the NOTS became publicly accessible in Sweden. He gave a copy to parliament because he wanted to instigate a discussion about CoS and the NOTS, he states. Since he gave only one copy to parliament, which can be considered to be a ‘limited circle’, he did not publish or distribute these NOTS, he argues.

Why he handed over a copy to the Administrativa Avdelningen — the Administrative Section — is a more delicate matter. They had one already, which was not given them by himself but which ended up being there as a result of the procedure he was involved in. Administrative sections of courts file stuff. That’s what they are for. At one point, Zenon himself was sent a copy retrieved from the Administrative Section — somebody had ordered a copy and had requested that it be sent to him. Anybody can get one, for just a small administrative fee. Later, when the Administrative Court’s own copy was stolen by a Scientologist, Thierry Duchaunac, Zenon provided them with a fresh pack: the copies he himself was given.

Time to discuss the OTS, the NOTS and the beliefs of Scientology itself. Zenon delves into it, making snide remarks about Hubbard’s career as a science fiction writer, about the ‘gains’ and ‘wins’ CoS promises; about Thetans; about the need to inform the public beforehand about which tenets of belief they will be supposed to subscribe to, once a member. “It is a matter of consumer’s rights, in a way.”

McShane gets very nervous and slips Magnusson a note. Magnusson immediately interrupts. “We’re not here to discuss Scientology’s merits and also, I’m afraid that Panoussis is trying to disclose some of the secret materials right now.” “I’m not quoting, just saying something about them,” Zenon retorts, but the judges agree that Scientology’s character is not to be judged today.

Next issue: the rights to the texts. There is this spaghetti-structure which becomes a Gargantuan, Gordian knot. The structure is self-referring, seems to be licensing rights years after they have already licensed them to others while not having retrieved them; dates and years do not match, and some documents are signed one year yet refer in the body of the text to dates years ahead. (McShane quickly gets up to whisper something to Magnusson again.) Magnusson speaks up; there is a short discussion and much leafing through documents.

“I am only trying to show you that these rights and licenses are not as clear-cut as RTC and Magnusson say they are, and I would like to show this by using their own documents.” I do believe that at one point he states that one of the documents handed in carrying RTC’s or CST’s or Starkey’s signature to be a forgery: the word “förfalskning” is being used quite often. McShane quickly confers with Magnusson. McShane’s face is red with anger. He sits down again. Everybody looks at documents, files and folders. McShane goes over to Magnusson once more. “Are we all talking about the same document?” the president wishes to know. Magnusson speaks: all this talk about forgery amounts to character assassination. The president renders a speech. He wants to know whether Zenon has referred to this matter previously in his briefs; if not, he is bringing up new issues, which is not allowed. Also, the president insist, we’re not adhering to schedule and he is not, repeat: not going to sit here until eight o’clock in the evening.

Lunch break.

Zenon goes through his previous briefs in a hurry, and does indeed find some previous references to forgery or fakes. We smoke, talk with a journalist in training, smoke, eat a sandwich, smoke, drink coffee, smoke; and the hour is gone. Time flies when you’re having fun.

The critics having lunch

13:00. Zenon will not let go. He takes up the issue once more by referring to David Mayo. Hubbard wasn’t the only one to write NOTS; some of them have been written by Mayo only, some of them were written by the both of them, others by Elron only. Can RTC claim copyright to all of them? Did CST have the right to license those? There’s rights residing with CSC too. How about those?

The court needs to decide on whether this is or is not going to be part of this lawsuit. They wish to confer amongst themselves; we go out and smoke.

14:00. Next. Can these documents – OTs and NOTS – be considered to be published? Now, that is a question. Material is considered to be ‘published’ once it gets spread beyond the ‘inner’ or ‘limited’ circle of people in the immediate surroundings of the author. CoS argues that they have only spread the OTs/NOTS within a “limited circle”, and that they thus cannot be considered to have been ‘published’, that is: distributed to the public.

Then again, Zenon argues, these same materials are in Saint Hill, in Clearwater, in Flag, in other places; CoS itself claims that thousands and thousands of people have read and studied them. Zenon had filed an attachment (three CoS ad brochures and two magazines) that claim that many have studied — and all can study — the NOTS. “Why don’t you come to Flag and improve your life? Study New OT5 at Flag!” one says. This brochure is sent to all CoS-members. All are ‘invited’ to come and study OT5. “You can come to Flag clear and go home OT!” states another leaflet. CoS-magazine ‘Source’ has a price-list for OTs and NOTS, broken down into membership prices and non-membership prices. He points at the completions list. So many people passed OT2, so many OT3; so many passed NOTS this or NOTS that. Some of these successful students are from the US, others from Canada or Europe. Elsewhere it says: “We produce more than one thousand OTs per year!” Or: “Advanced Org LA is really booming! So many Class VIII Auditors produced!” Or: “Become an OT3!” They say they ‘make’ a thousand OTs per year as well. If the audience CoS here states it caters to does not constitute more than a ‘limited circle’, Zenon continues, then what the fuck does?– Nice touch, Zenon, to throw their own promotion material back at them.

[Zenon couldn’t find his copy of ‘Source’, so he goes over to the bench and borrows the court’s, and shows it to them, standing there and reading aloud. After a couple of minutes, they invite him to try the overhead projector. Don’t work, of course. You need transparent sheets for them, not glossy paper. So Magnusson goes up to the bench as well.]

Meanwhile, Scientology claims that Zenon has distributed to more than a limited circle by handing them in to parliament, which consists of 349 people only. Aren’t those two arguments contradicting one another? You can’t have your cake and eat it, is what he says.

And RTC claims damages. But haven’t high Dutch CoS-members stated that their members would never ever take material from the net instead of from their own church? So, they wouldn’t sell less, would they? So, why claim damages?

Break. In session, and in ARC as well I assume. McShane hated this last bit.

After the break. The first witness is going to be heard. It’s Ms Alexandersson again, who testified in Monday’s court case too. Same testimony, same comparison, same nutty NOTS; it’s just that we have different judges, and a different court case. This time however she will be prepared. She will know about the cut-up NOTS and know that RTC has claimed my article as theirs.

17:00. Zenon enters the smoking room. “We finally agreed upon one thing,” he says. “RTC has by now admitted that attachment 126 is for perhaps 85% scrambled text and that the rest is Borkified versions.” He starts lighting his cigarette. The intercom ding-dongs an announcement: Zenon is called back into the courtroom. He sighs, drops his cigarette, and goes back in again.

Later on, we get the full story. The notary — who had been comparing the Nutty NOTS to material RTC claims is original NOTS — was meticulous beyond boring. Even the court tried to rush her. At one point Zenon proposed that she would simply state how many pages (out of 700) were similar, defining ‘similar’ as in allowing for five or six places where different spelling or interpunction was used. Even this didn’t speed Alexandersson’s snail pace.

After tedious and boring hours — Zenon almost fell asleep — RTC is finally prepared to admit that, considering the perl’ed NOTS and my article, 180 out of 200 files in Attachment 126 are scrambled NOTS. RTC also admitted that no scrambled and relocated portion of paragraphs is longer than three, at most four sentences. Then again, they maintained that they had copyright over the scrambled NOTS. And they insisted that this copyright had been infringed upon.

Wow. These guys are crazy, and want to make copyright jump through every hoop.

Five minutes later, we are allowed to re-enter as well.

Magnusson and Zenon are arguing. The president sometimes intervenes. Suddenly, it is visible what a lawsuit is all about: two warring parties who need someone else to settle their fight. Magnusson and Zenon can not, will not, agree upon anything. This case is exemplary.

They even argue about the amount time each party needs, will take or may have. RTC has lots of witnesses they want to call, for instance the bailiff, who is supposed to testify as to what he found on a diskette of Zenon’s. They argue about what was on his hard disk and this diskette. The diskette was used to copy something on from Zenon’s hard disk and was then compared, and found to be similar to attachment 37 — alleged NOTS.

The court, to Zenon: “Can you accept that the material on this diskette was the same as attachment 37?” Zenon: “No. The stuff on my hard disk is attachment 37. It is not another instance, it is the same material: the print came from that file., I printed it for my own personal use. Now, I know what was on my hard disk, I know what is in attachment 37, and I will gladly admit that those are indeed the same. We don’t need a witness for that. But if RTC wants to bring in this diskette — who am I to know what they might have done with it?” RTC wants the witness to be heard anyway. The court sighs.

[Unbiased columnism is a series of seven court reports on the proceedings of Scientology versus Zenon Panoussis. This series covers the May 22,1998 – June 3, 1998 sessions. Next: You know that you are being sued by Scientology when….]

Unbiased columnism # 1.3

Settlement talks: to want a pie and eat it

Stockholm, Tuesday, 26 May 1998

[Previous installment: ‘The material’, or: ‘NOTS? Which NOTS?’ Note: This is a mixed issue: part of it is written by Zenon, and part by Karin. The main reason for that is that most of the day Zenon was in a closed courtroom doing settlement talks, while Karin was closed in in a smoking room.]

This court case is the main one in RTC vs Panoussis. It deals with the question whether Zenon has infringed upon Scientology’s, or rather, RTC’s copyright of L. Ron Hubbard’s text when he had the OTs on his homepage and posted the NOTS. This case will be heard by three judges; one of them has been concerning himself with it for one year and a half already.

Zenon:

I had met the entire scientology delegation the day before, on my TRO case, and I had taken the opportunity to ask McShane what he thought about a possible settlement; our meeting is described in UC #2. So on Tuesday, when the “main” case was opened and the chairman asked in a rather imperative tone if there was any possibility that the parties could reach a settlement, I was in position to raise my shoulders and say that yes, I proposed that yesterday, but RTC seems quite unwilling. Magnusson said that my conditions were utterly unreasonable.

The chairman was not prepared to dismiss the matter that easily and I, on my part, was not prepared to let Magnusson call me unreasonable. I turned the tables and said that I will listen to any settlement proposal that RTC might want to put forward. This opened for formal settlement discussions, that the court was not only prepared to assist, but actually very eager to see come through.

Settlement discussions are not part of the court proceedings, so they are not open to the public unless both parties agree they should be. RTC did not agree and the courtroom was cleared. The judge that has handled the case during the 1,5 year preparation was to handle the settlement talks as well.

Karin:

This was the weirdest day of all. The public was let into the courtroom and, almost immediately afterward, requested to vacate it. This happened a couple of times, to the point where everybody in the audience started to feel a bit dizzy and believed they were being trained in order to take the part of the puppets you’ll find in weather boxes. In. Out. Sunshine. Rain. In. Sun. Out. Thunder.

Zenon’s face reflected the many changes in the weather. Whenever there was a break in the negotiations, or when the judges wanted to speak with each party separately, he joined us in the smoking room and attempted to briefly explain how things stood. Rain. Sun. Unsettled, mainly.

Zenon:

Being the plaintiff, RTC was first to be subjected to pressure from the court to settle. I don’t know what they were told, but they looked less than happy when they left the courtroom and I entered it for my one-to-one discussion with the judge. I guess I looked less than happy myself after it.

The point of the court was that both parties had something to lose by insisting on a ruling, that both parties could gain something by settling and that the main characteristic of a settlement is that it leaves both parties dissatisfied, albeit less dissatisfied than what they risk to be if the case comes to a ruling. I have to admit they are right on this.

I put forward the same proposal I had given McShane the previous day (incidentally the same one I put forward last year): RTC admits that the OTs and NOTS are open to fair use and I admit copyright infringement, pay damages and treat the OTs and NOTS with the same amount of respect (in the copyright sense) that I treat any other text with. I was confronted with RTC’s counterproposal: that I admit infringement and they let me off damages and legal costs.

I explained that (1) I didn’t publish the disputed texts in order to avoid paying damages because if that had been my goal, I would have abstained from publishing them in the first place and (2) given the fact that I am basically broke, I won’t be paying any damages or legal costs anyway, so there’s nothing in for me in RTC’s proposal.

There was evidently a hope for a settlement on both sides, but not a basis for it. So the court brought us together, face to face with each-other and with all three judges. Let’s argue.

We did. The chairman took the initiative, “took” as in “categorically refused to let anyone else have it”. Both Magnusson and myself were quite prone to escalate arguments into dead-ends, so the chairman wouldn’t let us argue with each-other, but rather take over and apply pressure to both sides to decrease their demands.

Karin:

As time progressed, the critics in the smoking room became increasingly nervous. Joe Harrington was having his birthday. Somebody started singing him a birthday song and before he knew it, he was treated to anniversary songs in Swedish, Danish, Dutch and English. Whenever the door would open, we would expectantly turn our eyes, hoping it was Zenon.

The Scientologists in the corridor were increasingly nervous, too. There was much pacing. Hardly anybody spoke, let alone sang. Some lawyers leafed through papers. Most Scientologists simply sat or paced, eyes vacantly staring into space. Then again, they are trained to stare hard. So perhaps they were practising Training Routines while we were practising birthday songs.

I went out a couple of times and mingled with the Scientologists. All refused to even acknowledge my presence — except Cowboy Boots, that is, who tried to strike up a conversation about my t-shirt. Church of Euthanasia. Yes, ordered via the net. I expected him to flinch at the word ‘net’, but he didn’t. I jotted down the url for him.

Zenon:

At some point, RTC in the person of McShane accepted in principle that they could concede certain limited use by the public of the OTs and NOTS. The discussion turned into how that could be put into an agreement between RTC and me, that would be binding for RTC towards the public. At that moment everything looked bright: if we agreed in essence, putting the agreement on paper should pose no problem. I was naive, and so was the court: RTC had no intention to give away anything at all.

Karin:

Zenon entered the smoking room, fuming without the aide of a Camel. ‘Guess what,’ he said. ‘They will allow fair use. But to me only!’ And before he’d taken three puffs of a freshly lighted cigarette he would be ordered back in again.

‘We’re this close to an agreement,’ he would say. Or: ‘Fuck, they are redefining terms again!’ And once, during a slightly longer break: ‘I simply don’t understand. McShane seems prepared to accept the current settlement terms, the court is obviously pressing him to accept, and yet he doesn’t. It is as if something were holding him back. And he knows he will lose the case in as far as their claim that this is unpublished material is concerned.’

‘Perhaps it’s not something that is holding him back, but somebody,’ I conjectured. ‘He anwers to Miscavage. And RTC’s license with CST binds him to sue under all circumstances. Perhaps he’d like to strike a deal with you but simply cannot.’

‘I’ll ask him,’ said Zenon, and left the smoking room again, this time to talk with McShane in the corridor, without any judges present.

Ten minutes later, I could no longer wait. I went out as well.

And found Zenon in the corridor, surrounded by Scientologists. I joined them. McShane was standing face to face with Zenon, upper body bent towards him, shoulders hunched, looking terribly red in the face. He was angry, arrogantly angry. ‘Bullshit,’ he said, in a most derogatory tone, ‘bullshit.’ ‘But why do you think I’m doing this?’ Zenon asked. ‘Why do you think all of us are doing this? Do you really believe that we do this just to harass you?’ McShane threw me a sideways glance and returned his gaze at Zenon. My presence there obviously confirmed his beliefs that yes, there was this major conspiracy against Scientology going on and that we were partaking in it. ‘Bullshit!’ he repeated. ‘It is to harass us. That is your only motive,’ and for one moment I truly believed he was going to spit on the court’s carpet. He spoke as if Z was vermin, a despicable entity, an irritating insect that needed to be trampled and crushed and utterly wiped out, and as if he, and he alone, had the power to do so. Yet his facial expression and his posture belied him. McShane was arrogant, no doubt about it, but very unsettled as well.

It turned out that the question Zenon had posed to McShane was: ‘Is there anybody else you need to consult on this settlement matter? Do you need anybody’s permission to sign an agreement?’

‘You’re looking at the man,’ McShane had proudly answered (thereby, and that is rather interesting, belying both Vorn’s and Small’s testimony of the following day).

‘Then what is the reason why you don’t?’ Z had continued. And that is when McShane had exploded.

Before they could finish their argument, Zenon was called back in. Five minutes later, McShane followed suit.

What was keeping McShane from agreeing to a settlement, we later decided, was L. Ron Hubbard. Elron had said that OTs and NOTS are to be considered unpublished, and so they shall be. You cannot argue with source, and you must obey the Tech.

Zenon:

For every formulation proposed by me or the court, Magnusson would have an objection and introduce a new reservation. At first they would accept that “the material” could be subject to fair use. Then “fair use” was not any normal fair use. Next, they would accept that individuals are allowed to make copies for personal use, but only if the original used to make the copy was legal. “Legal”, as it turned out, was to be defined by RTC, probably as “RTC’s own copies only”, their standard claim being that all copies not in their own possession – even the ones in this same Stockholm court that are being lent out on a daily basis – are illegal by definition. Then “personal use” had to be re-defined to mean strictly personal use, so that the normal right to spread a personal use copy to family and friends would be excluded. Consequently, a copy for personal use could not be used as an original to another copy for personal use. In short, RTC was only prepared to allow the public to make copies of originals that are not available, and such copies could be used for nothing more than their original could be used for.

I was under just as severe a pressure from the court as the RTC was, so I went along and accepted many more limitations to my original proposal than I would ever have been happy with. Yet that didn’t help. Every time I went along with yet another limitation, Magnusson put forward yet another reservation. At the end, when I exploded and refused to discuss settlements any more, RTC’s proposal of a settlement agreement stood as follows:


Panoussis admits copyright infringement.
RTC accepts every use of the material that is legal.

Taste this. They accept every use that is legal. As if they had any alternative to accepting legal use. They keep their position that no use whatsoever is legal, and then “accept” the rest – i.e. nothing. And they expect me to sign an agreement that would constitute a statement on my part that it is up to RTC to accept legal use or not, and that we should all be grateful to them that they do. In practice they were asking me to sign an admission that they stand above the law, but are so generous as to concede to abide by it anyway. End of settlement talks.

Yet, I don’t think they were satisfied with the outcome. McShane looked really pressed during the talks. At times he looked like somebody between a hard place and a rock, just short of being in agony, in all contrast to what you would expect from a high OT representative of the almighty RTC, in court against a lowly copyright terrorist. He looked as if he thought that both his alternatives – settle and not settle – were equally bad, and he was anyway forced to take the predestined road to self-destruction.

At 13.54 the settlement talks broke down definitely and the normal hearing of the case was resumed. The public was let in, Magnusson made his opening statement. At 16.45 it was my turn, and I had no idea where to begin; I was as badly prepared as one can be. Thanks to the delay the settlement talks brought about, I was able to postpone my opening statement to the next day. Had it not been for this, I’d have been in very deep shit.

We left court and bought binders. A lot of them. And started sorting out the paperwork.

[Unbiased columnism is a series of seven court reports on the proceedings of Scientology versus Zenon Panoussis. This series covers the May 22,1998 – June 3, 1998 sessions. Next: Brochures with a bite.]

Unbiased columnism # 1.2

“The material”, or: “NOTS? Which NOTS?”

Stockholm, Monday, 25 May 1998

[Previous installment: Zenon does research.] And of course, during the weekend, both of us worked less than we wanted (and needed) to. There were friends to see, places to go, sleep to catch up with. I did some work on a play I’m supposed to have finished by the end of the month, Zenon did some work on the computer we would need so badly in the upcoming week.

On Monday morning we left early. Or at least tried to. There was no free taxi to be found in the whole of Stockholm, it would appear: Z was on the phone for almost half an hour and then finally decided that he would try to find one on the street. It was a quarter to nine by then; the court session was to start at 9:30, traffic was still busy and we needed to buy extension electricity cables for our gear.

9:20. We arrive and dump & connect some of our stuff in the courtroom which then needs to be cleared of anything human, so that the judge can make a proper entrance. We walk through the corridor, to the smoking room, passing some people who stand there, talking. A couple of steps removed from them, standing apart from the rest, is McShame, president of RTC, the plaintiffs. I recognise him immediately: he was present at my lawsuit. He recognises us, too, without missing a beat. We pass him and look him in the face. He looks straight back at us and says, dead-pan voice, only slightly rising his tone while uttering the last syllable: “Panoussis…. Spaink….” We should have acknowledged him by saying “McShane…” using this same flat tone, but we didn’t.

Court opens. There are seven Scientologists who flock together on one side of the courtroom. Lots of dark suits. The only one who stands out is McShane himself, the only one in a light grey suit and the only one who doesn’t wear glasses. Next to him is one of Magnusson’s colleagues; he is to act as interpreter. Tarja Vulto is there: Swedish OSA. Immediately behind the lawyer/translator is an American wearing cowboy boots, a four-day stubble and a partially opened shirt, who will often lean forward when something interesting occurs, in order to catch the translator’s words as he relays them to McShane. (We will later learn that this is hired lawyer William Hart.) There is a small man with a rodent appearance: short dark hair; Swedish. Another man: blond, nearly bald, Swedish. And another American dark hair, striking tie. Plus me, since the power outlet is on that side of the room.

There are two people who take seats in what would become the critic’s section of the audience. Later, more people join them. Bid (Birgitta Dagnell), Swedish a.r.s.-regular and former Scientology member –; Anti-Cult, a.r.s.-regular and also from Sweden; Karsten, from the Dialog Centre in Copenhagen (which provides information about cults and offer support to former cult members and their families — “I thought you were a CoS-goon,” he later tells me); and, much to our surprise and delight, Joe Harrington from the US. And us, from the Netherlands. Oooh! This was turning out to be an international suppressive convention.

Karsten and Anti-Cult (Sten-Arne),
both Scientology critics

When we re-enter the courtroom, the judge is sitting there. As it turns out, Ingrid Forsström is indeed presiding the court. She carries a formal, severe and most attentive expression on her face. Her attitude makes it overtly clear that she is not going to buy anything from anybody. (Especially not a bridge.) She wants information; she wants it to be presented to her in a precise, concise and clear-cut manner; she wants answers, and she is not to be toyed with. (Somehow she is the personification of what I have always imagined Judge Brinkema to be like.) The clerk is the man we had met earlier, last Friday, while we were going through the sealed documents. He smiles at us.

This case concerns itself whether or not Z has violated the Temporary Restraining Order he was subjected to in1996, for instance when he handed in copies of the NOTS to parliament, to the administrative court, and to the Court of Appeals. Magnusson stipulates that Z has violated the TRO. Z maintains he hasn’t; that besides, it is most unclear to which materials the term “the materials” the TRO bar him from publishing exactly refer to, and moreover that he hasn’t published these NOTS after getting the TRO, but just provided the three institutes mentioned with copies. The case is a semi-penal one: while the alleged copyright infringement is a civil case, violating a TRO is not, but it could cost Z 50.000 crowns.

The judge asks Magnusson a great deal of questions. Magnusson may be well versed in law (although Z believes he isn’t), but he surely isn’t endowed with the gift of the gab. He stutters, he hesitates, he sometimes cringes when asked to give a clarification — and the judge wanted a lot of them –, he flushes when being rebuked or proven wrong, needs to look up stuff in his files and binders almost continuously, and generally does not strike one as being very effective or convincing. His definition of presenting a coherent and motivated argument seems to be to refer to documents, to mention dates and numbers, and to subsequently start leafing through files. Magnusson refers to postings, to Z’s statements on the net, and to his generally ‘provocative’ behaviour.

While the judge is directing her questions at Magnusson, the lawyer/translator has an easy job. When he does whisper something in McShane’s ear, McShane never looks at him but keeps staring right in front of himself, nodding slowly. His face is devoid of all expression.

The judge now turns her attention towards Z. He needs to explain a lot about the net: the difference between e-mail and postings; that the name of the sender of e-mail or postings cannot be taken at face-value, because anybody can put any name there; that therefore, one needs to scrutinise the headers of postings and e-mail; that even these can be faked and that therefore a more solid proof of authorship, such as an ISP log, is needed when accusations are brought before court; and that whatever somebody says on the net does not automatically reflect on their actual behaviour, be it past, present or future, because words and acts are two separate things and that moreover, everybody has the right to lie or to not do what they said they would do.

10:30. Break. We — by now ‘we’ is Anti-Cult, Karsten, Z, a journalist and me — make a dash for the smoking room. When we open the door, we discover the little room to be crammed with Scientologists and their lawyers. We enter. You want a smoke or you don’t, eh, and all of us are heavy addicts. Immediately, the plaintiff and their representatives clear the room. (Could they only clear the planet as easily!) “All of you running away, for only two SP’s?” Z teases them.

10:45. It’s Z’s turn to present his arguments. While Scientology refers to all materials — the NOTS he posted to a.r.s. and got the TRO over, the NOTS-pack he handed over to parliament, the NOTS-pack filed at the administrative court, the NOTS-pack sealed by the Court of Appeals (Attachment 126) — simply as “the NOTS” or “the material” and has identified each and every of these packs to be their copyrighted material, Z argues that these purportedly identical packs (which, in RTC vs Panoussis, are each referred to by their file attachment number) do, as a matter of fact, differ. Some even differ widely. The translator/lawyer tries to keep track of Z’s argument, jotting down file numbers, and goes cabalistic on McShane. I see notes such as:

126 != 37 + 24

or

24 != 37

McShane seems a tad upset. The lawyer/translator is by now slightly raising his voice. Instead of staring in front of him as per usual, McShane looks straight at Z.

Z postulates that it is impossible to determine exactly which materials are “the” materials, since the various packs differ. What makes such a determination even more difficult is that Scientology appears to be claiming everything to be theirs, as long as there are a few recognisable Hubbard-sentences in it,s I catch McShane making an ugly face towards Z.

12:00. Another break. Bid and Joe join us when we have lunch.

Shortly after lunch, there’s a typical May-25th scene. The issue at stake is the masked NOTS. Magnusson maintains that they are identical to attachment 24, 37 and 126. The judge poses Magnusson a question (sorry, didn’t catch that. My Swedish is too bad). Magnusson hesitates, is silent for a while, and then proceeds to give a short answer. “How do you know?” Z interrupts. “Yes,” the judge says, redirecting her stern and unwavering gaze at Magnusson, “how do you know?”

13:30. The notary who made a comparison between “the material”, in this case, the purportedly original NOTS, and file attachment 126, and then claimed the latter material was the same as the former and thus copyrighted by RTC, is called in as a witness.

Since this part of today’s session is surely dealing with actual quotes taken from “the material”, the doors will close and the audience is requested to vacate the room. Magnusson, McShane, the translator/lawyer, Z and the court are the only ones allowed to hear what Birgitta Alexandersson, the notary, has to relay.

We leave. As it turns out, we have the smoking room to ourselves; it will remain ours in the days to follow. The Scientologists either hang around in the corridors or sit in the court’s cafeteria. We wait. Karsten entertains us with myriad stories, Joe explains why he dislikes big cities, we make lot of ARSCC and Prozac jokes and wait. Oh and we smoke, of course.

A break during the closed hearing allows Z a smoke and him and me a short conference. The notary/witness claims to have made a random selection, in this way arriving at seven NOTS from attachment 126, which she then proceeded to compare to RTC’s purportedly “originals”, and found that yes, they were the same. I have seen attachment 126 and know what is amiss with it. Attachment 126 is most certainly not an original NOTS pack.

We’re only allowed back in the court room after two hours, perhaps three, of closed hearing. As it turns out, Z was able to challenge the notary statement. Many, if not most, of the NOTS included in attachment 126 are, erm, let me put it this way, mocked up. There are Borkified versions of purportedly original NOTS. (Yes, RTC claimed these to be their own.) There are Soul-Bro’ified versions of purportedly original NOTS. (Yes, RTC claimed these to be their own.) There are cut-up and re-montaged versions of purportedly original NOTS. (Yes, RTC claimed these to be their own.)

I myself have seen at least ten versions of NOTS 1, each one different, all of them making no sense, not even in the Hubbardian meaning of the word, because the order of paragraphs, the order of sentences and sometimes even parts of sentences have been completely reshuffled. (Hmmm. Didn’t Alice end a courtcase in which the prosecutor demanded that her head be cut off, simply by calling her opponents ‘a deck of cards’?) Yes, RTC claimed these montaged version of NOTS 1 to be their own. “Look,” they had said during the closed session, “this sentence here” (pointing at a file included in attachment 126) “is exactly the same as this sentence there” (pointing at a purportedly original NOTS 1). At this point, everybody — the notary/witness, the lawyer/translator, Magnusson, McShane, Zenon — had gathered around the judge’s table and were leaning over her shoulder. “But the sentence preceding it and the sentence following it, are not the same as in your supposed original,” Zenon pointed out. “Yeah but well…” McShane said, “those sentences appear elsewhere in the same scrambled NOTS.”

They even claimed (as we found out last Friday), copyright to one of my articles. In the list the notary had provided Magnusson and the court with, it says: “File Attachment 126, no. 143, OT III Course”. This file 126/143 was however most certainly not the original OT3 course but my summary of and comment on OT3, the one that has been on my homepage ever since February 1996. “But it contains Hubbard quotes,” McShane said. “Quotes,” Z repeated. “They are even ascribed to Hubbard. But the copyright of this article, of the entire article itself, resides with Karin Spaink. It even says so at the end. It’s not copyrighted by RTC but by her.” “But we’re suing her over that,” McShane argued. “Until now, you’ve lost,” Z kindly reminded him, “and the Dutch court has approved of this article and has stated that it is not to be considered a copyright infringement.”

[I wonder whether I should sue RTC over falsely claiming copyright over something I wrote.]

16:00 or so. Scientology was to call another witness — a Scientology-member who was going to state that Z had handed out copies of the NOTS on the street — but RTC by now decides that they will drop this witness. Perhaps they were afraid Z would grill him about which NOTS Z allegedly handed out. Or perhaps they were scared that Z would ask the witness to explain how he ascertained that these NOTS were original. (Z was really looking forward to the witness saying: “well, my superiors told me”.) Or perhaps this Scientology member had by now defected. You never know. Shit happens.

Time for both parties’ final plea.

Magnusson is first. By now McShane is getting a sentence-by-sentence translation and is far more interested than he was earlier this morning; he even sits askance in his chair to not miss a word. The cowboy-boots man listens closely as well. Magnusson is as eloquent as usual, that is: not. Z listens attentively, sometimes making a note or asking for a clarification.

Zenon’s turn. He argues. Calmly. He speaks. Rather fluently. He talks again about the net and about the NOTS — “the NOTS? Which ‘the’ NOTS?” — and argues that giving a copy of the NOTS — any NOTS — to parliament doesn’t equal publishing or distributing it, and so on and so forth; he uses a certain amount of rhetoric, but presents his arguments in a concise, and it would seem convincing way. Then again, I’m prejudiced.

The court wraps up. How much will each party request as for legal costs if they win, she wants to know. “30.000 kronor,” Magnusson says; which translates to plm. 4000 US$, a very small amount compared to what RTC has requested in the US in similar cases, although for Swedish courts, it’s much in cases like these. The court asks Z how much he requests. “Erm, some copies, and phone calls, and other stuff…. let me see…. Well, 500 kronor.” (Equals 70 US$.)

He’s not in it for the money, that’s for sure.

The court adjourns. Verdict due on June 8th.

17:30. We’re outside the courtroom. I’m disconnecting (now don’t you take me wrong. There were just so many plugs to undo: Z’computer, mine, an MD recorder, a microphone, extension cables) and repacking the gear. McShane walks by, and Z asks whether he could have a word with him. (He’d asked earlier, during lunch. “Of course,” McShane had answered.) “Public or private?” Z asks. “I don’t care,” McShane answers. They go to the next couch and sit down.

Z restates his previous proposal. If RTC would admit to the NOTS having been legally published — and thereby subject them to all the privileges, rules and exceptions to copyright law, not just the ones they like; meaning: granting the right to individuals to keep and make copies for their private use, and allow the right to quote — he would gladly admit to having committed copyright infringement. He is prepared to pay a symbolical tort for this infringement and both parties will pay their own legal costs. McShane flatly refuses. “But take a pragmatic point of view,” Z says. “By accepting such a settlement, you could bow out graciously while you still have room to move and even claim — you do value your public image, that much I know — that I have committed copyright infringement. You may even get some money out of me.”

“But if you do not accept, this will happen. I might lose part of tomorrow’s case. You might lose part of tomorrow’s case. Nobody knows. It is not up to us. But what I will surely win is the court stating that the NOTS have been legally published. You might even lose more than that. Now of course you will appeal this part of the decision anyway, even if it is the only part you lose, and perhaps then you can undo it. But meanwhile, people are in their full right when they abide by this ruling. They will start quoting. They will have legal copies. They will start quoting more. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“And if you win this whole case, you’re perhaps even worse off. People will get angry over my losing this case, and I predict that more havoc will ensue.”

“Now, if you yourself, of your own free will, without the court forcing you, grant others this right, you will re-earn some of the respect you’ve lost, prevent another stage of escalation, and earn yourself some peace. What do you say?” [All this is my summary. Don’t bind Z to this.]

Again, McShane refuses. “What do you win if you do continue?” Z insists. “There’s no money to be gotten out of me. I’m broke. I will not pay you. I cannot even pay you.”

McShane refuses. Scientology has basic tenets of belief, and keeping the NOTS secret is part of that, he explains. “But apart from the fact that they are being spread via the net and that secrecy has already been broken, if it ever existed, and apart from the fact that by now this secrecy has become legally void — there’s copies from parliament, from the court that everybody can request; as a matter of fact, one member of today’s court audience bought a copy of a NOTS pack here today — you will only get yourself more adulterated copies if you do not admit to your NOTS having been published and putting out an original version yourself. Everybody will attempt to post everything they can get their hands on, they will claim it’s yours, and you have no way to control that,” Z argued. [Perhaps they want adulterated copies floating around, I tend to think. That way only RTC, and Scientology, can exert this hold over their followers and are able to disavow anything else somebody else claims to be an original OT or NOTS.]

“And it will remain a sport to find them and publish them on the net and you will never rid yourself of this struggle. Don’t you realise that by being so rigid, you create your own opposition? I’m offering you a way out of that. The more you fight, the more opposition you create.”

I join them. Z explains to McShane that he had stumbled upon my homepages, had found this fight regarding the Fishman Affidavit interesting, read up, and had decided to join. Out of which sprung this case, which has by now already resulted in open copies of NOTS in court and in parliament. McShane seemed to disbelieve this. It can’t have been an accident that Z started his homepage; there must have been more to it than that. I explain that there wasn’t; nor was there in my case; there was nothing except Scientology’s own utter rudeness which had gotten me into this net fight.

We argue a bit more. And then leave.

Karsten, Bid, Joe, Z and I go for a drink. Then we have another one. It turns into dinner. Joe can’t get enough of this image of Zenon all by himself fighting RTC and have them all worked up and nervous and … and … At twelve, we get back home, get our asses into bed and fall asleep.

Erratum:

Previously I wrote, concerning my recently acquired status as biträde, that I was presented with a TRO regarding my disclosure of whatever I learned during my study of the closed files: “the first thing that officially happened to me while in Sweden was that the court presented me with a Temporary Restraining Order”. That was a Restraining Order, not a Temporary one.

[Unbiased columnism is a series of seven court reports on the proceedings of Scientology versus Zenon Panoussis. This series covers the May 22,1998 – June 3, 1998 sessions. Next: To want to eat a pie and have it.]

Unbiased columnism # 1.1

Zenon does research

Stockholm, Friday May 22 1998

In order to prepare himself for his upcoming trials, Zenon needed to study some files at the court; the same court where one can request to be provided with a copy of the NOTs and read them.

We arrived there at half past one. (Yes, we were late. We had been drinking and talking the previous night and I had been admiring the strange light. At three at night the sky looked as if it were seven in the morning, and at seven in the early evening the light gave the distinct impression that it was four in the afternoon. It is utterly confusing. My internal clock doesn’t match with what my eyes present me with.) The light promised summer, but outside it was rather cold and windy; so we took a cab to the court. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to smoke in the car.

The court. A high building with heavy doors, bright inside. Zenon went over to the reception desk and asked whether there were still Scienos coming in every day in order to ‘read’ their precious material. “Yes,” the receptionists told us smiling, “they are. They were here this morning and they will be back after lunch.” The ‘service hours’ for the NOTs are from nine to twelve and from one to three, so we had just enough time for a very quick breakfast and – oh! the relief! – a smoke. A couple of minutes before one o’clock we returned to the reception desk and asked for the NOTs. Zenon received a brownish envelope captioned ‘MATERIELET’ (sic) and handed it to me. Ha. At last. I’ve seen the NOTs so often by now that I’m quite prepared to consider posting them on a.r.s. to be an instance of spamming, but this was the first time that I saw analogue copies and could actually touch the NOTs.

In one of the corners of the entry hall, opposite the reception desk, was a wooden bench. And an electricity outlet. It is the place where the Scienos usually sit with the NOTs, Zenon told me. Perfect. Zenon left and went to a higher floor from which he had a good view of both the reception desk and me; I plugged in my computer, leafed through the NOTs until I had found a chapter dealing with illnesses and disabilities, and started taking notes.

Scientology members habitually ‘borrow’ the NOTs and ‘study’
them, basically in order to prevent others from seeing them – which
is a nonsensical strategy because anybody can order a private copy.

If a Scieno were to approach me – such was the plan – I would explain that I was so happy to finally be able to study this material, because I had heard that Scientology Tech could cure illnesses and alleviate disabilities, and well, you know, considering my legs and the wheelchair and all, and wouldn’t everybody in my condition be grasping at each and every straw, so there, you see? The idea was that by feeding them this story, I could maybe lure them into having a conversation with me. (All this, of course, assuming that Swedish Scientology members wouldn’t recognise me; and since Scientology provides their members with information on a need-to-know basis only, whilst being unable to predict when the need to know actually arises, chances were they would indeed not have the faintest idea who I am.)

Perusing the NOTs and typing merrily along, I happened to find something that did indeed incite some interest. A couple of years ago I wrote a book about New Age quack therapies that will be re-issued later this year. These quack therapists believe that illnesses ‘say’ something, that their type and location are symbolical, that infallibly there is a correlation between psychological problems and illnesses, and that language proves this. Thus, some New Age therapists provide their readers with convenient ‘translation’ lists which insist that the cause of having bladder problems is that the sufferer ‘has difficulties in letting go’ and that spine injuries originate in one’s belief that ‘the world is on their back’. In the revised edition, a new chapter is to be added which explains that much of this modern crap is rooted in the more rigid branches of Protestantism and in Christian Science, and that many cults take a similar view upon illnesses. And what did I find in the NOTs? Elron indulging in the same diagnosis-by-proverb that New Agers adore so much and stating that “Phrases such as ‘a man of my kidney’, ‘got no spine’, ‘got to have spine’, ‘no stomach for it’, confuse BTs and clusters in those body parts and play a role in pinning them in.” (HCO Bulletin of 29 October 1978, Issue II; NED for OTs series: ‘Chronic somates, missed BTs’.) I will surely use this quote – and others, probably – in the revised edition of my book.

Zenon interrupted me after ten minutes. Not wanting to blow my cover, I had busied myself reading and typing whilst trying to not pay too much attention to my surroundings, trusting that Zenon would observe whatever scene might present itself. And yes, he had indeed witnessed how the Scieno had returned at ten past one, had gone to the reception desk, asked for the NOTs, and was told that, unfortunately for him, (the clerk pointing in my direction) I already had them; the Scieno had stared at me for a couple of seconds and had then left. Caught. Bad boy. Hadn’t done his job properly. (And now, via this article, he has been reported to his superiors as well. Damn. What can I say? Shit happens. Especially when you’re a clam.)

We stayed a couple of minutes more, took some pictures of the rather worn-out NOTs (really! It’s a disgrace. The holy scriptures are all in tatters. Somebody should do something about it, and perhaps present the court with a fresh copy), packed the computer and took the elevator to section seven, where Zenon’s files are kept. We were greeted rather warmly. Zenon asked for a couple of files and informed the court that meanwhile, he had enlisted my help. Some of the files he requested are sealed – at one point Zenon handed in NOTs to the Court of Appeals; and these were subsequently closed – and while he himself has the right to study these sealed files, others are of course not. That’s what sealing is all about, isn’t it. Then again, he does have a right to appoint attorneys and biträden, that is, aides or consultants. So he told the court (who appeared before us in the shape of a friendly woman) that he had appointed me as his biträde, and would they please acknowledge that status and grant me the right to see these sealed documents as well. The court withdrew while pondering their decision.

Within fifteen minutes or so, a formal decision had been reached and both Zenon and me were give copies of the court’s most recent ‘beslut’ regarding RTC vs. Zenon Panoussis. I had now been promoted to biträde and could officially study the sealed files, on condition that I will not disclose to third parties whatever I would learn during this session. (Funny. Downstairs, at the reception desk, the NOTs – which, according to Scientology, are amongst the best kept secrets of the world, were given to me with no hassle whatsoever. Here, a couple of floors higher up in the same building, I needed to have an official status to see the same files, while being forced to promise non-disclosure. There is an almost clownish element of procedures being ritually obeyed in this court case. And even funnier is the fact that the first thing that officially happened to me while in Sweden was that the court presented me with a Temporary Restraining Order. Now that is a souvenir not many tourists would take pride in; I do, however, and will file it with my other Scientology memorabilia.)

We were given the sealed files. Four fat folders. We opened them, found paper and pencils, and started our task. Unfortunately, we couldn’t smoke.

A man who had been working at the same table where we were now sitting, had cleared away his stuff and simply sat there, looking at us. While we had been waiting for the court to reach its decision regarding my status as biträde, Zenon and he had engaged in conversation. My knowledge of Swedish is almost non-existent, but I could figure out that they were talking about Zenon’s upcoming trial. The man seemed rather interested.

He sat there. Just sat there, doing nothing but look at us. Zenon and I worked, every now and then talking or laughing or commenting upon something funny, strange or interesting. (I won’t tell you what. I can’t. I am not allowed to. I am a biträde with a TRO and cannot disclose to third parties what I learned this afternoon.) The man simply kept looking. Every time I looked up from my task I would meet his eyes. After some time, I started feeling slightly uncomfortable. If he was waiting for somebody he would surely at one point have averted his eyes. Was he keeping a watch on us? Yes. He observed our every movement. Why? Was he a Scientologist? Nah, not here, and Zenon would not have been so forthcoming about next week’s events if he had even felt the slightest distrust of this man. But why the fuck was he scrutinising us?

It was only later that I found out that this man was there on the court’s behalf. Ever since some of the Scientology vs. Zenon files were stolen from the court (the NOTs, of course) the court safeguards them, especially when somebody asks for sealed files. This man was here to guard the documents and to see to it that nobody — Zenon, or Magnusson, or whoever is allowed to see them — will fiddle with them.

We did our work, took our notes, greeted everybody and left. Once outside the building, we could finally smoke.

[Unbiased columnism is a series of seven court reports on the proceedings of Scientology versus Zenon Panoussis. This series covers the May 22,1998 – June 3, 1998 sessions. Next: What material?]