From: hkhenson@netcom.com (Keith Henson) Subject: Re: I've got mine... Date: 1996/05/15 Message-ID: distribution: inet sender: hkhenson@netcom.netcom.com references: <4jecjl$be4_001@news.erie.net> <317BA75F.1E2@neptune.net> <4lsfu7$rr0@news1.shell> <4lu1e8$odn@news1.shell> organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,misc.legal,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.2600 0001 This is cleaned up some--I put in all the fixes I hand corrected on copy before I signed it plus a few. Mostly they are spelling or typos, I left the original in and put the corrections in []. What strikes me on the second reading of this transcript is how clueless poor Mr. Lieberman was. I realize that a substantial part of this deposition is me educating him on the basics of Internet culture and inferstructure. Well, I guess someone had to do it . From all I can tell, Eric Lieberman is actually a reasonable person, he just has a client hell bent on looking foolish. Eric and Tomas Hogan, and all the rest of the outside lawyers are doing their part in bringing down CoS by draining its coffers. Don't underbill guys. Keith Henson PS, Shelley reports and comments on the deposition in **Biased Journalism** Vol 2, No 10. 01 02 03 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 04 FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 05 05 06 06 07 RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY CENTER, a ) 07 California non-profit ) 08 corporation, ) 08 ) 09 Plaintiff, ) 09 ) 10 vs. ) No. C-96 20271 RMW 10 ) 11 H. KEITH HENSON, an individual, ) 11 ) 12 Defendant. ) 12 ________________________________) 13 13 14 15 16 VIDEOTAPED DEPOSITION OF H. KEITH HENSON 17 18 19 Date: Wednesday, May 8, 1996 19 20 Time: 9:22 a.m. 20 21 Location: LAW OFFICES OF THOMAS R. HOGAN 21 60 South Market Street, Suite 1125 22 San Jose, California 95113-2332 22 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 26 0002 01 A P P E A R A N C E S: 01 02 02 03 For the Plaintiff: LAW OFFICES OF THOMAS R. HOGAN 03 BY: THOMAS R. HOGAN, ESQ. 04 60 South Market Street 04 Suite 1125 05 San Jose, California 95113-2332 05 (408) 292-7600 06 06 and RABINOWITZ, BOUDIN, STANDARD, 07 KRINSKY & LIEBERMAN 07 BY: ERIC M. LIEBERMAN, ESQ. 08 740 Broadway 08 Fifth Floor 09 New York, New York, 10003 09 (212) 254-1111 10 10 and BOWLES & MOXIN 11 BY: HELENA K. KOBRIN, ESQ. 11 7629 Fulton Avenue 12 North Hollywood, California 12 91605 13 (213) 960-1933 13 14 For the Defendant: H. KEITH HENSON, pro per 14 799 Coffey Court 15 San Jose, California 95123 15 16 Videotaped by: REIZNER & REIZNER 16 BY: SUSAN REIZNER 17 7179 Via Maria 17 San Jose, California 95139 18 (408) 226-6339 18 19 Also present: Grady Ward, Shelley Thomson, 19 Warren McShane 20 20 Reported by: WEBER & VOLZING, INC. 21 BY: CAROL WIBLE TORRES, 21 CSR #3391 22 60 South Market Street 22 Suite 770 23 San Jose, California 95113 23 (408) 292-2573 24 24 25 25 26 26 0003 01 INDEX OF EXAMINATIONS 02 Page: 03 BY MR. LIEBERMAN.......................8 04 BY MR. HENSON..........................196 05 FURTHER BY MR. LIEBERMAN...............202 06 07 INDEX OF EXHIBITS 08 Plaintiff's Exhibits: Page: 09 1 Multi-page document, first page 10 entitled "Complaint for Declaratory 11 Judgement" in the matter Henson vs. 12 Federal Bureau of Investigation...........18 13 2 Two-page posting dated 21 Feb 1995 14 stating "List of Published Literary 15 Works"....................................19 16 3 Two-page posting dated 23 Feb 1995........24 17 4 One-page posting dated 2 Mar 1995.........32 18 5 One-page posting dated 14 Mar 1995........34 19 6 One-page posting dated 5 Apr 1995.........54 20 7 One-page posting dated 6 Apr 1995.........60 21 8 One-page posting dated 7 Apr 1995.........66 22 9 Two-page posting dated 9 Apr 1995.........75 23 10 One-page posting dated 21 Jul 1995........80 24 11 One-page posting dated 26 Jul 1995........84 25 12 Two-page document to Mr. Henson from 26 Helena K. Kobrin dated 27 Jul 1995........88 0004 01 13 Five-page posting dated 18 Apr 1996.......92 02 14 One-page postiing dated 13 Aug 1995.......104 03 15 One-page posting dated 12 Aug 1995........112 04 16 One-page posting dated 19 Sep 1995........120 05 17 One-page posting dated 26 Sep 1995........122 06 18 Four-page posting dated 30 Mar 1996.......138 07 19 Three-page posting dated 31 Mar 1996......144 08 20 Four-page posting dated 3 Apr 1996........148 09 21 One-page posting dated 16 Apr 1996........156 10 22 One-page posting dated 17 Apr 1996........157 11 23 Multi-page document, first page entitled 12 "Objections and Responses to Request for 13 Production of Documents" in the matter 14 Religious Technology Center vs. H. Keith 15 Henson....................................159 16 24 Multi-page document, first page entitled 17 "Answer and Counterclaims; Demand for 18 Jury Trial" in the matter Religious 19 Technology Center vs. H. Keith Henson.....171 20 25 14-page document entitled "HCO Bulletin 21 of 23 April 1991".........................192 22 23 Defendant's Exhibits: Page: 24 A Page from June 1996 Playboy stating at 25 the top "Dear Playboy"....................197 26 B One-page document, undated, stating at 0005 01 the top "However, it is possible to get 02 the "secret" scientology documents from 03 altavista and dejanews"...................198 04 C Seven-page document, undated, stating 05 at the top "Part 4: The Trap Slams 06 Shut".....................................199 07 D 12-page document filed April 11, 1996, 08 United States Court of Appeals for the 09 Ninth Circuit.............................200 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 0006 01 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: We are now on the 02 record. Today is May 8th, 1996. The time is 9:22 03 a.m.. This is Volume I of the deposition of Mr. Keith 04 Henson in the matter of RTC versus Henson conducted at 05 the offices of Tom Hogan, 60 South Market, San Jose, 06 California. It is being videotaped on behalf of the 07 plaintiff by Susan Reizner, a certified legal video 08 specialist and notary from Reizner & Reizner Film & 09 Video, 7179 Via Maria in San Jose, California. I 10 certify that I am not financially interested in this 11 action and am neither a relative nor an employee of 12 any of the parties. 13 Will all counsel please identify 14 yourselves and your clients. 15 MR. HOGAN: I'm Thomas R. Hogan. I 16 represent the plaintiff, Religious Technology Center. 17 MR. LIEBERMAN: Eric Lieberman. I also 18 represent the plaintiff and I will be doing the 19 questioning today. 20 MS. KOBRIN: Helena Kobrin. I also 21 represent the plaintiff. 22 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Would the court 23 reporter please identify yourself and swear in the 24 wintess. 25 THE REPORTER: Carol Wible Torres, Weber & 26 Volzing. 0007 01 H. KEITH HENSON, 02 being first duly sworn by the Certified Shorthand 03 Reporter to tell the truth, the whole truth and 04 nothing but the truth, testified as follows: 05 MR. LIEBERMAN: Okay. Also present here 06 today is Mr. Grady Ward pursuant to a ruling by 07 Magistrate Judge Invante yesterday. Mr. Ward is 08 permitted to be present at the deposition, but no 09 statements may be made by Mr. Ward. There will be no 10 interference by Mr. Ward with the proceedings. There 11 shall be no communication between Mr. Ward and 12 Mr. Henson during the deposition and there shall be no 13 communication between Mr. Ward and Mr. Henson at 14 breaks in the deposition until Mr. Henson's 15 deposition is concluded. 16 There is also present somebody -- can you 17 state your name? I don't know what your name is. 18 MS. THOMSON: My name is Shelley Thomson. 19 MR. LIEBERMAN: Somebody named Shelley 20 Thomson who is an observer apparently. 21 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Okay. 22 Mr. Henson -- 23 A You may as well identify the remaining party. 24 Aren't they all supposed to be identified? 25 MR. LIEBERMAN: If you want them 26 identified. Mr. McShane is also here on behalf of the 0008 01 plaintiff. 02 EXAMINATION BY MR. LIEBERMAN: 03 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Mr. Henson, you 04 are the defendant in this action; is that right? 05 A That's what I understand. 06 Q Yes. Have you ever been deposed before in any 07 legal action? 08 A Yes. 09 Q How many times? 10 A I don't remember. 11 Q More than once? 12 A Yes. 13 Q More than two or three? 14 A I don't remember how long that went. I don't 15 remember how many episodes. 16 Q Are you familiar with the procedure in a 17 deposition? 18 A Approximately. It's been a long time. 19 Q Okay. To review with you, I will ask you a 20 series of questions. You are to restrict your 21 responses to answers to those questions. If you have 22 objections to the form of the question, you may state 23 those. I can either choose to rephrase the question 24 or to ask you nevertheless to respond to it. Your 25 objection will then be noted for the record. 26 Objections on the basis of any other matter, such as 0009 01 relevance, et cetera, under the federal rules are 02 reserved until further proceedings. If you have 03 objections based upon privilege, you also may state 04 those. Do you understand that? 05 A Yes, I do. I also understand that I, being my 06 own -- representing myself in this matter, that I can 07 ask myself questions and introduce exhibits. 08 Q Well, I've never seen anybody ask themselves 09 questions except in comedies and I -- 10 A Well, that's a good description of what we're 11 doing. 12 Q Mr. Henson, one thing you're going to have to do 13 is wait until I finish. You should understand that 14 right now. If there are statements you wish to make 15 at the end of my questioning, you may make them 16 provided that they are pertinent to the proceedings. 17 I then get the opportunity to further cross-examine 18 you about those. Okay. 19 Now, can you briefly -- when were you 20 born? 21 A July 12th, 1942. 22 Q Okay. Briefly tell me what your educational 23 background was. 24 A BSEE. 25 Q Where? 26 A University of Arizona. 0010 01 Q When did you graduate there? 02 A '69. 03 Q Any further education? 04 A No. 05 Q Okay. What was your employment after you 06 graduated? 07 A Engineering, programming jobs. 08 Q Where? 09 A Long list. Heinrich Geoexploration Company, 10 Burr-Brown Research -- 11 Q Give me a time period for each of these. 12 A Without reference to stuff, it would -- to 13 things, it would only be very approximate. 14 Q I'm just looking for approximations. 15 A Early '70's. 16 Q Yes. 17 A Analog Precision. After that, essentially I 18 worked as a consultant. 19 Q Was this -- where were you living at the time? 20 A Tucson. Most of it. 21 Q Until when did you live in Tucson? 22 A 1985. 23 Q Then you moved up here to San Jose? 24 A That's correct. 25 Q And what's your present employment? 26 A Consultant, self-employed. 0011 01 Q Consultant to whom, to what? 02 A I work for a variety of companies. Some years 03 it's been as many as six companies, some years it's 04 been as few as two. 05 Q And on what matters do you consult? 06 A Systems analysis, hardware design, programming. 07 Variety of things. Mixed hardware, software 08 primarily. 09 Q Uh-huh. Okay. Are you married? 10 A Yes. 11 Q Do you have children? 12 A Yes. 13 Q Okay. This is your second marriage? 14 A Yes. 15 Q Okay. Are you a regular participant on news 16 groups on the internet? 17 A Yes. 18 Q For how long have you participated in various 19 news groups? 20 A I'm not exactly certain. Perhaps as much as 21 eight years. 22 Q Okay. What news groups do you regularly 23 participate in? 24 A There's a list of them in my responses. I think 25 I mentioned Libertarian, Space, certain political 26 kinds of things, Cypherpunks, EFF, the various groups 0012 01 on that one. Nanotechnology, Cryonics -- 02 Q Is it fair to say -- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to 03 interrupt. I thought you finished your answer. 04 A That's not exclusive. I -- I occasionally jump 05 into other kinds of news groups. For example, I'm 06 currently signed onto alt.sovereign something, I 07 forget what it is, alt.activism.sovereignty or 08 something like that. 09 Q Okay. You also participate in 10 alt.religion.scientology, do you not? 11 A Yes, I certainly do. I can even give you a 12 rough -- rough count of how many postings I've made to 13 that in the past 14 months. 14 Q Okay. I may ask you for that. Now, it's fair 15 to say you spend a fair amount of time each week on 16 the internet participating in these numerous news 17 groups; is that right? 18 A Far less time than most people spend watching 19 television. 20 Q That wasn't my question. 21 A I spend maybe 45 minutes a day on it. 22 Q Okay, thanks. About how much time do you spend 23 on a.r.s., a.r.s. meaning alt.religion.scientology? 24 A Most of that. 25 Q Most of the time on a.r.s.? 26 A Most of the time that I'm on the net in recent 0013 01 months I've been on there. In recent -- in about the 02 last month or so, because I've been so busy with other 03 things, I probably have spent less than -- less than 04 20 minutes a day on it. 05 Q Okay. 06 A It varies. 07 Q Now, when did you first start participating on 08 a.r.s.? 09 A I don't have a precise time on that. I could 10 not be exactly certain what day it was, but it was 11 very early -- it was early January something, maybe 12 the 10th or the 11th or sometime around that time. I 13 actually looked to see if I could find out what that 14 was and I wasn't able to find it because I hadn't -- 15 at that point I was still using a different news 16 reader which 17 didn't log any postings at all, and I don't know how 18 long I read it before I posted either. There are full 19 archives of it that are maintained by several people, 20 and if you really care about this you can probably 21 find out just by posting this as a question on a.r.s. 22 Q Okay. But when you say January 10th or 11th, 23 you're referring to 1995; is that right? 24 A Yes, yes. It was the time at which the first 25 remove group hit and, of course, that splashed across 26 many other groups. I was not reading a.r.s. at that 0014 01 time and it splashed into comp.org.eff.talk. 02 Q Is that what caused you to start participating 03 in a.r.s.? 04 A Yes. 05 Q Okay. 06 A It was -- 07 Q There's no question pending. 08 A I can still make a statement. 09 Q No, not -- 10 A A lot of people did it. 11 Q Mr. Henson, just so you understand, you're here 12 to answer questions, not to just make statements. 13 When I'm through, if you want to add anything to the 14 record, you're free to. Those are the ground rules. 15 Okay? 16 Now, you're proceeding on this without a 17 lawyer; is that right? 18 A At the moment, yes. 19 Q In this case. Have you been involved previously 20 in other litigation? 21 A Yes. 22 Q As a plaintiff? 23 A Yes. 24 THE REPORTER: I'm sorry? 25 THE WITNESS: Yes. 26 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): And how many such 0015 01 cases were you previously involved in? 02 A One. 03 Q And what case was that? 04 A I don't even know what it would have been named. 05 Q Just tell us generally what it was about. 06 A I sued somebody for nonpayment of a contractual 07 obligation. 08 Q Okay. This was a business-related issue? 09 A Right. 10 Q Okay. That's the only lawsuit you ever brought? 11 A Yes. 12 Q Didn't you bring a lawsuit against the FBI at 13 one point? 14 A Ahh. Yes, indeed. I'd forgotten about that 15 one. 16 Q Okay. 17 A And I was -- and come to think of it, I was a -- 18 I was a -- one of the plaintiffs on an electronic 19 communications privacy act, a case that was brought 20 against the County of Riverside. 21 Q Okay. Now, in the FBI case, did you proceed on 22 that -- in that case on a pro se or pro per basis? 23 A Yes. 24 Q And what about the case against Riverside 25 County? 26 A That was done by -- oh, I'm sorry, I can't pick 0016 01 his name up at the moment. Ashworth, Chris Ashworth. 02 Q He was your attorney? 03 A Yes. 04 Q And the FBI, case you drafted the papers? 05 A Yes, I did. It was -- the two cases were highly 06 related in that the FBI case, I wound up essentially 07 forcing the FBI to do enough investigation that it 08 supported the ECPA case. It was highly successful in 09 my view. 10 Q Okay. The FBI case was dismissed, was it not? 11 A Oh, yes. But the responses were extremely 12 useful. 13 Q Okay. Now, in your case, your contract case, 14 did you proceed -- did you have a lawyer in that case? 15 A Yes. I don't honestly remember what the guy's 16 name was. It's been at least 15 years ago. 17 TIME: 9:36 18 Q Okay. When you first began to participate in 19 a.r.s., had you previously had any knowledge about the 20 Church of Scientology? 21 A Only the kind of general knowledge that you 22 would get from such things as reading -- skimming 23 actually, the Time magazine article. 24 Q You had never been a member of the Church of 25 Scientology; is that correct? 26 A No. In fact, I had never even met anybody 0017 01 except one guy who came to the door that I knew was a 02 Scientologist. 03 Q So you'd never participated in any Scientology 04 services or courses or anything like that? 05 A None at all. 06 Q Okay. And you never have to this date; is that 07 right? 08 A No. 09 Q Okay. Prior to your first involvement in 10 a.r.s., had you ever read any books by L. Ron Hubbard? 11 A Oh, yes. 12 Q Okay. Which books had you read? 13 A I -- I really can't tell you which ones they 14 were, but I think I still even have one of his science 15 fiction novels from the late 40's or early '50's. 16 Q Okay. What you had read, was that exclusively 17 in the realm of his science fiction works or was it 18 also in some of his Scientology work? 19 A No, I had never read any of his Scientology 20 stuff. 21 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 22 Kobrin.) 23 MR. LIEBERMAN: I'm just going to show 24 this to you. Ask the reporter to mark it as 25 Plaintiff's Exhibit 1. 26 Just take a look at that. I'm just going 0018 01 to ask you to identify it if you can. 02 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 1 was 03 marked for identification by the 04 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 05 THE WITNESS: Yes. 06 MR. LIEBERMAN: Let's just wait until the 07 reporter's ready. 08 Let me know when you're through looking at 09 it. 10 THE WITNESS: Okay. Looked at it. 11 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Do you recognize 12 that document? 13 A It looks like something that I produced. 14 Q Okay. Is this a copy of the Complaint you filed 15 against the FBI about which we were just speaking? 16 A That's what it seems to be. 17 Q Okay. And correct me if I'm wrong, I believe 18 you said you basically were the person responsible for 19 drafting this Complaint; is that right? 20 A Yes. 21 Q And who was Thomas K. Donaldson? 22 A Thomas K. Donaldson is a mathematician who at 23 that point was working for -- oh, I'm sorry, I can't 24 remember the company. One of the parallel 25 processing -- 26 Q Okay. He was one of the co-plaintiffs in the 0019 01 case? 02 A Yes. 03 Q And same with Roger Gregory; is that right? 04 A Roger Gregory at that time was chief scientist 05 for a company that is involved with hypertext. 06 Q And they participated with you in this lawsuit? 07 A Yes. 08 Q Were they also involved in the lawsuit against 09 Riverside County? 10 A I believe they were. 11 Q Okay. All right. 12 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 13 Kobrin.) 14 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Now, I believe 15 you said you don't recall exactly when you first 16 posted to a.r.s.; is that right? 17 A That's true. It probably was fairly early in -- 18 well, say mid-January or late January. That would be 19 my guess on it, but I certainly couldn't swear to it. 20 MR. LIEBERMAN: Okay. Could you mark that 21 as Number 2. 22 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 2 was 23 marked for identification by the 24 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 25 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): And this -- take 26 a look at that, sir, and after you've taken a look at 0020 01 it, I'll just have one or two questions for you. 02 A Oh, yes. What date is this? February 22nd. 03 Q This is a document, a copy of a posting to 04 alt.religion.scientology and several other news 05 groups. I'll refer to alt.religion.scientology as 06 a.r.s. at various times and you'll know what that 07 means, correct? Yes? 08 A Sure. 09 Q Okay. It says from H.K. Henson, "Subject: Re: 10 Writ of Seizure against Erlich," that's E-R-L-I-C-H. 11 The date stated is 21 Feb 1995. Do you recognize this 12 posting, sir? 13 A It looks like something that I probably put out, 14 but I certainly couldn't tell you for sure. 15 Q It does have your name on it, correct? 16 A Yes, it does have my name on it, but that's no 17 problem. I can put anybody's name on something. 18 Q There's nothing on the face of this document 19 that suggests that it's anything other than something 20 that -- copy of something you posted, is it? 21 A Well, you handed it to me. 22 Q That's not my question, sir. 23 A I can't tell. I posted thousands -- about 1,200 24 of these things. I can't tell if this is -- whether 25 this is something I posted or not. I do remember -- I 26 mean, this -- the kind of stuff which is on here, what 0021 01 this is is a list of stuff that was found in the 02 paperwork that was filed in the Erlich case, and I 03 will definitely admit to having gone down to the 04 courthouse, copied a bunch of that paperwork and typed 05 some of it in. Whether this is the one that I did or 06 not is anybody's guess. 07 Q Well, it does have your name on it and it was 08 posted to a.r.s.; is that right? 09 A That's what it says on the face of it, but 10 whether it means that or not, there's no way I could 11 tell. 12 Q You have no memory whatsoever of whether or not 13 you posted this; is that your -- is that your 14 statement? 15 A I don't know whether this is the actual thing 16 that I posted or not. 17 Q When I first showed this to you you said, "Oh, 18 yes," did you not? 19 A Oh, I was referring to the date on it as to 20 that, and it's consistent with the dates that would 21 have been involved. 22 Q When you said, "Oh, yes," did that suggest some 23 recognition of you that you'd seen this document 24 before, sir? 25 A This particular one? 26 Q Yes. 0022 01 A I don't know. 02 Q Why did you say, "Oh, yes"? 03 A Because I was referring to the date on it. 04 Q What was it about the date that was -- 05 A Because we'd just been talking about when it was 06 that I first posted to a.r.s. 07 Q Okay. So you think this is the first time that 08 you posted to a.r.s.? 09 A This is consistent with about the time frame 10 that I posted to a.r.s. Whether this is what I posted 11 to a.r.s. is anybody's guess. However, the contents 12 of it is quite obvious. It's -- it looks like -- it 13 looks like stuff -- it's consistent with stuff that I 14 typed in that I got out of the Erlich case. I was 15 acting essentially as a reporter for the net on this. 16 Q Okay. It says here, "PS, I saw the tail end of 17 the hearing today." Did you see the tail end of a 18 hearing in Erlich on or about February 21st, 1995? 19 A Yes. 20 Q And you wrote, "I sort of got the impression the 21 judge realized he might be in over his head." Did you 22 get that impression? 23 A Well, if this is really a posting of mine, I 24 apparently thought that at this time. 25 Q You remember thinking that, sir? 26 A No, I said if this is a posting of mine, if this 0023 01 really is a posting of mine, I apparently thought that 02 at this time. 03 Q Okay. Did you obtain a list of the published 04 literary works which were at issue in the Erlich case 05 from the court? 06 A I remember having done that. 07 Q Okay. 08 A It's a public document. 09 Q Yes, I understand that. Do you remember posting 10 that to the internet? 11 A Yes, I do remember posting it to the internet. 12 Q Thank you. 13 A And this may well be that post, but I couldn't 14 swear to it. 15 MR. LIEBERMAN: Where's my list here? 16 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 17 Kobrin.) 18 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Okay. Now, when 19 you went to the court to view the proceedings in the 20 Erlich case, had you had any communications with 21 Mr. Erlich about his case up to that time? 22 A I don't know. I simply don't remember. 23 Q Okay. Have you ever had any communications with 24 Mr. Erlich about his case? 25 A Certainly. I met him there at that -- at that 26 hearing. 0024 01 Q Yes. Did you have any conversations with him at 02 that time? 03 A Quite a bit, yes. 04 Q Okay. And what did you speak -- what did you 05 talk to him about? 06 A I -- you're asking something which is what, 07 February some odd of -- 08 Q I'm just asking you for your best memory. 09 A Best memory, I just don't remember what we 10 talked about. It was mostly a matter of supportive. 11 I don't believe there was any sub -- substantive 12 detail to it. 13 Q Did you discuss with him at that time the idea 14 of either he or you posting additional Scientology 15 materials to the internet? 16 A No, never have discussed that with Mr. Erlich. 17 Q Never discussed that. 18 A (Witness shakes head from side to side.) 19 MR. LIEBERMAN: Okay. Number 21. Mark 20 that. 21 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 3 was 22 marked for identification by the 23 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 24 MR. LIEBERMAN: Take a look at that. 25 THE WITNESS: Well, again, I can't be sure 26 that this is something which I posted. 0025 01 MR. LIEBERMAN: Go on. 02 THE WITNESS: But I think it's rather 03 funny. It's certainly characteristic of the kind of 04 thing I post. 05 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): In what way is it 06 characteristic? 07 A It has a sense of humor in it. 08 Q All right. And -- 09 A If this was what I posted, this would have 10 been -- what's the date on this? February 24. This 11 was before I figured out what Koos was. 12 Q Okay. Now, this document, for the record, is a 13 posting to a.r.s., it states from 14 "hkhenson@cup.portal.com." Is that the access 15 provider you use, by the way? 16 A One of them. 17 Q Okay. It's -- subject is called "The Right to 18 be Evil" and the date is 23 Feb 1995. Then says, 19 "Organization: The Portal System." What does -- what 20 does that signify, sir, on a header like that? 21 A It's just the name of an internet service 22 provider. 23 Q Okay. Is that the internet service provider you 24 would have used or -- 25 A It's one of the ones I use. 26 Q You made a lot of postings of the same nature as 0026 01 this, didn't you? 02 A Yes. After I -- 03 Q Just yes or no is fine. 04 A Okay. 05 Q And by that, I mean to say that you made a 06 number of postings which are critical or taunting of 07 the church; is that right? 08 A Oh, sure. 09 Q Yeah. How many do you think you made like that? 10 Ballpark. 50, a hundred, 300? 11 A After -- after I changed to -- you have to 12 understand, when I posted this, I was still using a 13 news reader which did not permit a killfile. Are you 14 familiar with some of these concepts? 15 Q No. 16 A Should I explain it? 17 Q Why don't you answer the question first. 18 A What was the question? 19 Q You made -- how about ballpark, how many 20 postings of this nature did you make? 50, a hundred, 21 200? What would be your best estimate? 22 A 1,228. 23 Q That's your best estimate as how many of them 24 you made? 25 A Yeah. 26 Q You said awhile ago that you had an estimate as 0027 01 to the total number of postings made to a.r.s. What 02 was that? 03 A 1,228. 04 Q Okay. All of them weren't of this nature 05 though, were they? 06 A I -- you asked me how many I posted. That 07 actually is a -- that actually -- that number comes 08 from a counter which I reset awhile back, but when I 09 reset it after -- that started after this action 10 started. I reset that counter 'cause I wondered how 11 many I had made, and that is not a completely accurate 12 number because it -- that counts all the postings I 13 made other places, but -- which is probably about 80 14 percent -- 20 percent of that could have been other 15 places, and it also doesn't count the fact that I -- 16 it was about a month after this before I switched 17 to -- or not a month, but it was a couple of weeks 18 after that, after this posting, that I switched to a 19 news reader with a killfile on it. 20 Q Okay. Now, for all of these postings with the 21 exceptions of the ones where you actually posted 22 verbatim materials from RTC, no one sued you for 23 those, did they? 24 A I'm sorry, would you repeat the question? 25 Q You've testified that you made over 1,200 26 postings to a.r.s. 0028 01 A Yes. Well, I made over 1,200 postings using 02 tin, which counts them, and most of those were to 03 a.r.s., right. 04 Q And most of those were critical or derogatory of 05 the Church of Scientology or Religious Technology 06 Center; is that right? 07 A I suppose so, by their definition. 08 Q Right. You were never sued for making 09 derogatory comments about the Church of Scientology, 10 were you? 11 A I was threatened once. 12 Q You were threatened once. By whom? 13 A Helena. 14 Q And how did Helena threaten you? 15 A She wrote me a letter. 16 Q Didn't she write you a letter about your posting 17 of NOTs materials? 18 A I don't think it was NOTs. In fact, exactly, it 19 was OT VII 48. 20 Q Okay. I stand corrected. OT VII. But she 21 never sent you a letter threatening you with a lawsuit 22 for making fun of the Church of Scientology or making 23 derogatory comments about it, did she, sir? 24 A My estimation is that -- is that posting those 25 six lines was in fair use, and certainly that was -- 26 Q That's not my question, sir. Did she ever write 0029 01 you a letter threatening you with a lawsuit for 02 posting -- postings such as this which were derogatory 03 or critical of the Church of Scientology, but which 04 did not contain OT-level materials? Yes or no. 05 A I certainly got threats by Milne, Vera Wallace 06 and a couple of other people who are church members. 07 Q Did Helena Kobrin ever send you such a letter, 08 sir? 09 A No. 10 Q Did the Religious Technology Center ever send 11 you such a letter? 12 A Did Scientology ever send me such a letter? 13 Q My question was did Religious Technology Center 14 ever send you such a letter. 15 A I'm sorry, I can't manage to distinguish between 16 Religious Technology Center and the rest -- 17 Q Did you ever receive such a letter from anybody? 18 A Oh, yes. Yeah. Several things. Postings. 19 Postings in particular. I think some of them were 20 private -- were e-mail directed to me as well. 21 Q Do you have copies of those? 22 A No, but they will be in the archives of a.r.s. 23 Q Now, who sent you these letters? 24 A Vera Wallace. 25 Q And what did it say? 26 A I don't remember except it was quite derogatory 0030 01 to me. 02 Q I didn't ask you whether it was derogatory of 03 you. 04 A Was it threats for legal action or physical 05 damage or things like that? 06 Q Yeah. 07 A Yeah. If I remember correctly. 08 Q Well, what did it say? 09 A I don't remember. God sakes, do you remember 10 crap that you read a year ago? 11 Q Well, if somebody threatened me with a lawsuit, 12 I might remember it, sir. If you don't remember being 13 threatened with a lawsuit, say so. If you do, then 14 tell me who threatened you and what they said. 15 A I'd have to dig it up. I really would. I can 16 get some people to do that. 17 Q I don't -- I'm not asking you to get some people 18 to do that, I'm asking you what your memory is. 19 A My memory is that I was -- is that I was 20 threatened more than once by representatives of the 21 Church of Scientology, people who were recognized 22 members of the Church of Scientology on the net. 23 Andrew Milne was probably one of the people who was 24 involved. Vera Wallace certainly did that. Chris 25 Miller went after me once. 26 Q What did -- what did they say? 0031 01 A I don't remember. 02 Q What do you mean by you were threatened? 03 What -- you were threatened with what? 04 A I'd have to look it up. I certainly felt 05 threatened. 06 Q But speaking here today, you can't tell me what 07 the threat was; is that right? 08 A Good lord, there's been threats by 09 Scientologists on the net so many times you can't 10 count them. Like the one -- Ron ArtistR or whatever 11 his name was that was threatening to kill people. 12 That one I know I can find. That wasn't to me, but it 13 was to somebody else. I think it was to Tarla. 14 Q I'm talking about any threats to you. Are you 15 able to tell me today what they were and when they 16 were made. 17 A No, I cannot tell you today what those threats 18 were. However, I will make a point of finding out 19 what they were and send them to you. 20 MR. LIEBERMAN: Number 23. 21 THE WITNESS: Since there's a dead spot 22 here, why don't I introduce -- 23 MR. LIEBERMAN: No, you're not free to 24 introduce anything right now. 25 THE WITNESS: She's got a tag -- a bunch 26 of tags there. Can't use them up? 0032 01 MR. LIEBERMAN: No. When I am through, if 02 you want to introduce something, you can introduce 03 something, but right now you are not permitted to do 04 that. 05 Mark that. 06 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 4 was 07 marked for identification by the 08 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 09 TIME: 10:00 10 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): This is a -- 11 A Oh. 12 Q -- posting, states from H.K. Henson to a.r.s. 13 and to other news groups, "Subject: Re: No more 14 "Secret Scriptures."" Mr. Henson, you've indicated 15 some recognition of this document. 16 A I certainly can't swear to it and I can't 17 identify it to you -- for you as being my material. 18 Q You -- 19 A But it looks like a good posting. 20 Q You said, "Oh" when you saw it. 21 A I recognize Standup. He was one -- he was one 22 of the Church of Scientology's people. He's probably 23 one of the people that was involved in either 24 insulting me or -- 25 Q Well, you insulted a lot of people in the 26 church, didn't you? All the time. 0033 01 A Oh, absolutely. 02 Q And you did so in this posting, too, right? 03 A Well, assuming that this is my posting, which 04 I'm not -- certainly am not going to admit that, but 05 assuming it's my posting, that's a pretty good 06 posting. 07 Q But you did make numerous postings of the same 08 tenor as this; is that correct? 09 A I would say probably you would consider that. 10 Q And your view, of course, is that you have the 11 First Amendment right to make such postings, insulting 12 or making derogatory comments about the Church of 13 Scientology or anybody else; isn't that right? 14 A Oh, by internet standards, you can't -- you 15 can't believe how mild this is. 16 Q Now you can answer my question. 17 A What? Can you repeat the question? 18 Q Your view is that under the First Amendment you 19 have the right to make such comments about the Church 20 of Scientology or people involved with it; is that 21 right? 22 A I have the right to make comments like this 23 about anybody. 24 Q Right. And people have the right to make 25 insulting comments about you back, right? 26 A It depends on how far they go in the threats. 0034 01 Q How about how far you go, sir? Does that depend 02 on that, too? 03 A I don't believe I've ever stepped over the line. 04 It's a fairly well understood usenet culture phenomena 05 as to how far you can go without getting in trouble. 06 Q Now, did you make this posting, sir? 07 A This one? 08 Q Yeah. 09 A I can't swear to it. 10 Q Does it seem familiar to you? 11 A Not particularly. 12 Q Okay. 13 A I do, however, recognize Standup. 14 Q There's no question pending about Standup, sir. 15 A What a character. 16 MR. LIEBERMAN: Let's see number 42. 17 Mark that. 18 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 5 was 19 marked for identification by the 20 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 21 (Discussion held off the record.) 22 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Plaintiff's 23 Number 5 is a copy of a posting to a.r.s. from H.K. 24 Henson dated March 14th, 1995. Subject, it says, "Re: 25 Just the facts, ma'am." 26 A Just a point of information. Re: is short for 0035 01 reference or referring to. 02 Q Yes, I understand. Thank you though. 03 And it begins with a statement that David 04 Talbot had written to a.r.s. quoting something that 05 Grady Ward had stated to a.r.s. in fairly graphic 06 terms, and follows with a comment from Mr. Henson 07 which states, "David, I don't expect to believe this" 08 -- 09 A I -- 10 Q -- "but Grady Ward is a respected person, not 11 just here, but over a considerable stretch of the 12 net." Did you make this posting, sir? 13 A I could not at all swear to having made this 14 posting. However, the material that is in the posting 15 is certainly consistent with what I -- with what I 16 would have believed at March 15th. 17 Q Right. And everything on the header indicates 18 that this was a posting of yours, does it not? 19 A I can't tell. Honest to goodness, when you're 20 dealing with something like this which is so easy to 21 change, there is no way. I can't swear to any of this 22 being actually mine. 23 Q Is there anything on the face of this document 24 that suggests that this is anything other than what it 25 purports to be, sir? 26 A I can't tell you that. 0036 01 Q In other words, you can't point to anything on 02 here -- 03 A I can't point to anything on here which 04 authenticates this or -- or -- I just can't make an 05 opinion on it. I'm sorry, you know, there is just no 06 way. 07 Q Do you remember thinking that Grady Ward is a 08 respected person over a considerable stretch of the 09 net? 10 A Oh, yeah. 11 Q Did you believe "He happens to be a little more 12 outspoken than the rest of us"? 13 A Yes, in an under -- understated sort of a way. 14 Q Do you remember thinking that "you," meaning 15 Mr. Talbot, "and the other" Scientology "types, with a 16 few exceptions, have no credibility here at all"? 17 A That doesn't look right. Well, yeah, at that 18 time -- yeah, at that time I'm -- if this is indeed is 19 something that I wrote, which I can't swear to, but if 20 it is something I wrote, I guess at that time there 21 was a couple of Scientologists on the net who actually 22 had some degree of respect. In particular, 23 Ken Long and -- oh, boy. I wish I could -- Elizabeth 24 McCoy. They long ago left, and there certainly -- a 25 month or two later they -- there would have been no 26 exceptions. 0037 01 Q And you remember thinking that you must play by 02 the rules if you come on to the net; is that right? 03 A That's -- 04 Q Our rules. 05 A That's a -- that's obvious. 06 Q Right. Now, by the way, don't the rules of most 07 access providers include rules against copyright 08 infringement? 09 A I wouldn't know. 10 Q You've Never read those rules? 11 A I probably have read those rules, but I 12 certainly don't remember anything from it. 13 Q Those rules you don't remember. What rules do 14 you remember? 15 A I'm sorry, I -- you know, asking me to remember 16 something which I -- which I read from an access 17 provider at least three or four years ago is well 18 beyond anything that you could expect from me. 19 Q Right. But you -- you expected others to 20 abide -- play by the rules, but you don't remember 21 this particular rule; is that right? 22 A The rule -- now, understand that there's a 23 difference between legalized rules and customs. I 24 mean, for example, there's no law against pissing in 25 the potted plant out in the lobby, but it's definitely 26 against custom. 0038 01 Q Right. You talk here about rules though. There 02 are rules that almost every access provider has about 03 copyright infringement; isn't that right? 04 A I frankly don't know. I would bet that there's 05 lots of -- of internet providers who don't have any 06 rules whatsoever on that. 07 Q Right. Do you think the Portal system does? 08 A I don't know. 09 Q Do you think Netcom does? 10 A I wouldn't have the slightest notion. 11 Q It wasn't something that you were ever 12 interested in finding out. 13 A I haven't looked. I know what is permitted by 14 custom. 15 Q Is copyright infringement permitted by customs? 16 A If there's a sufficient motivation to do it, 17 yes. 18 Q I see. And whose custom is that? 19 A Netiquette. 20 Q So according to the custom of netiquette, if 21 you're sufficiently motivated -- 22 A No, if there is sufficiently good reason -- 23 Q You can violate somebody's copyrights? 24 A Happens every day. 25 Q And is the same thing true with misappropriating 26 their trade secrets? If you have a sufficient 0039 01 motivation, then it's okay to do that. 02 A Not motivation. If there is sufficient -- like 03 public interest and so forth. 04 Q And who determines this? 05 A You take the risk yourself. 06 Q Okay. And if you're wrong, you get sued, right? 07 A It looks that way. 08 Q If the Court thinks you're wrong, you're found 09 liable; isn't that right? 10 A That may well be. 11 Q But you think that under the rules of netiquette 12 it's up to each individual to make that determination 13 for themselves in the first instance; is that right? 14 A Yes. 15 Q And that's what you've done, isn't it? 16 A Repeat that. 17 Q And that's what you've done; isn't it? 18 A I don't exactly understand why you're asking -- 19 or even what the question is exactly here. 20 Q You made the determination that there's 21 sufficient reason to infringe on RTC's copyrights by 22 posting its materials on the net, haven't you? 23 A No. 24 Q You haven't made that determination. 25 A No. I don't consider that infringement on their 26 copyrights at all. [correct to . . . consider that I have infringed on . . .] 0040 01 Q You consider that there is sufficient reason to 02 misappropriate their trade secrets and put them on the 03 net, haven't you? 04 A No. Anything that I may have done, I think I 05 have a perfectly decent defense on the thing of it 06 being a fair use. [^^^^^^^^^^^^^ delete] 07 Q I see. And -- all right. Did you -- 08 A I mean, for example, the six lines. 09 Q We'll get to the six lines. But when you posted 10 the six lines, did you consult with anyone as to 11 whether or not it was proper to put that on the net? 12 A Six lines? 13 Q Yes, that's my question. Yes or no. 14 A No. 15 Q And when you posted the NOTs issue, did you 16 consult with anyone as to whether or not it was 17 appropriate or permissible to post that on the net? 18 A Yes. 19 Q Who'd you consult with? 20 A Judge Whyte. I tried to. 21 Q Judge Whyte doesn't think you've consulted with 22 him, sir. I was in court. Other than Judge Whyte, 23 did you consult with anyone else? 24 A I don't remember. 25 Q You don't remember? It wasn't that long ago. 26 A I don't -- I don't remember whether I consulted 0041 01 with anybody else or not on that one. 02 Q Did you consult with a lawyer? 03 A No. 04 Q Did you consult with Mr. Ward? 05 A No. 06 Q Did you consult with Mr. Erlich? 07 A No. 08 Q This was a few weeks ago, but you don't remember 09 now whether you consulted with anybody else? 10 A I don't remember whether I -- whether I -- I 11 certainly didn't do a formal consult with -- like 12 paying a lawyer on it and going in and talking to 13 them. 14 Q Uh-huh. Basically you came to your own 15 determination that this was a permissible -- 16 permissible use of the NOTs materials; is that right? 17 A NOTs 34 is criminal on the face of it. Not only 18 that, it's a violation of Judge Giselle's order. [Gesell's] 19 Q My question is you decided -- you came to this 20 conclusion on your own; is that right? Yes or no. 21 A I said yeah. It doesn't take a lot of 22 conclusion to come to the conclusion of what's in that 23 thing. 24 Q I'd ask that you restrict yourself to the 25 questions I'm asking you. 26 You actually posted that twice, didn't 0042 01 you? NOTs 34? 02 A Actually, I thought I only posted it once. It 03 disappeared and I couldn't figure out -- I figured 04 "Well, I must have failed to post it correctly." 05 Q So then you reposted it? 06 A I repost it, yeah. 07 Q Then it shows up twice, right? 08 A No, it only showed up once. Church of 09 Scientology cancelled it once, I found out later. 10 That, by the way, is a violation of federal law. 11 Q Well, if they cancelled it, they must have known 12 that it was there, didn't they? So it must have shown 13 up, isn't that right? 14 A Say that again? 15 Q If they cancelled it the first time, how did 16 they know it was there? 17 A Well, presumably they're able to read. 18 Q Then that means it showed up, doesn't it? 19 A I don't know. I thought it was lost at the 20 time. 21 Q But if your view is that they cancelled it, then 22 it must be your view that it showed up; isn't it? 23 A There was a cancel message which accounted for 24 the fact that it disappeared. Are they -- 25 Q Sir, I -- 26 A Are they permitted to have done that? 0043 01 Q Sir, if it disappeared, it would have had to 02 appear; is that right? As a matter of basic logic, 03 isn't that right? 04 A Well, how would I know? 05 Q Okay. 06 A I went looking for it the next day and it wasn't 07 there. 08 Q So you put it back. You reposted -- 09 A I put it back. That was long before I heard 10 from them. Days before I heard from them. Or at 11 least a couple of days. 12 TIME: 10:15 13 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 14 Kobrin.) 15 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): And what basis do 16 you have for asserting that the Church of Scientology 17 cancelled it? 18 A That's a good point. I don't. I think I need 19 to investigate that point as part of this lawsuit. 20 Q You have no basis for making that allegation as 21 we sit here today; is that right? 22 A Well, I think that -- you're right, I don't have 23 an allegation. I don't have any basis for that 24 allegation. It's an assumption based on longstanding 25 pattern of behavior, but you're right. I need to 26 investigate that. Thank you for suggesting that. 0044 01 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 02 Kobrin.) 03 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Do you have any 04 information that the Church of Scientology ever 05 cancelled any posting? Any facts to support that kind 06 of allegation? 07 A Facts that could be presented in a court of law 08 that I have personal knowledge of? No. 09 Q Okay. That's the question. 10 A But I'll go to the trouble to get it. 11 MR. LIEBERMAN: Let me see number 74. 12 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): By the way, when 13 you did post NOTs 34, you knew that it was 14 copyrighted, right? 15 A By somebody, yes. Stuff is born copyrighted. 16 Q You knew that RTC claimed the copyright to 17 NOTs 34, didn't you? Yes or no. 18 A Try that again. 19 Q You knew that the Church of Scientology through 20 RTC claimed the copyright, asserted a copyright, in 21 NOTs 34. Yes or no. 22 A It was on the list of material that was in the 23 TRO that was issued against Grady Ward. That's the 24 best I can do. I don't know whether they assert -- 25 what they assert on it or how well it would hold up in 26 court. 0045 01 Q But you knew that it was asserted, right? In 02 fact, you also knew that it was part of the Erlich 03 case, didn't you? 04 A No. 05 Q You didn't? 06 A Nope. 07 Q Didn't you go and obtain a whole list of 08 materials that were at issue in the Erlich case and 09 didn't you post those to the internet? 10 A You think that I could remember that list of 11 numbers? No way. 12 Q I see. You didn't bother to check that what you 13 were posting was part of the injunction in the Erlich 14 case? 15 A No. 16 Q You didn't -- 17 A I knew it was part of the injunction in the -- 18 in the Ward case because that's how I found it. In 19 fact, would you like a description of how I found it? 20 Q No, I'll get to that. But you didn't bother to 21 check whether it was part of the injunction in the 22 Erlich case; is that your testimony? 23 A That's my testimony. Was it? 24 Q Yes. 25 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 26 Kobrin.) 0046 01 TIME: 10:20. 02 MR. LIEBERMAN: Number 78. 03 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Have you ever 04 used anonymous remailers? 05 A No. 06 Q You've never posted anything through an 07 anonymous remailer. 08 A No. 09 Q Okay. Do you know people who have? 10 A Probably. 11 Q Do you know whether Mr. Ward has? 12 A Wouldn't have the slightest idea. 13 Q Are you aware that people have used anonymous 14 remailers to post Scientology-copyrighted materials to 15 the internet? 16 A That's obvious. 17 Q Okay. And do you know why they would use an 18 anonymous remailer? 19 A Yeah, they want to avoid the kind of trouble 20 that I'm in. 21 Q Right. But you've never decided to use that 22 route to avoid that kind of trouble? 23 A If I did, I wouldn't be here today. 24 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 25 Kobrin.) 26 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Did you ever give 0047 01 any advice to people as to how to use anonymous 02 remailers to avoid detection by the Church of 03 Scientology? 04 A No. Not that I can remember. I may have done 05 so, but -- I may have mentioned that you should do it. 06 It's possible I even pointed people to where -- to 07 where you can find that information, but I can't 08 recall having done so. 09 Q Did you ever post any -- make any postings to 10 the internet describing to people how to do that or 11 giving them advice how to do it? 12 A I'm not an expert in that particular field. I 13 know only the rawest outlines of how you go about 14 doing that. I could probably describe it fairly well, 15 but I would be much more likely just to point people 16 to some of the web sites which have a great deal -- 17 web sites or ftp sites that have the full details on 18 it. 19 Q Did anyone ever ask you for such advice or 20 information? 21 A I can't recall that. 22 Q Did anyone ever tell you that they were doing 23 that with respect to Church of Scientology materials? 24 A No. 25 Q Did you ever tell any people that those using 26 anonymous remailers should never use the same one 0048 01 twice as the final link? 02 A I might have. 03 Q Why would -- why would that be useful 04 information to know? 05 A Well, the obvious is that the final remailer in 06 the thing where the stuff is finally encrypted up to [decrypted] 07 where you can actually see it and goes out at that 08 point, there's always a chance that the final 09 remailer -- and it could be compromised or subjected 10 to legal coercion to trap the stuff going through it. 11 Q So the idea would be if the final remailer only 12 knew the name of an intermediate remailer it would 13 give you another level of protection; is that the 14 idea? 15 A Oh, the general rule is that you never send 16 stuff through less than three or four remailers. 17 Q And that's precisely for the purpose of -- 18 A If you're going to -- 19 Q -- maintaining the secrecy? 20 A Right. If you're going to do that kind of 21 thing, you want to do a good job of it. 22 Q Is there a list of remailers that one can 23 obtain? 24 A Yes. I don't remember where you obtain it at 25 the moment. 26 Q Is there something called Cypherpunks? 0049 01 A Yes. 02 Q Is that where you obtain it? 03 A Let's see if I have it here. (Indicating). 04 Q What is Cypherpunk? 05 A Cypherpunk is a -- well, it's a really hard 06 thing to describe. It's obviously a play on 07 cyberpunks, and cypher, of course, which is to encrypt 08 things, and it's a shame you guys had to identify 09 everybody here today because I would have brought 10 somebody from that realm of the world. I know a 11 number of the people who are -- I can't say members -- 12 subscribers to the Cypherpunks list is about as close 13 as I can come. 14 Q I see. So there's something called a 15 Cypherpunks list? 16 A Yes. 17 Q Who maintains that? 18 A Major Domo. [majordomo] 19 Q Major Domo is an individual? 20 A No, no. Major Domo is a bot. 21 Q A what? 22 A A bot. 23 Q What's a bot? 24 A A robot like. It's short for robot. 25 Q Uh-huh. And this robot is obviously maintained 26 by somebody, right? 0050 01 A Not very much. In fact, it's hardly ever 02 touched. 03 Q Where does it sit? 04 A I don't know at this point. It was a year ago, 05 which was about the last time I was reading the 06 Cypherpunks list, it was on Hoptoad. 07 Q How would one go about getting the Cypherpunks 08 list? 09 A Subscribe Cypherpunks. 10 Q How do you do that? 11 A You send subscribe.cypherpunks to 12 cypherpunks.com or cypherpunks@hoptoad.com. 13 Q Who are the individuals involved in Cypherpunks? 14 A Gee, I -- there's a list on -- of them that were 15 the prominent people that -- it's more exclusive than 16 any list I could come -- more extensive than any list 17 I could come up that was in Wired magazine. 18 Q Well, you must know some of the people involved, 19 sir, because you were going to bring some of them here 20 today, you just said so. 21 A One of them. 22 Q Who was that? 23 A Well, I never got any of them to agree. 24 Q Who was the person you were going to bring? 25 A I put a message on the Cypherpunks list saying 26 that -- if anybody'd want to come. 0051 01 Q You spoke to some people about it, right? 02 A No. Strictly e-mail. 03 Q Okay. Who did you communicate with through 04 e-mail? 05 A 700 people. I can't list them. 06 Q You don't know the identity -- 07 A Actualy, I don't -- I got one back from -- oh, 08 man. Doughboy. I don't know when -- I had -- there 09 were several of them that were -- that -- you know, 10 that had names like that that I -- that were 11 interested, but when I posted back to the -- you know, 12 it was -- they had to be identified. Nobody was 13 interested. 14 Q But you knew their identity? 15 A Me? 16 Q Yes, you. You knew the identity of the people 17 you wanted to bring with you here today. 18 A (Witness shakes head from side to side.) 19 Q You're under oath, sir. 20 A I -- there's 700 people. 21 Q You wanted to bring not 700 people to this 22 deposition, but one or two. Who were they? 23 A Do I have to answer that question? 24 Q Yes. 25 A Let's take that up with Judge Invante this [Infante] 26 afternoon. 0052 01 Q Okay. So you're refusing to answer that 02 question; is that right? 03 A I don't believe that it's -- that I'm required 04 to answer the question about hypothetical people that 05 I might have brought to this. 06 Q Is there anybody else connected with Cypherpunks 07 whom you can identify? 08 A Sure. Phil Zimmerman. 09 Q Yes? Who else? 10 A Eric Hughes. Two or three people in the East 11 Coast that post out of Panix. That's P-A-N-I-X. 12 Q What are their names? 13 A Oh, jeez. I'm not sure I know any of those guys 14 by name. There's a guy by the name of Hal, but I 15 cannot bring up his name, his last name. 16 Q Anyone else involved with Cypherpunks? 17 A It's been a year since I've been on Cypherpunks 18 steadily. It's too big a list. It was running more 19 than 50 megabytes a month and I can't handle that. 20 Q But the people who you are refusing to 21 identify are identified or connected with Cypherpunks? 22 A They're on the list of somewhere between 700 and 23 a thousand people. 24 Q You understand the reason I am asking you for 25 the identity is not because they would or would not 26 come to this deposition, but because they are 0053 01 connected with Cypherpunks. That's the reason for the 02 question. 03 A Well, if you want a list of Cypherpunk people 04 just -- 05 Q Do you still refuse to -- 06 A If you want a list of Cypherpunks, just ask for 07 it. 08 Q I'm asking, do you still refuse to identify the 09 names of those people, given what I just stated to 10 you? 11 A I had some people in mind that I would have 12 asked, but on the basis of having to be identified I 13 know none of them would be interested in coming. 14 Q Okay. And you're refusing to state who they 15 are? 16 A Well, you can get the whole list if you want. 17 Q That's not my question. 18 A Yeah, I refuse to state it. I mean, this is 19 highly hypothetical, but, I mean, the Cypherpunks 20 people would obviously be interested in this kind of 21 things. It's sort of like an arms manufacturer being 22 interested in reports from the battle front. 23 Q Okay. 24 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 25 Kobrin.) 26 MR. LIEBERMAN: Let me see number 83. 0054 01 TIME: 10:32. 02 MR. LIEBERMAN: Can you mark that as 03 whatever we're up to. 04 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 6 was 05 marked for identification by the 06 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 07 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): This is a posting 08 to a.r.s. from H.K. Henson dated 5th of April '95 "Re: 09 Gerald Armstrong message to a.r.s." Do you know who 10 Gerald Armstrong is? 11 A Only by having read that he's been silenced by 12 the Church of Scientology. 13 Q Do you recall that he sent a message to a.r.s. 14 about a year ago? 15 A I seem to remember that he did something like 16 that. 17 Q And did you try to make it to a court hearing in 18 a case involving Gerald Armstrong? 19 A No. It got rescheduled, if I remember. 20 Q But before it was rescheduled, you intended to 21 try to make it to it; is that right? 22 A I thought about it. 23 Q Did you ever go to a hearing, a court hearing 24 involving Gerald Armstrong? 25 A No. 26 Q Okay. 0055 01 A As they say, I have a life. 02 Q Glad to hear it. Did you make this posting? 03 A I can't say. There's not enough context to 04 figure out what it was about, and I can't -- I can't 05 swear to anything that is on paper like this. 06 Q There's nothing in the content of this that 07 suggests that this is anything other than a posting by 08 you as it purports to be? 09 A There's nothing in it that says it is a posting 10 by me either. 11 Q Well, yeah, there is. It says from Keith 12 Henson. Does it not? 13 A It states that, but I can type anybody's name in 14 there. Do you want me to generate you one with your 15 name in it? It's simple to do. 16 Q Not my question, sir. You see PS, it says, "By 17 the way, CoS, attacking people like Grady who have 18 never been involved with CoS is a very, very bad 19 move." Did you think a year ago the church was 20 attacking Grady Ward? 21 A Oh, definitely. 22 Q They hadn't brought any lawsuit against him, had 23 they? 24 A You don't need to bring lawsuits against 25 somebody to attack them. I mean, doing things like 26 stealing pictures of his children from his mother is 0056 01 what I would consider to be a serious level attack. 02 Q Is that something they did in April of '95? 03 A I don't remember when they did it. 04 Q Grady was attacking the church pretty heavily on 05 a.r.s., too, wasn't he? 06 A I don't remember. 07 Q You don't? 08 A No. The reason of it is that Grady's -- I 09 really didn't find Grady's posts to be usually all 10 that interesting. I usually skipped them. 11 Q I see. You made numerous references to Grady in 12 your own postings, didn't you? 13 A Well, Grady was obviously under a serious attack 14 by the church. 15 Q What kind of communication -- did you have 16 communications with Grady? 17 A I actually never spoke to Grady before -- 18 whatever date it was that that first picket was 19 held up -- that the picket was held this year up at 20 San Francisco, and I sent maybe three or four e-mail 21 messages to him altogether. Short things, you know, 22 like "way to go" or something like that. 23 Q Did you ever discuss with him posting 24 Scientology materials to the internet? 25 A Never have. 26 Q Ever communicate with him by e-mail or by 0057 01 regular mail concerning that subject? 02 A Never by regular mail. I haven't written a 03 letter by regular mail for years hardly. Very few of 04 them. 05 Q How about by e-mail? By e-mail, did you discuss 06 with Grady Ward posting Scientology materials to the 07 internet? 08 A Absolutely not. 09 Q Did you ever discuss with Grady Ward the 10 identity of SCAMIZDAT? 11 A Nope. 12 THE REPORTER: I'm sorry? 13 MR. LIEBERMAN: SCAMIZDAT, 14 S-C-A-M-I-Z-D-A-T. 15 THE WITNESS: And if you want to do it by 16 the -- the a.r.s. standard, it should all be in 17 capitals. 18 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 19 Kobrin.) 20 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Did you ever 21 discuss either electronically or by spoken word with 22 anybody the question of the identity of SCAMIZDAT? 23 A I don't believe I have ever done that. 24 Q Are you SCAMIZDAT? 25 A No. 26 Q Do you know who SCAMIZDAT is? 0058 01 A No. However, I can do some speculation on that, 02 if you'd like. 03 Q I'm not interested in speculation. I'm 04 interested in -- 05 A Well, if you don't want information that would 06 help you figure out who SCAMIZDAT is, that's okay by 07 me. 08 Q I want to know if you have any information. I 09 want to know that. If you are merely speculating, 10 your speculation is no better than anybody else's. 11 A Well, you have the same information I have. 12 Q Okay. Do you know who SCAMIZDAT is or do you 13 think you know who it is? 14 A Haven't a clue. 15 Q Okay. And you quite definitely are not. 16 A The presumption with SCAMIZDAT is that SCAMIZDAT 17 is a person who's actually had some of the hard copied 18 materials of the Church of Scientology in 19 their possession to type them in or scan them in. 20 I've never seen a piece of hard copy of any of the OT 21 or NOTs material or any of the other stuff that they 22 keep secret. 23 Q Okay. 24 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 25 Kobrin.) 26 TIME: 10:39. 0059 01 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Do you know who 02 Patrick Volk is? 03 A Who? 04 Q Patrick J. Volk, V-O-L-K. 05 A Not a clue. At least I can't think -- does he 06 go by any other name on the net? 07 Q I don't know. 08 A To the best of my knowledge I've never heard 09 of this person. Did he send me mail -- 10 Q Could he be possibly -- if I said that he was 11 connected with some educational institution in 12 Pittsburgh, does that refresh your recollection at 13 all? 14 A It's entirely possible that I did something like 15 respond to some posting of his, if this person posts 16 on the internet, but the name is not immediately 17 familiar to me. 18 MR. LIEBERMAN: Okay. Let me see number 19 94. 20 THE WITNESS: If you give me a little more 21 background, maybe I can -- 22 MR. LIEBERMAN: I'll try and do that. 23 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 24 Kobrin.) 25 MR. LIEBERMAN: If you need to take a 26 break at any point, all you need to do is say so. I 0060 01 should have said that at the beginning of the 02 deposition as part of the general instructions. 03 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 7 was 04 marked for identification by the 05 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 06 THE WITNESS: (Laughter). I'm sorry. 07 This is a great troll. 08 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Okay. You find 09 this amusing? 10 A Yes. It's an in-joke. 11 Q Now, this is -- 12 A Please just read it into the record. 13 Q This is a posting dated April 6, 1995 to a.r.s. 14 from Keith Henson. It quotes a posting by Patrick, 15 with the T left out by mistake, I assume, Volk, 16 V-O-L-K, which states, among other things, "Screw the 17 courts" and also says that he has an ftp site for all 18 the OT materials. Mr. Henson -- 19 A I'm sorry, I just lost it. 20 Q Mr. Henson is laughing hysterically about this 21 posting for reasons that I suppose he understands. 22 And obviously -- well, let me ask you this, sir -- 23 A Why do I find this humorous? 24 Q No, that's not my question. What's an ftp site? 25 A ftp stands for file transfer protocol. 26 Q Right. And describe what that -- what an ftp 0061 01 site is. 02 A It is -- it is a place on the internet where you 03 can use almost any machine on the internet to access 04 the files that have been placed in what's called an 05 ftp directory anywhere else on the internet. For 06 example, pheta.com has a file -- has an ftp, bunch of [theta.com] 07 ftp directories in there. And you can use a program 08 called ftp or ncftp or some of the browsers also 09 support this through URL's and it provides you a way 10 to link up with that machine, remote machine, and by 11 using commands -- there's a whole lot of commands you 12 can use, but there's only a few I use called get and 13 put that allows us to transfer files from the 14 directory that you're in on the remote machine into 15 your own directory. 16 Q Okay. So when he said, "I have an ftp site for 17 all the OT materials," he is saying he has all the OT 18 materials available on an ftp site which people can 19 access; is that right? 20 A That's right. 21 Q Okay. Were you aware of Patrick Volk's ftp 22 site; does this refresh your recollection? 23 A Well, you see right after the colon, it says, 24 "ftp:127.0.0.1"? 25 Q Yes. 26 A That's a loopback address. 0062 01 Q That's a what? 02 A Loopback. 03 Q What does that mean? 04 A You don't actually go out of your own machine at 05 all, it loops right back into your own machine. This 06 is what's known as a troll in the internet. 07 Q I see. And what's a troll, sir? 08 A Oh, it comes from the fishing where you troll a 09 bait along in the water and a fish will jump and bite 10 the thing, and the idea of it is that the internet is 11 a very humorous place and it's especially good to 12 troll people who don't have any sense of humor at all, 13 and this is a troll because an ftp site of 127.0.0.1 14 doesn't go anywhere. It loops right back around into 15 your own machine. 16 Q So the idea here was to make the church think 17 that this person had an ftp site and to take action 18 against him and, in fact, he didn't have it; is that 19 your point? 20 A Oh, it's really humorous, and I picked up on it 21 and instantly -- instantly added something to extend 22 the troll. Extending the trolls like this is an art 23 form of the highest order. 24 Q I see. So this is part of your art form where 25 you say, "don't you expect the 'ho to blow a gasket?" 26 A Yes. 0063 01 Q So you do remember this posting apparently? 02 A Well, I don't remember whether I did this one or 03 not, but -- 04 Q You just said you did, sir. 05 A I don't remember for certain that I did this 06 one, and certainly I could not swear to any of the 07 material on here being letter perfect on it, but even 08 if I didn't do this one, I think I would want to 09 claim -- it's -- I would certainly claim this one. 10 This was -- even if I didn't do this one, this is is a 11 good one. 12 Q Uh-huh. 13 A And PS -- 14 Q You find this whole thing kind of amusing, don't 15 you? 16 A Oh, this is screamingly funny. 17 Q You find it amusing to make Helena Kobrin and 18 the church go after you or other people for this sort 19 of thing, whether you have the materials or not; is 20 that right? 21 A It's a great game. 22 Q It is a great game. You really find it amusing, 23 don't you? 24 A It's an extremely amusing thing. 25 Q All right. You find it amusing when you receive 26 these letters from Ms. Kobrin, the cease and desist 0064 01 letters? It's part of the game; isn't it? 02 A Well, we'll get to that later. 03 Q No, this is the question now. 04 A Well, if you figure -- if you find in that pile 05 of stuff the SP levels, we can discuss that at this 06 point. It's a matter of status -- 07 Q Sir, I ask the questions, you answer them. You 08 find the whole thing an amusing game, right? 09 A I can only answer that question in the context 10 of the SP levels. 11 Q You find it an amusing part of the game when you 12 receive these cease and desist letters, right? 13 A No, no. It's not amusing, it's a major 14 increment in status. 15 Q I see. You feel this increases your status, 16 right? 17 A Oh, absolutely. 18 Q On the internet, on a.r.s. 19 A Yes. 20 Q All right. And it's all part of this game, 21 right? 22 A Absolutely. 23 Q It's all part of the troll, right? 24 A This is a great troll (indicating). 25 Q Thank you. 26 A I mean, anybody in the computer business 0065 01 instantly would have spotted this, ftp:127. In fact, 02 it even says trolls in here (indicating). In fact, 03 this was cross-posted from -- 04 Q There is no question pending. You can hold your 05 comments. 06 MR. LIEBERMAN: Let me see number 96. 07 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, this is just too 08 funny. 09 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Why did you think 10 this would cause Ms. Kobrin to blow a gasket? 11 A Actually, if she had access to anybody who knew 12 anything whatsoever about computers and ftp and stuff 13 like that, she would never even -- never even consider 14 it to be anything whatsoever. 15 Q Yes, but you assumed she didn't, right? 16 A This wasn't addressed to Helena. 17 Q But you thought that this might cause her to 18 blow a gasket? 19 A No, I figured -- this was a joke. 20 Q But you figured that if she, in fact, did think 21 that Mr. Volk had the OT materials on an ftp site she 22 would blow a gasket, right? 23 A Not likely. 24 Q You don't think she would be upset by that? 25 A Well -- 26 Q If it were a real ftp site? 0066 01 A The assumption is that somebody would actually 02 try this and see, and the fact of it is that there 03 was -- it was a loopback to your own local -- if it 04 worked at all, it would be a loopback to your own 05 local machine. Only one machine in a thousand or less 06 than that would have this particular address or 07 directory structure in it which would get this. So 08 anybody who attempted to actually look and see the 09 thing would instantly discover that it was -- that it 10 was a troll, but, I mean, you can see it's a troll 11 from the 127 in there. That's the loopback address. 12 These four digits that are in here separated by 13 periods are the IP addresses. 14 MR. LIEBERMAN: Okay. Can you mark that. 15 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 8 was 16 marked for identification by the 17 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 18 THE WITNESS: Yes? 19 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Okay. Do you 20 know who L. Sobocinski is? 21 A No. No idea. I think this particular person is 22 a Scientologist. If it's important for the case, I 23 can have CompuServe tell me who his real name is. 24 Q I just asked you whether you know who he is, he 25 or she. You don't? 26 A No. 0067 01 Q Okay. This is a -- this exhibit is a posting 02 dated April 7, '95 from Keith Henson to a.r.s. "Re: 03 Good stuff from one that's been there" and which 04 begins with quoting a posting from somebody named L. 05 Sobocinski, S-O-B-O-C-I-N-S-K-I, in which -- which 06 states that "You really shouldn't publish stuff that 07 purports to be confidential" and you shouldn't fill up 08 Scientologist's e-mail with obscene and threatening 09 messages, "but you do." And there's a response 10 from -- purports to be from Mr. Henson which says, 11 "Mr. Sobocinski, it is within the bounds of acceptable 12 net behavior to post obscene and threatening e-mail 13 without warning." Is that true? 14 A Absolutely. 15 Q Really. That's considered acceptable net 16 behavior? 17 A Absolutely. If you get a threatening e-mail, it 18 is threatening e-mail letter or obscene material that 19 you don't want to have seen, it is absolutely 20 considered that you don't -- it's not welcome to you, 21 it is considered to be absolutely within the bounds of 22 behavior to post private mail to you instantly on 23 those kind of conditions. Again, I cannot swear to 24 this being actually a letter-perfect copy of my 25 posting, but certainly the stuff that is -- purports 26 to be by me is utterly consistent. I said in here he 0068 01 was saying that -- he was saying anti-Scientologists 02 were engaging in behavior of filling up their e-mail 03 with obscene and threatening messages, and I said 04 please post this stuff, which is the normal behavior. 05 Q Okay. 06 A He didn't. Or whatever is behind this -- this 07 account didn't. If I remember correctly. 08 Q So you do remember this communication? 09 A This is consistent with what I would have done, 10 but, like I say, I cannot swear that this is letter 11 perfect for what I -- for an actual real posting of 12 mine. 13 Q All right. 14 MR. LIEBERMAN: I need to take a 15 five-minute break, so we can go off the record. 16 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Okay. Thank you. 17 Hearing no objection, the time now is 10:54. We're 18 going off the record. Clear to talk. 19 (Recess taken.) 20 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: We're back on the 21 record. The time now is 11:08. Go ahead, please. 22 MR. LIEBERMAN: Okay. I think you said, 23 correct me if I'm wrong, that there are a.r.s. 24 archives maintained somewhere? 25 A Yes. There are -- I've forgotten who the 26 person's name is that maintains it, but there's at 0069 01 least one person that tries to download everything 02 that's on a.r.s. Well, so does the Church of 03 Scientology. As far as I know they get everything. 04 Q But other than the Church of Scientology, do you 05 know who it would be? 06 A I can't remember her name now. 07 Q Is this something somebody -- anybody can access 08 from the internet or do you have to contact the person 09 independently? 10 A No, you'd have to post a message asking to have 11 somebody send it to you if you have something specific 12 that you want. 13 Q Do you know the internet address of that person? 14 A No. I can't remember what it is. 15 Q Would you have it back home or something like 16 that? 17 A No, but if I wanted it -- wanted it I could 18 certainly find -- I'd just post a message and ask 19 who's got them. It's a woman who might be a lawyer, 20 if I remember correctly, and her first name starts 21 with a D, but I'm not sure. 22 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 23 Kobrin.) 24 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Deanna Holmes? 25 A That sounds right. Maybe. 26 Q And your understanding is this person, whether 0070 01 it's Deanna Holmes or somebody else, has maintained a 02 complete archive from the creation, so to speak? 03 A I don't think so. There might have been some 04 other people who have some material back from last 05 year, but I -- or sorry, '94, but I believe that 06 there's some stuff which is lost because nobody -- 07 nobody kept it. 08 Q Okay. And how were you able to determine 09 that -- your number of postings? At least the ones 10 that you could calculate were 1,200. 11 A I looked at the counter. 12 Q Where do you look at the counter? Where -- 13 A In tine there's -- unless you go to some trouble [tin] 14 to shut it off, tin keeps a count of your postings. 15 And I actually -- of the 1,228 that were counted, that 16 I counted in the tin file on both Portal and Netcom, 17 my guess is that around 80 percent, maybe even 90 18 percent of that would have been a.r.s. postings. 19 a.r.s. has been a very interesting place in the last 20 year. It has a lot of the characteristics of a soap 21 opera. 22 Q Okay. Do you know who Homer is? 23 A Yes. Or -- I've never met him or talked to him 24 on the phone or -- it's possible that I've exchanged 25 one or two e-mails with him, but I know -- I know who 26 he is. He's the creator of alt.clearing.technology. 0071 01 Q What's alt.clearing.technology? 02 A It's the place where the free-zoners hang out. 03 Q Okay. Now, who are the free-zoners? 04 A Free-zoners are the people that said goodbye to 05 the Church of Scientology but are still practicing 06 that particular auditing and other kind of practices 07 that the Scientologists do. 08 Q I see. So they -- they do things like NOTs and 09 they do things like the OT levels? 10 A I don't know. I don't -- I don't know any of 11 them, you know, except a little bit through the net. 12 They've struck me -- people like -- oh, Ken Long, for 13 example, argued incessantly that body thetans have 14 mass or ingrams have mass. I forget which one it was. [engrams] 15 Q Right. Was Ken Long a free-zoner? 16 A I don't know actually whether he had actually 17 been active with the free-zone or not. The church 18 certainly threw him out after what he thinks is 19 ripping him of for a couple of hundred thousand. [off] 20 Q I see. But the free-zoners believe in the text, 21 so to speak, of Scientology as far as you know? 22 A Yeah, they -- as the Scientologists refer to it, 23 they squirrel it a lot, which means they change it. 24 Q All right. 25 A I don't know much about it. The ones that post 26 to the net seem to be kind of looney for the most 0072 01 part. 02 Q Now, Homer is one of the free-zoners? 03 A Yeah. 04 Q And he posts to both a.r.s. and also to 05 alt.clearing.technology? 06 A Right. 07 Q All right. 08 A I don't know what he says 'cause I killfiled him 09 a long time ago. 10 Q Explain to the record for us on the record what 11 killfiled means. 12 A alt.religion.scientology has as many as 5- or 13 600 postings to it a day. That's far too many to 14 read, and a lot of them are seriously off topic or 15 they're by people that just write stuff that is so 16 weird it's incomprehensible. Koos, for example, or 17 Koos, I guess, is how it's actually pronounced. So 18 what you can do with a lot of news readers is you can 19 hit control K and then go through a little menu and it 20 will produce as a file called killfile and the 21 killfile then essentially just -- when you sign in to 22 read the group, it just goes through and just deletes 23 all of -- just takes out of your view all the authors 24 or the topics that you've killfiled. 25 Q I see. 26 A My killfile is about somewhere between 15- and 0073 01 20,000 bytes. It's a big killfile. 02 Q And is Homer one of the people who you've put in 03 your killfile or not? 04 A I -- well, my killfiles are not consistent 05 between Portal and Netcom, and so I'm not actually 06 sure whether I got him killfiled in both places or 07 not. If he isn't posting very much I couldn't really 08 tell. I don't know when -- I don't really know 09 whether he's killfiled or not, but I could find out if 10 it was important. 11 Q Okay. 12 MR. LIEBERMAN: Done with this. Okay. 13 Let me have number 107. 14 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Did you ever meet 15 with somebody named Aron Mason? 16 A Yes. Very early in this business. 17 Q Yes. 18 A It was right after the Computers, Privacy and 19 Freedom Conference, I think, CPF, whenever it stood 20 for. 21 Q That's sponsered by EFF? 22 A Yeah. I didn't go to the conference, but I did 23 go to a rump session that was held afterwards that 24 was -- I think Leipold spoke there and John Perry 25 Barlow and I think Mason -- in fact, I'm sure Mason 26 was one of the people, Mason and Jeff Quiros were the 0074 01 people that showed up there at that. 02 Q And what was -- what was the circumstances of 03 your meeting with them? 04 A Well, it was after all this hoorah had broken 05 loose on the net and I -- I decided I wanted to see 06 what -- see what -- there's -- the session was 07 specifically on the Scientologists and the net, and so 08 I wanted to go see what it was about. And I met Aron 09 and Jeff, and I think they were the only two 10 Scientologists who were there. I do remember in the 11 meeting, at the question and answer part after that, 12 of making sure that they had a chance to speak. 13 Q Okay. What was your impression of them when you 14 met them? 15 A Weird people. 16 Q Uh-huh. Did they say anything to you -- 17 A Yes. 18 Q -- that you remember? 19 A That was one of my first experiences with TRL, 20 people who'd been heavily trained in lying, and it was 21 most amusing because at that point I had just read 22 Andre Tobayion's affidavit. 23 Q Okay. 24 A And, of course, they were referring to him as a 25 backhoe operateor with no knowledge or power at all in 26 the Church of Scientology. 0075 01 Q I see. And you had knowledge that that was not 02 true? 03 A Well, I had read an extensive deposition -- or 04 not deposition, a declaration to the extent and had 05 seen such things as the fact that Andre had been in 06 charge of something in Portland that involved 07 thousands of Scientologists, so I -- I was actually 08 impressed by how well they were able to just absolute 09 straight-faced dead-pan lie. I was -- they did a good 10 job. Well-trained. 11 MR. LIEBERMAN: Can you mark that. 12 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 9 was 13 marked for identification by the 14 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 15 THE WITNESS: Is this my account of that 16 meeting? 17 MR. LIEBERMAN: Take a look. 18 THE WITNESS: Well, again, it's one of the 19 things which I can't -- oh, Woody. I can't verify 20 that this is actually the posting that I did, but 21 let's see what it's about. 22 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Let me just 23 identify it for the record while you're taking a look 24 at it. This is a posting from Keith Henson to a.r.s., 25 "Subject: Re: LSD," dated April 8th, 1995, and it 26 contains a dialogue between Mr. Henson and somebody 0076 01 named -- 02 A Woody. 03 Q Also a Rick Sherwood in there? 04 A That's Woody. 05 Q Okay. So quoted in here is a statement in which 06 you give an account of your meeting with Jeff Quiros 07 and Aron Mason; is that right? 08 A Right. 09 Q Okay. And down at the bottom of that page, you 10 see where you say, "Do you have any idea of how wide 11 our circle of friends is"? 12 A Uh-huh. 13 Q Who did you mean by our? 14 A Ahh, the net. 15 Q The net? 16 A 30 million people. 17 Q And what did you mean by your circle of friends? 18 A I'm probably known by 10,000 people, and between 19 the people that I know and the people that folks like 20 Grady knows and the people that Ron Newman knows and 21 Jeff Jacobsen, and, you know, you're dealing with 22 people with big net presences -- presence, and I 23 notice that this is actually in response to a posting 24 by M. Council, because I have killfiled Woody, and if 25 she hadn't responded to Woody, I would have never 26 known that Woody had responded to my posting. 0077 01 Q Okay. Now, you say, "Do you have the slightest 02 idea of who you are threatening?" What threat are you 03 referring to in this particular dialogue or trialogue 04 or whatever it is? 05 A I'm -- let's see. Probably the "Scientologists 06 fight back. I know you don't like this. But they 07 persist," which was Woody's statement. 08 Q Okay. So that's what you meant by a threat. 09 A Yeah, in the context of the previous sentence, 10 which is "Henson, be careful, here. Others don't have 11 your bias and you might lose some credibility if you 12 try to make" out -- "make it out for what it was not." 13 And I -- my comment on that was "I" can't "figure out 14 which part of my posting" you're "referring to," and 15 then went on down, "If" you're "referring to the Ms. 16 Bloody/Tom K./-AB- extended episode, I clearly stated 17 that it" made "no sense to me." I went on to say, "It 18 is just about the weirdest story" I've "ever heard, 19 and if you or anyone else in or out of CoS can explain 20 it, I'd be nothing short of delighted. If you are 21 referring to my reporting of the EFF meeting, my bias 22 in these matters is fully on the record." 23 Q What is your bias? 24 A Oh, in favor of freedom of expression and I'm, 25 of course, opposed to the kind of brainwashing and 26 other sorts of abuse that the Church of Scientology is 0078 01 well-known for doing. 02 Q Okay. 03 A Ahh, right. Aron mentioned -- he mentioned that 04 Fishman had never been a CoS member -- 05 Q There is no question on the table. 06 A Great stuff. Again, like I say, I'm not sure 07 this is mine, but it certainly is consistent with the 08 kind of things I would do. 09 Q Now, approximately when did you first post the 10 six or seven lines from OT VII to the internet? 11 A I'm sorry, I don't remember. You people no 12 doubt know. 13 Q Would it refresh your memory if I said it was in 14 the middle of July of 1995; does that sound about 15 right? 16 A It sounds about right, yeah. 17 Q And where did you obtain the -- 18 A I was responding to somebody else's posting, 19 which means that I obtained it right there on the 20 screen by hitting the F key for follow-up, and that 21 the previous posting then with these appropriate kinds 22 of colons or greater-than signs jumped into my buffer, 23 and I probably deleted some of the text which was in 24 there because I normally do that, and then I posted 25 some kind of comment on it beyond that probably, and 26 hit the key that causes it to be posted to the net. 0079 01 Q Had you obtained copies, electronic copies or 02 computer disk copies of OT VII prior to that? 03 A Other than the fact that I think it had been on 04 the news spool -- on machines that I had access for 05 days before that, no. 06 Q But had you downloaded that? 07 A No. You got to be kidding. 08 Q When you posted it, was it sitting on any 09 computer memory of yours? 10 A Well, yeah, it was sitting in the computer 11 memory. Let's see. It was in the video RAM memory of 12 my terminal emulation program and it was in the memory 13 on either Portal or Netcom, whichever one I was using, 14 of that machine. 15 Q Why did you repost it? 16 A I don't remember. I wrote some kind of comment 17 on it and reposted it the way people do with stuff on 18 the net. 19 MR. LIEBERMAN: Number -- 20 THE WITNESS: Oh, my goodness. Is that -- 21 is that it in front of you there? Count the number of 22 symbols in front of the lines. 23 MR. LIEBERMAN: 124. 24 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 25 Kobrin.) 26 MR. LIEBERMAN: You'll get a copy in a 0080 01 minute, sir. 02 THE WITNESS: Six. I didn't realize it 03 was that far in. 04 MR. LIEBERMAN: Will you mark that. 05 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 10 was 06 marked for identification by the 07 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 08 MS. KOBRIN: Was that 10 that we're up 09 to? 10 THE REPORTER: Yes. 11 THE WITNESS: (Laughter). 12 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Okay. This is a 13 posting from Keith Henson to a.r.s. dated July 21, 14 '95. Subject is "Helena Kobrin threatens yet another 15 lawsuit." Down at the bottom is a posting of several 16 lines from "OT7," capital O, capital T, 7, which has 17 been blacked out for purposes of this exhibit since we 18 are marking this exhibit as part of the deposition 19 record. And it responds to a posting by somebody 20 named Tom Betz. Do you know who Tom Betz is, sir? 21 A No. 22 Q And Tom Betz is quoting somebody named Hillel 23 who, in fact, was quoting you, I believe, is the way 24 this works; is that right? 25 A Right. 26 Q And you had written "has anyone from California 0081 01 been graced with one of these letters, or do ours come 02 hand delivered with a summons?" What kind of letter 03 were you referring to there? 04 A Helena's letters. 05 Q These were cease and desist letters? 06 A Yes. 07 Q To cease and desist from posting -- 08 A Six lines. 09 Q Of OT VII; is that right? 10 A Yes. 11 Q And then at the end you say, "I posted 16 12 lines." Do you know what you meant by that? 13 A No. I'm not -- like I say, I'm not even sure 14 that this is actually one of my postings, but if it 15 is, I don't even know what the 16 lines would have 16 referred to. Presumably it would have been before 17 this in time if this indeed is one of my -- a true 18 representation of one of my postings, but wherever I 19 was posting this thing, I was posting it quoting 20 people six levels deep. So six other people had 21 quoted exactly the same material before I quoted it. 22 Q Okay. And then you quoted it and posted it 23 again, right? 24 A Right. 25 Q Okay. Do you remember that there had been six 26 other people who'd done that previously? 0082 01 A No, that's just from -- you just see that from 02 the number of symbols that precede the lines involved. 03 Q Actually, there are five, I believe. 04 A Well, the colon counts, too. 05 Q The colon counts? 06 A Yeah. Some machines -- mine uses colons. In 07 fact, you can tell that, but I apparently cut this out 08 of some other posting and stuck it there. 09 Q So -- 10 A If this was my posting. 11 Q But you did post these six or seven lines of OT 12 VII, we already established that, right? 13 A Six lines. 14 Q Yeah. Okay. 15 A Well, presumptively I did, but I don't know that 16 this is the posting where I did it. 17 Q But you did. Okay. Now -- 18 A I -- 19 Q Did you -- 20 A I can't even tell you that it's OT VII, to be 21 truthful about it. I've never seen the originals. 22 Q Did -- did you receive a cease and desist letter 23 from Helena Kobrin as a result of this? 24 A As a result of something. 25 Q As a result of posting six lines of OT VII? 26 A As a result of something. Of posting probably 0083 01 the six lines. I don't know what actually caused it. 02 Q Well, what did the letter say caused it? 03 A I don't remember. I gave you guys a copy of it. 04 Whatever's in the letter. 05 Q But you don't remember what the letter said? 06 A No. Heaven's sakes, it was three pages or 07 something. 08 Q When you received this letter, did this increase 09 your status? 10 A Oh, yes. 11 Q You felt good when you got that letter, right? 12 A Oh, I was quite amused. 13 Q Did you let people know you'd received the 14 letter? 15 A Oh, yes. Matter of fact, I printed it up and 16 posted it on the BBS -- sorry, posted on the cork 17 board where I work. 18 Q Right. And before you received the letter, did 19 you indicate that you wanted to receive such a letter? 20 A I might have. It was quite a status symbol at 21 that point. However, I'm afraid that Helena degraded 22 the status very quickly by sending out I don't know 23 how many. 24 MR. LIEBERMAN: I'm informed that we need 25 to change the tape, so why don't we go off the record 26 while the videographer changes the tape. 0084 01 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Thank you. This is the 02 completion of tape number 1 in the deposition of Keith 03 Henson on May 8th, 1996. The time now is 11:33. 04 We're going off the record. Clear to talk. 05 (Recess taken.) 06 THE VIDEOGRAPHER: We're back on the 07 record. This is start of tape number 2 in the 08 deposition of Keith Henson on May 8th, 1996. The time 09 now is 11:37. Go ahead, please. 10 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 11 was 11 marked for identification by the 12 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 13 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Okay. I have 14 asked the reporter to mark as Exhibit Number 11 a 15 posting to a.r.s. and other news groups from H.K. 16 Henson, subject again "Helena Kobrin threatens yet 17 another lawsuit." And there is a quote from somebody 18 named Dave Barron. Do you know who Dave Barron is? 19 A No. No, I don't. 20 Q And then after -- 21 A Who's quoting somebody else. 22 Q Okay. He's quoting somebody named Zeltar, I 23 think, Z-E-L-T-A-R, and then he responds to Zeltar 24 saying, "I really don't understand why dissemination 25 of these six lines could cause CoS members or their 26 lawyers to exert so much fuss and bother," et cetera, 0085 01 and then there's a comment by Mr. Henson that says, 02 "Dave," I'm "going to be really pissed if you manage 03 to get a letter from Ms. Maginta (sic) lips and I 04 don't." Here you're referring to your desire to 05 receive a cease and desist letter from Helena Kobrin, 06 are you not? 07 A Assuming that this is actually one of my 08 postings, that would seem to be the drift of it. 09 Q Well, that was your attitude, wasn't it? 10 A Assuming this is actually a posting of mine, 11 yes. 12 Q But whether this was a posting of yours or not, 13 that was your attitude, was it not, that you would -- 14 really wanted to receive such a letter and you'd be 15 really pissed if somebody else did and you didn't, in 16 your words, right? 17 A That's true. Right. Not that I'm owning up to 18 this one actually being one of my postings, but that 19 was -- there was certainly a great status, one up's 20 manship going on at that particular time on the 21 internet as to who could get one of these and who 22 couldn't. 23 Q Had you ever used -- did you ever use the term 24 Ms. Magenta lips to refer to Helena Kobrin? 25 A Before this? I don't know. 26 Q Have you ever used it? 0086 01 A Assuming this is one of my postings, yes. 02 Q Is it a term that rings a bell with you? 03 A No. 04 Q Okay. And you did receive such a letter, didn't 05 you? 06 A I've already stated that. If fact, I gave you 07 guys a copy of it. 08 Q Okay. 09 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 10 Kobrin.) 11 THE WITNESS: And if I failed to thank 12 Helena for the letter at that point, I certainly would 13 like to do so now. 14 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): You really got a 15 kick out of that letter? 16 A Oh, I posted it on the local -- like I say, the 17 local cork board. People were laughing about it all 18 week at the company. 19 Q You were laughing about it, too, right? 20 A Oh, it was a scream. For six lines? You got to 21 be kidding. It didn't work after awhile. I think I 22 was one of the last. 23 Q What was it that didn't work? 24 A Oh, she quit giving them out. 25 Q For those -- for those particular six lines, you 26 mean? 0087 01 A Yeah. Finally gave up. 02 Q You didn't post those six lines again though, 03 did you? 04 A I don't know. A lot of people put them in their 05 sigs. I don't really know whether I posted them again 06 or not. 07 Q Put them in their what? 08 A Sig lines. 09 Q What's a sig line? 10 A If you set something in what's called a sig 11 line, then at the end of every posting, it just block 12 adds whatever's in a file called .sig, and there were 13 people who had it in their sig blocks at the end of 14 their postings for -- 15 Q So then it would stay, in effect, in the memory 16 on their computers? 17 A Yeah. It was a file in their computer that 18 would automatically be posted there, and there's a 19 bunch of people that did it for months. 20 Q Did you put it in you sig? 21 A No. I don't use sig block. 22 Q I see. 23 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 24 Kobrin.) 25 MR. WARD: Would you like a pen knife? 26 MR. LIEBERMAN: Thank you. I'm okay. If 0088 01 you could mark that, please. 02 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 12 was 03 marked for identification by the 04 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 05 MR. LIEBERMAN: I'll give you a copy in a 06 minute, as soon as I perform a little surgery here. 07 Here you go. 08 THE WITNESS: Well, again, I could 09 certainly not -- I mean, this isn't even something 10 from me. I could -- certainly could not say that this 11 is -- is character accurate to what I would have 12 received from Helena at that particular time or 13 whoever was behind the HKK account since that account 14 has been used at times when Helena was clearly other 15 places, but I don't know. I -- okay. What do you 16 want me to say about it? 17 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Right. Does -- 18 did you receive this letter? 19 A I don't know. Prob -- it's quite possible I 20 received it, but I can't -- I certainly can't verify 21 it. 22 Q But you did receive such a letter of this 23 character, a cease and desist letter from Helena 24 Kobrin, you can't looking at it identify it 25 specifically, but this is in the nature of what you 26 received; is that your testimony? 0089 01 A Actually, I think -- I think the one I got was 02 longer. I'm not sure. 03 Q Okay. 04 A I'm not at all sure. 05 Q Did -- 06 A It's a form letter. 07 Q Did you also receive a copy of a letter that was 08 sent to your systems operator concerning your posting 09 of these? 10 A No. 11 Q No? Did you receive any communication from your 12 systems operator warning you about copy -- potential 13 copyright infringement? 14 A No. 15 Q At any time did you receive such a communication 16 from any -- 17 A No. 18 Q -- any systems operator? 19 A Never heard from any of them. Not that I can 20 remember. It's not like they might not have sent 21 something to me. E-mail is not a hundred percent 22 reliable. But I can't recall ever having seen 23 anything from either of my service providers. 24 Anything at all. 25 Q Who are your two service providers again? I'm 26 sorry. 0090 01 A Netcom and Portal. 02 Q Netcom and Portal. You usually use Portal? 03 A It varies. In the early part -- in recent times 04 Portal has had problems with being -- the news spool 05 being real slow. So I've tended to shift to Netcom 06 more, but then Netcom dropped some postings on the 07 floor, and so I was doing some from Portal recently. 08 Q Now -- now you said that when you received the 09 cease and desist letter from Helena you posted it to 10 a.r.s.? 11 A I don't remember whether I did that or not. 12 Q I thought you just testified that you -- 13 A No, no. I posted it on the physical cork 14 bulletin board. Printed out a copy and posted it. 15 Q But you didn't post it to the internet? 16 A I don't recall whether I did that or not. I 17 might have. There were so many copies of it at that 18 time that I -- that it's -- if I had -- if I had done 19 it, it would have been excessive. 20 Q But didn't you want to let everybody know on 21 a.r.s. that you had gotten such a letter so that your 22 status would go up? 23 A Of course, of course. You have to actually show 24 that. I mean, when you get to that, you'll see why. 25 Q All right. And to do that, wouldn't you have 26 had to post it then? 0091 01 A I might have. I don't -- I just don't remember. 02 I might well have posted it, but it was so -- like I 03 say, there were so many copies of it and they were all 04 the same that I don't remember whether I did it or 05 not. 06 Q Now, you say when we get to that. What did you 07 mean? 08 A SP levels. If you get to that. 09 Q Now, what do you mean by SP levels? 10 A Well, I gave you the -- the official -- 11 Q The document you produced? 12 A Yes. 13 Q Might as well take a look at that document. 14 MR. LIEBERMAN: Do we have copies of this? 15 THE WITNESS: I think I've got one more 16 with me. 17 MR. LIEBERMAN: Stuck it in the back here. 18 (Discussion between Mr. Lieberman and Ms. 19 Kobrin.) 20 THE WITNESS: In you want, we can enter 21 that one as an exhibit and -- we can go ahead and 22 enter it as an exhibit and run some copies of it 23 later. I know the contents. 24 MR. LIEBERMAN: You may need to look at it 25 and I may need to look at it. 26 THE WITNESS: I think I got another copy. 0092 01 MR. LIEBERMAN: You have another copy of 02 it? Okay. 03 THE WITNESS: I think I do. 04 MR. LIEBERMAN: Why don't you mark that as 05 the next exhibit. 06 THE WITNESS: Yes. I have a copy. 07 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 13 was 08 marked for identification by the 09 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 10 THE WITNESS: This also gets us into 11 ARSCC. 12 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Now, this is a 13 letter -- this is a document which you produced in 14 discovery in this case; is that right? 15 A Right. I didn't actually have this one, if you 16 note the date on it, I didn't have this one when -- 17 when the suit was filed or even when I was in for the 18 TRO hearing, this is the 18th of April, but since I 19 knew -- I wanted to provide -- I wanted to be helpful 20 and provide you guys with something along this, so 21 when I saw this one cross the net, I downloaded it and 22 printed it out. 23 Q Okay. Now, this is a posting to a.r.s. and 24 subject "RFD:" -- 25 A That's request for discussion. 26 Q "SP levels." 0093 01 A Yes. 02 Q And then it says, "Organization: 03 ARSCC" -- 04 A Yes. 05 Q -- "...Mr. Castle," C-A-S-T-L-E, "to you." Now, 06 what is ARSCC? 07 A Beats me. I mean, people -- I would say that 08 probably the -- ARS is for alt.religion.scientology. 09 The CC is probably central committee is sort of the 10 most common usage of it. It's been called clam 11 council, coordinating council, coordinating committee. 12 Q Okay. Now, who's on this committee or council 13 or whatever? 14 A Haven't the slightest idea. 15 Q Okay. 16 A It's mythical. At least -- actually, I 17 shouldn't -- 18 Q Didn't just appear out of nowhere. Somebody is 19 responsible for it. 20 A I shouldn't say that. There may actually be an 21 ARSCC, but my suspicion is that it's a troll. 22 Q Uh-huh. But if it is a troll, there's obviously 23 somebody who's trolling, right? 24 A Oh, there's a lot of people who troll on this. 25 Q Now, do you have any knowledge or information as 26 to who may be doing this troll? 0094 01 A Oh, I've trolled on it. Especially when 02 somebody makes some kind of a statement about the 03 thing, I'll make some minor correction, you know, like 04 I'll say I looked it up in this book and cite some 05 seven digit policy letter number. 06 Q Now, just for the record, what is a troll? 07 A Ahh. It comes from fishing where you drag a 08 bait through the water and a fish is foolish enough to 09 grab it. 10 Q So it's like a joke, right? It's a put-on? 11 A It's a put-on, yes, usually, but it's very 12 difficult to say because, as we all know, put-on's can 13 take on horrible kinds of -- of levels of problems. 14 In fact, it's my considered opinion that all of 15 Scientology was a put-on by L. Ron Hubbard, and look 16 at where that went. 17 Q Okay. Now, this posting purports to be 18 something called "the current ARSCC SP levels FAQ." 19 What is FAQ? 20 A Frequently asked questions. 21 Q Okay. And that's a term that's used on the 22 internet, right? 23 A Right. The frequently asked questions are 24 usually kept at a site called rtfmmit.mu. [rtfm.mit.edu] 25 Q Now, what this purports to be is a listing of 26 various levels of status, as you put it -- 0095 01 A Right. 02 Q -- whereby people who have taken various actions 03 against the church are given higher levels of SP -- 04 A No, it's not actions against the church, it's 05 actions of the church against them for the most part, 06 with the exception of 7. 07 Q Well, let's take a look at 1. 1 says, "The SP1 08 grade is gained by criticizing the cult openly." So 09 that's an action that somebody takes again the church? 10 A Right, you're right. There's a couple of them. 11 Q "This is generally achieved by posting a message 12 critical of the cult to" a.r.s. "but can also be done 13 by protesting outside a Scientology location," right? 14 A Uh-huh. 15 Q So you clearly qualify here for SP1 level, 16 right? 17 A Right, right. 18 Q Okay. Now, you've never been sued, by the way, 19 for criticizing the cult openly or for posting a 20 message critical of the cult, that SP1 level doesn't 21 result in a lawsuit, does it? 22 A No, no. You have to go much higher than that to 23 get -- to be -- 24 Q Now, SP2, it says, "can be earned by receiving 25 an acknowledgement from a Scientologist. This 26 generally takes the form of a response to your 0096 01 message"..."but in the case of protests, will 02 generally be achieved by a Scientologist talking to 03 you." So you qualified for that one, too, right? 04 A Oh, yes. 05 Q All right. Then "SP3 is earned by having one of 06 your message cancelled by a forged cancel message from 07 the pro-Scientology cancelpoodle." Now, you already 08 stated that you have no information as to whether or 09 not you qualify for that, but you suspect that you 10 have; is that your point? 11 A I think mine was cancelled. I'm not sure. Oh, 12 you mean the more recent -- oh, back way when, yeah. 13 I don't remember for sure. Mine probably was 14 cancelled back. 15 Q But you don't know for sure? 16 A I think she cancelled -- I think Helena had all 17 of them cancelled before she sent the letters out. 18 Q But don't know that. You're just speculating? 19 A Right. It's something which should be -- which 20 should be discoverable by finding out who owns the 21 accounts which were used for running the cancels. 22 Netcom has gone through maybe 50 or a hundred of those 23 accounts by now. 24 Q Now, SP4 -- is that the highest level, SP4? 25 A Oh, no, it goes on. 26 Q Oh, yeah, I see. "SP4 is achieved by receiving 0097 01 a legal threat from the Church"..."In the vast 02 majority of cases, this has been via an e-mail message 03 from Helena Kobrin." This would be the cease and 04 desist letter we're talking about; is that right? 05 A Right. 06 Q So that's what you were hoping to achieve by 07 receiving -- 08 A Well, you can then put it in your sig line that 09 you're an SP4. A lot of other people crowd their sig 10 lines up with Knights of Xenu and all sorts of other 11 stuff, but I usually forget to even put my SP rating 12 on it. 13 Q So then this goes on, but the point is that this 14 is something you aspired to achieve; is that right? 15 A Well, it's a status symbol. I mean, a.r.s. is a 16 culture, it's a little culture. You know, 30,000 17 people. 18 Q And within this culture, you aspired to achieve 19 this level by getting this letter from Helena, and lo 20 and behold, you got it and you were very happy. 21 A Well, for something which actually didn't 22 present any level of danger whatsoever, because nobody 23 is going to really sue somebody over six lines of 24 scripture. 25 TIME: 11:56 26 Q Okay. Now, do you know who Arnie Lerma is? 0098 01 A Yes. 02 Q Have you ever met Arnie Lerma? 03 A No. 04 Q Have you ever spoken to him on the phone? 05 A Yes. 06 Q About how many times have you spoken to him on 07 the phone? 08 A I can only think of one time that I spoke to him 09 on the phone, and it was just after he had been 10 subjected to a search and seizure operation on his 11 house. I may have -- 12 Q Was it while the search and seizure was going 13 on? 14 A I don't think so. I think it was just after it 15 was over. 16 Q Uh-huh. And why did he call you if you'd never 17 spoken to him before? 18 A He didn't call me, I called him. 19 Q I see. And why did you call him? 20 A Well, to see what was going on and to express my 21 support and sympathies for his problems. 22 Q How did you find out what was going on? 23 A On the net. It was posted. 24 Q Was -- did Arnie Lerma e-mail you? 25 A I don't remember whether it was an IRC or just 26 a posting to a.r.s., but I found out about it when -- 0099 01 not while it was going on, but within a matter of -- 02 my guess would be hours of when it happened. 03 Q I see. Are you sure you didn't get the phone 04 call or the information while it was going on? 05 A It could have been, but it's not my recollection 06 that it occurred while it was going on. 07 Q In fact, didn't you -- didn't you make a posting 08 to a.r.s. informing people that the raid was going on 09 as it was going on? 10 A It's possible that I did. I don't -- I do not 11 remember having -- I do not remember exactly how I 12 found out about it or what stage it was that it was 13 going on at that time. It's been a long time, but if 14 I made a posting on it, perhaps you could introduce 15 that and refresh my memory on it, if indeed it is my 16 posting. 17 Q Now, when you spoke to Arnie Lerma, what did you 18 talk about? 19 A He was extremely distraught, as anybody would be 20 who just had their house tore up by a bunch of people 21 acting under color of law. I cannot -- I don't 22 remember what the contents of that conversation were, 23 but it was not -- it was essentially nothing of any 24 great substance to it. 25 Q Did you discuss with him any plans to post 26 materials yourself? 0100 01 A No. 02 Q No. Did he suggest that that might be a good 03 idea? 04 A No. 05 Q Did you ever discuss with him whether he planned 06 to make further postings? 07 A No. 08 Q Did you ever discuss with him the SCAMIZDAT 09 postings? 10 A No. 11 Q Did you ever communicate with him electronically 12 or by computer on any of those subjects? 13 A I don't believe I have ever done that with him 14 on it. If -- 15 Q Have -- I'm sorry, go ahead. 16 A If I did, it was -- I don't think I did. I 17 might have, but I don't remember having ever given 18 anybody any advice -- certainly not giving Arnie any 19 advice on it. It was pretty much of a surprise when 20 he posted something and therefore exposed himself to 21 legal action for which there really wasn't a whole lot 22 of reason. 23 Q Uh-huh. Did he ever e-mail to you any of the 24 Scientology materials? 25 A No. 26 Q Did he ever tell you that he had e-mailed those 0101 01 materials to Grady Ward? 02 A No. 03 Q Did Grady Ward ever tell you that? 04 A No. 05 Q Do you have any information as to whether or not 06 Arnie Lerma ever sent or e-mailed any materials to 07 Grady Ward? 08 A No. I have no information at all. 09 Q Since the time of the raid, search and seizure 10 on Arnie Lerma's house, have you had any direct 11 communications with him other than the phone call you 12 already identified? 13 A Oh, yes. For example, this is in my letter to 14 the judge, Arnie sent me a letter that he had written 15 to judge -- I'm not sure how to pronounce the name. 16 It's Brinkema -- 17 Q Brinkema, yes. 18 A -- Brinkema about being dosed with acid -- LSD 19 that he found -- that he things he had on his [thinks] 20 toothbrush after the raid. 21 Q So he sent that letter to you? 22 A Yeah, just so that I could print it out and 23 deliver it to the judge, Judge Whyte. 24 Q And you did that, right? 25 A Yes. 26 Q And Judge Whyte returned it to you; is that 0102 01 right? 02 A No, Judge Whyte still has that letter as far as 03 I know. 04 Q I see. Now, did you discuss that with Arnie 05 Lerma, the contents of that letter, that incident? 06 A It's possible, but if I recall, that incident 07 was first discussed on an IRC, that's internet relay 08 chat, session that I wasn't at, and at later Arnie 09 asked me to print and deliver this letter to Judge 10 Whyte. 11 Q And how did he ask you to do that, by what 12 method? 13 A E-mail. 14 Q Uh-huh. Did you ever inquire of Arnie Lerma why 15 he used the toothbrush if he thought it was laced with 16 LSD? 17 A Well, he didn't know it until after he used it. 18 Q Did you read his letter? 19 A Yes. 20 Q And he says in the letter that he suspected it 21 before he used it. 22 A No, he doesn't. At least, I don't remember 23 having read that. Maybe he does. He certainly 24 suspected it afterwards. He says it was only because 25 he ran it under hot water for a considerable time that 26 he got a relatively small dose of it. 0103 01 Q Why did he run it under water for a long time? 02 A Because he was too cheap to buy a new 03 toothbrush. Or actually too poor. 04 Q But why was he running it under hot water to 05 begin with? 06 A To loosen it up so that the mechanism would 07 work. It's an electric toothbrush. 08 Q I see. Didn't he say he was running it under 09 hot water to get rid of the LSD? 10 A No, he ran it under hot water so that it would 11 loosen it up and run it and that just happens to have 12 washed off most of the LSD. This isn't the first time 13 that people have accused the Church of Scientology of 14 doing this trick. 15 MS. KOBRIN: There's no question pending, 16 Mr. Henson. 17 THE WITNESS: I notice where they're 18 sensitive. 19 TIME: 12:04. 20 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): By the way -- 21 excuse me, I just want to look at some of the prior 22 exhibits for a second. 23 A Sure. 24 Q Take a look at Exhibit 9. Did you mark -- put 25 down -- 26 A No, I didn't mark them. 0104 01 Q The one dated April 8th, 1995. 02 A Big block -- this one? 03 Q Yeah. 04 A April -- 05 Q 8th. 06 A Okay. 07 Q You see -- this is a posting from you. It says, 08 "Subject: Re: LSD." This is dated April 8th, 1995. 09 What does LSD have to do with this posting? 10 A Haven't got a clue. That's what's called topic 11 drift, and what often happens is that people will make 12 a cascade of things replying to other people's 13 messages without changing the subject line on it, and 14 eventually the subject line has nothing whatsoever to 15 do with whatever's in the posting. 16 Q I see. 17 A Happens all the time. Sorry. 18 Q No need to be sorry. 19 A It's very confusing. The net is confusing 20 enough to us who are on it. For people trying to deal 21 with it outside of it, it's really tough. 22 MR. LIEBERMAN: All right. Number 176. 23 Here you go. 24 (WHEREUPON, PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT 14 was 25 marked for identification by the 26 Certified Shorthand Reporter.) 0105 01 Q (By Mr. Lieberman): Okay. This is a 02 posting dated August 13, '95 from H.K. Henson, subject 03 "International noose is loosening fast on Scn." 04 Whatever that means. And it quotes a statement from 05 Andrew Milne, M-I-L-N-E, and then there's a response 06 by Mr. Henson and then there's another statement from 07 Mr. Milne, and then there's another response from 08 Mr. Henson. And you state here "I have never signed 09 any silly billion year contracts, or agreed to keep 10 the OT tripe secret." You were aware that people who 11 had been in the church would sign confidentiality 12 agreements, were you not? 13 A Well, again, I can't swear to this being a 14 posting of mine, but -- 15 Q Putting that aside you were aware of that? 16 A Putting that -- 17 Q Yes or no. 18 A Putting that aside, I have -- I have no direct 19 knowledge of that, but it is -- I suppose it would be 20 considered to be general knowledge that people in the 21 church sign all sorts of strange stuff. 22 Q Well, you're aware that Erlich signed a 23 confidentiality agreement, aren't you? 24 A No. 25 Q Do you ever read the decisions of Judge Whyte in 26 the Erlich case? 0106 01 A No. 02 Q No? You received them, right? 03 A In the Erlich case? 04 Q Yes. 05 A I don't think so. 06 Q Did you ever look at the preliminary injunction 07 that Judge Whyte issued in the Erlich case? 08 A No. 09 Q You went down to the court and obtained copies 10 of the documents from the Erlich case, right? 11 A Right. 12 Q And Erlich sent you a copy of the decision, 13 didn't he? 14 A No. 15 Q He didn't? 16 A No. 17 Q You're sure of that? 18 A I don't think so, unless he posted it to the 19 net. 20 Q All right. And I forgot what -- whether you 21 answered this or not. Weren't you aware that Erlich 22 signed a confidentiality agreement? 23 A I don't know. 24 Q Weren't you aware that Lerma signed a 25 confidentiality agreement? 26 A I haven't the slightest notion. That's well 0107 01 outside of my knowledge of this. 02 Q You didn't follow those cases very