Operation Clambake

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Operation Clambake
Formation1996
TypeEducation, Information database, News archive, Message board
HeadquartersNorway
Official language
English
Founder
Andreas Heldal-Lund
Websitehttp://www.xenu.net/

Operation Clambake (www.xenu.net) is a website launched in 1996 that publishes information that is mostly critical about the Church of Scientology. It is owned and maintained by Andreas Heldal-Lund, who views the Church of Scientology organization and their leadership as an abusive and dangerous cult.

The name for the site itself, Xenu.net, has been described as "provocative", because it is seen by some as a caricature of the character Xenu from Scientology cosmogony.[1] Heldal-Lund has stated that he supports the rights of all people to practice Scientology or any religion.[2] The Operation Clambake Web site includes texts of petitions, news articles, exposes, and primary source documents.[3] Operation Clambake is included as part of the Library of Congress "September 11 Web Archive."[4]

The St. Petersburg Times called Operation Clambake: "the best known of the critical Web sites" on Scientology.[5] New Straits Times referred to the site as "a fantastic source of information for anyone interested in the Scientology cult."[6] BBC News has characterized the organization differently, stating in an article: "The Operation Clambake site portrays The Church as a money-hungry cult."[7], and an article in The New York Times stated: "The site portrays the church as a greedy cult that exploits its members and harasses critics."[8] Still other news articles have called Operation Clambake "an anti-Scientology Web site."[9]

Origin of name

The term clambake comes from a meal made by heating clams over hot stones or open furnaces. The term "clam", a pejorative slang term for Scientologists, is derived from a passage in L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology: A History of Man. In this passage, Hubbard asserts humans follow his notion of the "genetic line" of the "genetic entity", which include clams (as well as sloths, volcanoes, and a "sense of being eaten"), and certain human psychological problems descend from difficulties these clams experienced.[10] Hubbard defines "genetic line" as a collection of :

"the total of incidents which have occurred during the evolution of the MEST body itself. The composite of these facsimilies has the semblance of a being. This being would be called the genetic entity or GE. The GE is not an actual individual but a composite of all the cellular experience on the line.[11]

Los Angeles New Times described the name Operation Clambake, in their article Sympathy for the Devil : "Operation Clambake refers to statements made by Hubbard in an obscure book in which he explains that human beings today suffer ills because their inner thetans were once traumatized while they inhabited the bodies of clams during the evolution of life on Earth."[12]

Conflict

Prior to its own direct conflict with Scientology, Operation Clambake had described on its site how Amazon.com had pulled Jon Atack's book A Piece Of Blue Sky, a work critical of Scientology.[13]

The site has become one of the focal points of what some have termed "the war between Scientology and the Internet". Operation Clambake was one of the first sites to host the secretive OT III documents describing the story of Xenu in the mid 1990s.[14] The Church of Scientology had threatened legal action to various Internet service providers that host the site, demanding it be removed from the Internet for hosting information copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. The Church of Scientology was unable, however, to shut down Operation Clambake's internet service provider in Norway.[15] In various incidents documented in such publications as The New York Times, Slashdot and Wired,[16] Scientology has also used the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force notable Web sites (including the Google search engine)[7] to remove the Operation Clambake homepage, and several leaflets containing copyrighted information, from their indexes.[17][18] Because the Xenu.net site itself is based in Norway, it does not fall under the jurisdiction of the DMCA.[19][8][20]

Google received criticism for its actions, and The Guardian reported that Operation Clambake suspected the Church of Scientology was mainly concerned about secret documents where "L Ron Hubbard is said to describe how an alien galactic ruler called Xenu is the root of all human woe."[21] After Operation Clambake was delisted by Google, free speech advocates beseiged Google, complaining that the company was censoring search results.[22] Prior to Google's delisting of the Operation Clambake site, CBC News reported that the site was listed fourth in a search for "Scientology."[23] However after Google's actions, Xenu.net did not appear in searches for "Scientology".[24] Though Google did remove links to Operation Clambake for a short time, in place of the actual links, Google posted a notice explaining the links were removed due to the DMCA, and where the internet surfer could go to find more information.[25][26]

File:20020321-googleback.gif
Operation Clambake, listed fourth in Google search for "Scientology", shortly after being relisted on Google search engine, March 22, 2002. [27]

While Google quickly returned the Operation Clambake home page to its index,[20] many of its pages containing quotations from Scientology materials are still not listed by the search engine. Some anti-DMCA webmasters still link the word Scientology to http://www.xenu.net/ in order to improve Operation Clambake's ranking in a Google search. The publicity stemming from this incident was the impetus for Google contributing to the Chilling Effects archive, which archives legal threats of all sorts made against Internet users and Internet sites.[20][28][29] Chilling Effects contains the original complaint letter from the law firm used by Scientology, Moxon & Kobrin.[30] Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin stated she took offense at the name of the Web site, saying: "It implies that the First Amendment gives people some special right to infringe copyrights."[31]

Also in 2002, Internet Archive removed all Wayback Machine archival pages of Xenu.net at the request of lawyers for the Church of Scientology. Initially queries reported that the pages had been removed "per the request of the site owner", which Andreas Heldal-Lund denied. This was later changed to a generic "Blocked Site Error" message.[32][33]

Internet, Freedom of speech issues

The academic and legal issues raised through the Church of Scientology's actions against Operation Clambake have been discussed in books on the internet and on freedom of speech. Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World notes that "the secret library of Scientology" was blocked from Google for a short time, and Google's actions in this matter shed light on its policies when confronted on links it allows to be displayed.[15] These incidents are also discussed in Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism, where the author raises the question: "Why should a private actor (Church of Scientology) in the United States have the power to restrict the speech of a Dutch citizen publishing in the Netherlands whose speech is protected by Dutch law?"[34] The incident between Google and Scientology involving the Web site was also discussed in an annual meeting of The State Bar of California, and cited as part of the caselaw for "Domestic Copyright Law in Cyberspace."[20]

References

Citations

  1. ^ Dawson, Cowan., Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet, Page 261., ISBN 0415970229 , Routledge, 2004.
  2. ^ Andreas Heldal-Lund. "Operation Clambake FAQ: Why do you hate Scientology?". Last accessed 19 September 2006.
  3. ^ Eugene V. Gallagher, The New Religious Movements Experience in America, Page 271. ISBN 0313328072 , Greenwood Press, 2004.
  4. ^ Operation Clambake, "September 11 Web Archive.", Library of Congress, Dates Captured: October 10, 2001 - December 17, 2001.
  5. ^ Internet is battleground in foes' war of information, Lucy Morgan, St. Petersburg Times, March 29, 1999.
  6. ^ "Getting an online glimpse into cults", New Straits Times, July 20, 2000.
  7. ^ a b Scientology Church fights Google, BBC News, Kevin Anderson, 25 April, 2002.,
  8. ^ a b David F. Gallagher, New Economy; A copyright dispute with the Church of Scientology is forcing Google to do some creative linking., The New York Times, April 22, 2002.
  9. ^ "War of the Worlds: The Devil vs. Xenu?", Lufkin Daily News, July 5, 2005.
  10. ^ "Remember Venus?". Time. 1952-12-22. Retrieved 2007-05-02. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary (first edition, pg.176)
  12. ^ Tony Ortega, Los Angeles New Times, "Sympathy for the Devil: Tory Bezazian was a veteran Scientologist who loved going after church critics. Until she met the darkest detractor of all.", September 9, 2001.
  13. ^ The gospel of the web, Nick Ryan, The Guardian, March 23, 2000.
  14. ^ "The Scientology Problem", The Wall Street Journal, March 25, 1997.
  15. ^ a b Jack L. Goldsmith, Tim Wu, Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World, Pages 74-75., ISBN 0195152662 , Oxford University Press, 2006.
  16. ^ Wendy M. Grossman (December 1995). "alt.scientology.war". Wired magazine 3.12. Wired. Retrieved 2006-12-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Declan McCullagh (2002-03-21). "Google Yanks Anti-Church Sites". Wired News. Retrieved 2006-06-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ Loney, Matt (2002-03-21). "Cult forces Google to remove critical links". ZDNet. Retrieved 2007-10-19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ Stephen Northcutt, IT Ethics Handbook: Right and Wrong for IT Professionals, Page 250., ISBN 1931836221 , Elsevier, 2004.
  20. ^ a b c d Copyrights in Cyberspace and Digital Rights Management, Daniel L. Appelman, The State Bar of California Annual Meeting, Page 5.
  21. ^ Engine trouble, The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman, September 5, 2002.
  22. ^ Arnold P. Lutzker, Content Rights for Creative Professionals, Page 69., ISBN 0240804848 , Focal Press, 2003.
  23. ^ Google removes anti-Scientology Web links, CBC News, March 22, 2002.
  24. ^ "Google Yields To DMCA-Wielding Church.", The Online Reporter, March 25, 2002.
  25. ^ Events occur more quickly on the Net, April 25, 2002, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, David Radin.
  26. ^ "A Google-esque solution for copyright infringement on the Web.", Miami Daily Business Review, July 3, 2002.
  27. ^ Google rating March 22, 2002 by Operation Clambake
  28. ^ Google Begins Making DMCA Takedowns Public, Linux Journal
  29. ^ Google Asked to Delist Scientology Critics Clambake, Chilling Effects.
  30. ^ Google Airs Scientology Infringement Demand, Chris Sherman, April 15, 2002, DevX News
    Google provided a copy of the letter from law firm Moxon & Kobrin to online rights watchdog Chilling Effects, a joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, and University of San Francisco law school clinics.
  31. ^ The Google Way: Faced with cease-and-desist letters from Scientologists, the search engine pulled the offending links -- and told all, Margery Gordon, June 25, 2002., Law.com
  32. ^ Bowman, Lisa M. (2002-09-24). "Net archive silences Scientology critic". CNET. Retrieved 2007-10-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ Internet Archive Wayback Machine request for Xenu.net
  34. ^ Samuel Peter Nelson, Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism, Page 165., ISBN 0801881730 , JHU Press, 2005.

Further reading

External links

See also

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