From: mgarde@superlink.net (Maureen Garde) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: How many BJ's can *you* count? Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 22:12:19 GMT Message-ID: <325d7149.1906721@news> -------- Just got home from work. It's about 5:30 p.m. EST on Thursday afternoon, October 10, in the quiet suburbs of New Jersey. Logged on to the teeming world of cyberspace, where opinions and orders fly about like brickbats at a block party for the Hatfields and the Coys. Found the full issue of Biased Journalism, with the text of Judge Brinkema's memorandum opinion and order, in three places. Reminds me of King Canute. ======== From: mgarde@superlink.net (Maureen Garde) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: How many BJ's can *you* find. Friday morning report. Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:24:52 GMT Message-ID: <325e22d5.1450020@news> -------- It's 6:30 a.m. Friday in the quiet suburbs of New Jersey. The sun is just coming up. Clad in my jammies and bathrobe (blue, of course) I settle into my chair, with my trusty bulldog at my side. "Harry," I say, "we're venturing into the teeming world of cyberspace. Hang on to your dew flaps." Harry hunkers down while we power up. Logging on. The musical tones of the modem mock the danger in the rough and tumble world we are about to enter. "Harry," I say, "it's been a rough coupla days. The first amendment is on the ropes. Let's see if it survived the night." Harry cocks his head with a worried look, as if to say "Ma, has the net exploded into a cloud of energy, space and time"? "I don't think so, Harry, at least not yet." Harry is anxious for news of the trial in Lyon. He relies on the net for the latest news from France. He is, after all, a *French* bulldog, and loyal to the country of his origin. The screeching stops. We're on. The newsreader fires up flawlessly. 183 message headers downloading. Good. No spam to wade through. The first amendment is still breathing. Angry netizens have reposted Biased Journalism in its entirety. Now to the WWW. Netscape boots without a sound. Strings of code don't know what's at stake. The program reaches out, blind to purpose but my wish is still its command. Netscape brings back BJ, alive and well. It's still there, exatly where I saw it yesterday evening, untouched by hostile attention. And in more than one place. Kudos to the hosts, who are withstanding the onslaught of foot stamping and threats, I exclaim. Hmm. Harry is skeptical. Bulldogs aren't easily fooled. His look is as if to say "You don't believe that the hosts are taking a strong free speech stand, do you." (The French are nothing if not cynical.) "You're right, Harry," I said upon reflection. "I should have know that sending lawyers a copy of "Internet for Dummies" wouldn't make an impression. They obviously don't know how to find it." Clueless newbies. I assure Harry that we will check again this afternoon. The rising sun cheers us. We see it as a sign of hope, a symbol of renewal. And a reminder that it is time to get ready to go to work. ======== From: mgarde@superlink.net (Maureen Garde) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Re: How many BJ's can *you* find. Friday morning report. Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:28:37 GMT Message-ID: <325f2f03.4567947@news> On Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:24:52 GMT, mgarde@superlink.net (Maureen Garde) wrote: >I assure Harry that we will check again this afternoon. The rising sun >cheers us. We see it as a sign of hope, a symbol of renewal. And a >reminder that it is time to get ready to go to work. But not before I sanitize my newsreader, delete my netscape cache and history files, and defrag my hard disk, of course. ======== From: mgarde@superlink.net (Maureen Garde) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: How many BJ's can *you* find. Friday afternoon report. Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 21:16:05 GMT Message-ID: <325eaf94.682552@news> -------- It's 5:30 p.m. on Friday in the quiet suburbs of New Jersey. Harry met me at the door with more than the usual enthusiasm. After a quick walk in the bright fall afternoon, he scampered upstairs and was waiting for me as I sat down in front of the computer. _How's it going, Ma?_ he seemed to say with that eager look of his. _Well, I don't know, Harry,_ I said. _It'll take a minute to get the news._ Harry has always been dedicated to first amendment principles. His anxious concern today is typical. Hunker down, my little puplette! This may be a bumpy ride! I warn. He settles down, but his attention is fully on the screen. While the computer booted up, I reflected for a while on the subject of the federal judicial power. In law school we were taught that a court order, particularly one from a federal judge, is a mighty thing. Almost holy. But then again, one learns that they can be, well, holey. That is, have holes in them. In the sense that, they must be clearly and unambiguously drawn in order to be enforceable. The order sealing Judge Brinkema's opinion and order says _IT IS ORDERED that the memorandum opinion be sealed and that the parties do not disseminate this opinion to any other persons or entities until further order of the Court._ Harry's look suggests that he regards the order as not wholly enforceable. But that's a bulldog for you. They will disregard direct orders of all kinds, whether clearly applicable to them or not. Harry is not a reliable guide to staying within the law. What does it mean, I ponder, that an opinion is _sealed._ Clearly it means that the clerk of the court can't give out any more copies. But how does it apply to copies already distributed, to persons not named in the order? Does the court's seal somehow fly out into space and attach itself to all copies already distributed? Even if they are in the hands of people who are not parties? Well, a lawyer might assume that he/she is bound in such a way by a sealing order of which he/she has knowledge. But maybe that's because lawyers are "officers of the court". I honestly don't know the answer to this question. Several legal types to whom I posed it today weren't sure either. _I know what you're going to say, Harry_ I said. _If it's an invalid order,you shouldn't have to follow it._ _But Harry,_ I continued, _we've been through this before. Why must I go over this again and again, like you're some first year law student who doesn't get it. Or some contumacious litigant who's ill advised? You are not privileged to ignore an invalid order. You must appeal it!_ Like I said, bulldogs are not a reliable guide to the law. This may not be a question of an invalid order, in any event. It may be a question of the applicability of an otherwise valid order, I muse. There's the question of just what the judge who issued the order intended. Which in turn depends, one supposes, on what representations were made to the judge as to the status of the opinion at the time the order was sought. Was the judge told, as if it were fact, that only the plaintiff's attorney and the defendant had copies? (That much appears to be implicit in the language of the order itself.) How could counsel have known that, days after the opinion was issued, one wonders. Would the judge have issued the order if the judge had known that the opinion was already "out there" as appears to have been the case. Harry seems ready to express an opinion on this, but his predicate throat clearing is interrupted .... The screeching stops. We're on. Usenet first. Yup, looks like it has been reposted yet again. Netscape. Yup, it's still in the same places it was yesterday. Harry's look implies the thought that this just *can't* be lack of diligence. The plaintiff's attorneys are nothing if not diligent. It must, he nods, be lack of knowledge. Harry glances in the direction of the bookshelf. "The NetGuide, do you think this time, Harry? With the appropriate passages highlighted?" The look from Harry squelches that thought immediately. Well, it's time to get dinner. We'll check in again tomorrow. ======== From: mgarde@superlink.net (Maureen Garde) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: How many BJ's can *you* find? Saturday morning report. Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 13:06:25 GMT Message-ID: <325f8ffe.2650076@news> -------- It's 8:30 a.m. in the New Jersey suburbs. They're not *quiet* New Jersey suburbs, though. We were awakened by the screeching fight between the crows and the squirrels over important tree top territory. Life is just full of metaphors, isn't it. Harry went off right away on his usual morning walk. With no milk in the house for coffee, I hit off right away for the bakery. It's a brisk, bright morning. There is frost on the fields, and mist coming up as the sunlight strikes the duck pond. And immediately, the BT's start having a party in my nose. That's the price we allergic people pay for a bright fall morning. "I'll have a big fat cranberry muffin, a big fat chocolate chip muffin, and a big fat sticky bun, the stickiest one you have." Said in the same tone as a "bartender, gimmee a beer" demand, the counterpersons are startled. But they know me by now. The coffee helps chase away the BT's. I know it won't last, but it's a comfort anyway. Harry and I arrive home at the same time. But this time, Harry heads back to bed. On a Saturday morning, there's a warm body to snuggle up to and go back to sleep. So Harry's first amendment principles aren't so inviolate after all, I sniff. (Well, I sniff anyway on fall mornings.) I log on by my lonely self. The drama has kind of gone out of the exercise by now. I think it's pretty clear that they don't know that BJ can easily be accessed, a full work week after the sealing order. Could it be that they are not reading my posts, trying to glean every clue from them, hanging on my every word? And here I thought I was SHOUTING VERY LOUD when in fact I was just another beeping electon in the torrent of information sloshing around at warp speed on the information superhighway. One is humbled yet again by the vastness of cyberspace. No wonder Roger Milgrim is so frustrated. In the latest BJ (the *second* issue that Netcom has cancelled) Shelley vividly describes how his attitude is telegraphed by his pronunciation of the word "Internet" with fear and loathing. It's not surprising that he hates the Internet. One suspects that a person who has chosen the subject matter of trade secrets as a life's work may have a problem with issues of control. One imagines him shrieking with red-faced fury at his children as he tries to get them to stop saying "shit" after they've heard it the first time. (we can relate to that scene...) The scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian also comes to mind ... "Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah!!!!" I tip toe into the other room and whisper to Harry. He opens one eye slowly, as if to say: "What, no news from France?" At bottom Harry is just another xenocentric canine. Time to get back to Real Life. There's much to do today. ======== From: mgarde@superlink.net (Maureen Garde) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: How many BJ's can *you* find? Saturday afternoon report. Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 02:53:39 GMT Message-ID: <32605881.1298207@news> -------- It's 6:30 p.m. in the quiet suburbs of New Jersey. It is quiet once again. The squirrels and crows have stopped fighting for the time being. The only sound I hear is a leaf blower humming in the distance as the shadows lengthen, the kids file in from the ballfield and the parents start getting dressed for dinner. What do you make for dinner on a Saturday night in suburban New Jersey? Reservations, of course. Harry lifts a single eyelid to survey this activity. He doesn't approve of social activities outside the home. It's not a religious thing with him. It's just that bulldogs are never included, and he resents it. He's settled in for the night. Just like he settled in for the entire day. It was impossible today to get him interested in cyberspace, or the first amendment, or federal jurisprudence, or for that matter anything else. I've seen this attitude before. He knows that nobody does anything on a weekend. Federal judges don't work on the weekend, no matter who has ignored what order. In fact, I'll bet they're all dressing for dinner right now, too. Do you think Roger Milgrim works on the weekend, he seems to say. Harry knows how things are in large law firms. Roger probably stopped working weekends years ago. His associates have probably been up all night, though, reading cases on the extraterritorial enforcement of federal judicial orders. "Find me a case that says a federal court order sealing a district court judge's opinion is enforceable in the Netherlands" he likely shouted at them as he left at 4:30 p.m. yesterday on his way to the Hamptons. They're scurrying around even now. *They're* not dressing for dinner, unless you mean pulling on your sneakers to run across the street to pick up the Chinese takeout. They gave the concert tickets to their roomates. Now, it could be that we're just living in cloud cuckoo land because our newsfeed is so slow. Maybe things are happening unbeknownst to us, and we will feel the smack of reality in our face like a cold dead fish when we log on to the ether. Harry gives me that look that says, shut up and get on with it. He turns away, unfeeling and uncaring, as I log on. As the electrons cascade down the phone lines, I begin to get a little self-critical. Just a little obsessive, wouldn't you say? Last year it was herb gardening, the year before it was bread baking. The year before that, political campaigning. And don't get me started on crocheting and needlepoint .... Bong bong. We're on. Yup. They're still there, right in the same places they were when we started this silliness. And in quite a few more different places, we observe. BJ lives on in cyberspace. Time to go to dinner. We'll check in again tomorrow.