Operation Clambake
Encyclopedia
Operation Clambake, also referred to by its Web address, Xenu.net, is a Web site and Norway
-based non-profit organization
, launched in 1996, that publishes criticism of the Church of Scientology
. It is owned and maintained by Andreas Heldal-Lund
, who has stated that he supports the rights of all people to practice Scientology
or any religion
. Operation Clambake has referred to the Church of Scientology as "a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion". The Web site includes texts of petitions, news articles, exposés, and primary source documents. The site has been ranked as high as the second spot in Google
searches for the term "Scientology".
The term for the organization refers both to a traditional clam bake
, as well as the notion from L. Ron Hubbard
's Scientology: A History of Man
that humans follow a "genetic line" which includes clam
s, and that the psychological problems afflicting humans are impacted by past experiences. The domain name
Xenu.net is a reference to the character Xenu
from secretive "OT III
" Scientology documents.
In 1996, the site was one of the first locations on the internet to host secret Scientology documents pertaining to Xenu and OT III. Shortly thereafter, the Church of Scientology attempted to get this material removed from Operation Clambake and other internet sites, through letters written by counsel, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
. After receiving a DMCA takedown notice, Google
removed many Xenu.net pages from its indexes, which decreased the site's page rank in searches for "Scientology". This inspired Google to contribute to the Chilling Effects archive, informing others about material missing from Google indexes due to DMCA takedown notices and other legal threats.
Operation Clambake has been consulted by news media organizations and other groups for information on Scientology and related organizations. Dateline NBC
cited the organization in a 1998 investigative journalism
piece, as have other publications including The Wall Street Journal
, The New York Times
and the Associated Press
. Xenu.net has been included as required reading in a New York University
course on "Copyright and Censorship", and in 2003 webmaster Andreas Heldal-Lund received the 2003 Leipzig Human Rights Award
by the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA, an organization opposed to the Church of Scientology.
Operation Clambake was founded in 1996 by Andreas Heldal-Lund
, an information technology
manager in Stavanger, Norway, who administers the site at www.xenu.net. This domain name
has been described as provocative, because it is seen by some as a caricature of the character Xenu
from Scientology cosmogony. Operation Clambake is registered in Norway as a non-profit organization
.
Heldal-Lund chose the name "Operation Clambake" for the organization, as a reference to statements made by L. Ron Hubbard
in which Hubbard wrote that the problems of human beings today are a result of traumatic events experienced by their inner thetans
when they inhabited the bodies of clam
s during Earth's evolution. In Hubbard's Scientology: A History of Man
, he 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. Hubbard defined "genetic line" as a collection of the total "incidents
" which occurred during the evolution of what Scientology refers to as the "MEST body
".
had pulled Jon Atack's book A Piece of Blue Sky
, a work critical of Scientology. The site later became one of the focal points of what some have termed "the war between Scientology and the Internet". On November 8, 1996, Operation Clambake was one of the first sites to host the secretive OT III
documents describing the story of Xenu
. Operation Clambake maintains the position that posting these internal Church of Scientology documents is permitted under "fair use
" allowance of internationally recognized copyright law. The Church of Scientology threatened legal action against various Internet service provider
s that host the site, demanding it be removed from the Internet for hosting information copyrighted by the Church of Scientology.
In 1998 Salon reported that Scientologists were now blocked from viewing sites critical of Scientology including Operation Clambake and alt.religion.scientology
, through the use of a content-control software
program referred to by critics as Scieno Sitter
. The Church of Scientology was unable to shut down Operation Clambake's internet service provider in Norway. The organization succeeded in shutting down the upstream connection to the site's internet service provider, Netherlands-based Xtended Internet. In November 2002, Xtended Internet's upstream provider, Cignal Global Communications received a letter from Church of Scientology counsel alleging copyright and trademark infringement involved with Xenu.net. This letter led to Cignal Global Communications, a United States based company, terminating its service with Xtended Internet, which had to move their company to a new backbone provider.
, Slashdot
and Wired
, the Church of Scientology has also used the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA) to force notable Web sites (including the Google
search engine) to remove the Operation Clambake homepage, and several leaflets containing copyrighted information, from their indexes. Because the Xenu.net site itself is based in Norway, it does not fall under the jurisdiction of the DMCA.
In March 2002, Google agreed to limit access to material critical of the Church of Scientology on www.xenu.net, after it was sued by the Church of Scientology for copyright infringement. Information the Church of Scientology had objected to included an internal report on the death of Lisa McPherson
, and images of L. Ron Hubbard
. 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". After Operation Clambake was delisted by Google, free speech advocates besieged Google, complaining that the company was censoring search results. Prior to Google's delisting of the Operation Clambake site, CBC News
reported that the site was listed fourth in a search for "Scientology". After Google's actions, Xenu.net did not appear in searches for "Scientology".
reported that the net effect of the copyright controversy actually drove up the number of links to www.xenu.net, which improved its search results in searches for "Scientology" on Google to number two on the results page – just below the official site of the Church of Scientology. Reflecting on the controversy in a February 2003 interview in The Boston Globe Magazine
, Google founder Sergey Brin
stated: "Ultimately where we ended up was the right conclusion, but we didn't initially handle it correctly." Some groups critical of the Church of Scientology's actions have later used the Google bomb
technique to increase Operation Clambake's Google rankings to the number three slot in a search for "Scientology" on the search engine, by linking the term "Scientology" on their Web pages to http://www.xenu.net/. The Church of Scientology itself has also been accused of an attempt at Google bombing for making a large number of websites linking terms "Scientology" and "L. Ron Hubbard" to each other.
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. Chilling Effects contains the original complaint letter from the law firm used by the Church of Scientology, Moxon & Kobrin
. Helena Kobrin, lawyer for the Church of Scientology, 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." Sergey Brin and Larry Page
were both questioned on Google's response to the Church of Scientology's complaints in a 2004 interview in Playboy Magazine, and they appreciated Chilling Effects as a "nice compromise". Brin explained the new scenario: "So now, if you do a generic search on Scientology, you get a link to a site that discusses the legal aspects of why the anti-Scientology site isn't listed."
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.
Operation Clambake is included as part of the Library of Congress
"September 11 Web Archive," and in Spring 2002 www.xenu.net was listed as required reading for the course "Computers in Principle and Practice" at New York University
, under a section on "Copyright and Censorship".
On May 17, 2003, Operation Clambake webmaster Andreas Heldal-Lund received the 2003 Leipzig Human Rights Award
from the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA, an organization which states it is composed of "Scientology opponents from all over the world". Operation Clambake was cited by the Committee for exposing what it referred to as "fraud and human rights violations" of the Church of Scientology in the United States. The former Secretary of State
of France, Alain Vivien
, presented Heldal-Lund with the Award, and stated that his work had revealed the actions of Scientologists with "respect and intelligence". In his acceptance speech, Heldal-Lund spoke about freedom of speech, and emphasized the role of the individual citizen.
aired an investigative journalism
piece on Scientology, and Operation Clambake was referenced on-screen as a resource to learn about "Xenu and the exploded souls". The St. Petersburg Times
called Operation Clambake: "the best known of the critical Web sites" on Scientology. New Straits Times
referred to the site as "a fantastic source of information for anyone interested in the Scientology cult". In July 2000 The Wall Street Journal
included Operation Clambake among its list of "Our Favorite Sites" under the "Opinion, Commentary and Gossip" section. The Seattle Times
described Operation Clambake as "one of the most popular" sites critical of Scientology.
Many other news organizations that have recognized its work. BBC News
wrote: "The Operation Clambake site portrays The Church as a money-hungry cult.", 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." Still other news articles have called Operation Clambake "an anti-Scientology Web site", and the program "Technofile
" on Sky News
called it "one of the most controversial sites on the web". The Associated Press
cited the Xenu and OT III story in describing the Web site: "Critics at www.xenu.net and elsewhere say advanced Scientologists are taught that 75 million years ago, the cosmic ruler Xenu paralyzed billions of people in our galaxy, stacked them on Earth and destroyed their bodies with H-bombs, though the traumatized souls survived."
More recently, news media have consulted Operation Clambake and its proprietor when seeking out information for background on stories involving Church of Scientology and related organizations. The Sunday Times
utilized Operation Clambake's resources, while doing a January 2007 story on Narconon
and its links to the Church of Scientology. The Daily Reveille
consulted Operation Clambake resources for an article on the "Second Chance
" program, specifically for background on the Scientology doctrine known as the "Purification Rundown
". In April 2007, the Daily News cited an "emergency bulletin" disseminated by Church of Scientology leaders that was posted on Operation Clambake, which seemed to refute claims by Church of Scientology representatives that their ministers were forbidden from proselytizing on campus after the Virginia Tech massacre
. In August 2007, the Associated Press
included information from Operation Clambake in an article on Scientology's attempts to connect with religious leaders from other faiths.
In Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World
, Jack Goldsmith
notes that the site's "secret library of Scientology" page was blocked from Google for a short time. He notes that Google's actions in the matter were indicative of its policy to remove search results when threatened by governmental action. The incident between Google and the Church of 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."
Fred von Lohmann
, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation
, raised free speech concerns in the Xenu.net case, stating: "The danger is that people will attempt to silence critics under the guise of copyright infringement." In Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism
, author Samuel Peter Nelson 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?" In an interview on the Xenu.net controversy, Harvard Law School
professor Jonathan Zittrain
predicted that more conflicts involving the Church of Scientology were likely to occur in the future. Zittrain stated: "The cutting edge on such battles is often the Church of Scientology. They have very well honed procedures and tactics to remove information that they find objectionable."
Mentioning Operation Clambake as an example of an Internet response to a controversial movement in their 2003 book Understanding New Religious Movements, John A. Saliba
and J. Gordon Melton
referred to the site as "a Web page devoted to the negative aspects of Scientology". Douglas E. Cowan
, writing in Religion Online (2004), characterizes Operation Clambake as an example of a "surfeit of sites dedicated to so-called watchdog organizations or [...] home pages of disgruntled ex-members." According to Cowan, Internet coverage of the Church of Scientology represents an "important example of competing propagandas that struggle for authority and control both online and off". Cowan proposes that Operation Clambake seeks to demonstrate that the Church of Scientology "lacks any redeeming social value". Cowan notes that most of the content presented by the site is not the result of original research by the owner but rather a collection of hyperlinks to media reports, scholarly and popular articles, court documents and out-of-print books. Complemented by links to like-minded sites hosting essentially the same information, the result is thought by Cowan to be inflation of the apparent quantity of anti-Scientology material available. According to Cowan, Operation Clambake is not designed to be read by Scientologists, but rather meant for those who already hold negative views about Scientology and might join Heldal-Lund in his self-stated purpose: "The Fight Against the Church of Scientology on the Net." Cowan compares the site to a propaganda effort, and writes that a message is presented repeatedly, consistently to a target audience that already has some affinity with it, leading to a somewhat self-limiting construction of reality.
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
-based non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
, launched in 1996, that publishes criticism of the Church of Scientology
Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
. It is owned and maintained by Andreas Heldal-Lund
Andreas Heldal-Lund
Andreas Heldal-Lund is a Norwegian anti-Scientology activist best known for operating the website Operation Clambake.-Activist:...
, who has stated that he supports the rights of all people to practice Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
or any religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
. Operation Clambake has referred to the Church of Scientology as "a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion". The Web site includes texts of petitions, news articles, exposés, and primary source documents. The site has been ranked as high as the second spot in Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
searches for the term "Scientology".
The term for the organization refers both to a traditional clam bake
New England clam bake
The New England clam bake is a traditional method of cooking foods, especially seafood such as lobster, mussels, crabs, steamers, and quahogs. The seafood is often supplemented by sausages, potatoes, onions, carrots, corn on the cob, etc...
, as well as the notion from L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
's Scientology: A History of Man
Scientology: A History of Man
Scientology: A History of Man is a book by L. Ron Hubbard, first published in 1952 under the title What To Audit. According to the author, it provides "a coldblooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years." It has gone through many editions since its first publication and is a key...
that humans follow a "genetic line" which includes clam
Clam
The word "clam" can be applied to freshwater mussels, and other freshwater bivalves, as well as marine bivalves.In the United States, "clam" can be used in several different ways: one, as a general term covering all bivalve molluscs...
s, and that the psychological problems afflicting humans are impacted by past experiences. The domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
Xenu.net is a reference to the character Xenu
Xenu
Xenu ,also spelled Xemu, was, according to the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs...
from secretive "OT III
Operating Thetan
In Scientology, the state of Operating Thetan is a spiritual state above Clear. L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, defined it as "knowing and willing cause over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time ". According to religious scholar J...
" Scientology documents.
In 1996, the site was one of the first locations on the internet to host secret Scientology documents pertaining to Xenu and OT III. Shortly thereafter, the Church of Scientology attempted to get this material removed from Operation Clambake and other internet sites, through letters written by counsel, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
. After receiving a DMCA takedown notice, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
removed many Xenu.net pages from its indexes, which decreased the site's page rank in searches for "Scientology". This inspired Google to contribute to the Chilling Effects archive, informing others about material missing from Google indexes due to DMCA takedown notices and other legal threats.
Operation Clambake has been consulted by news media organizations and other groups for information on Scientology and related organizations. Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC, or Dateline, is a U.S. weekly television newsmagazine broadcast by NBC. It previously was NBC's flagship news magazine, but now focuses on true crime stories. It airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST and after football season on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.-History:Dateline is historically notable for...
cited the organization in a 1998 investigative journalism
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
piece, as have other publications including The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. Xenu.net has been included as required reading in a New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
course on "Copyright and Censorship", and in 2003 webmaster Andreas Heldal-Lund received the 2003 Leipzig Human Rights Award
Leipzig Human Rights Award
The Leipzig Human Rights Award is an honor given by the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA, which recognizes "efforts towards human rights and freedom of expression in the USA" and actions against what the organization refers to as "human rights...
by the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA, an organization opposed to the Church of Scientology.
Foundation
Andreas Heldal-Lund
Andreas Heldal-Lund is a Norwegian anti-Scientology activist best known for operating the website Operation Clambake.-Activist:...
, an information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
manager in Stavanger, Norway, who administers the site at www.xenu.net. This domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
has been described as provocative, because it is seen by some as a caricature of the character Xenu
Xenu
Xenu ,also spelled Xemu, was, according to the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs...
from Scientology cosmogony. Operation Clambake is registered in Norway as a non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
.
Heldal-Lund chose the name "Operation Clambake" for the organization, as a reference to statements made by L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
in which Hubbard wrote that the problems of human beings today are a result of traumatic events experienced by their inner thetans
Thetan
In Scientology, the concept of thetan is similar to the concept of spirit or soul found in other belief systems. The term is derived from the Greek letter theta, which in Scientology represents "the source of life, or life itself." In Scientology it is believed that it is the Thetan, not the...
when they inhabited the bodies of clam
Clam
The word "clam" can be applied to freshwater mussels, and other freshwater bivalves, as well as marine bivalves.In the United States, "clam" can be used in several different ways: one, as a general term covering all bivalve molluscs...
s during Earth's evolution. In Hubbard's Scientology: A History of Man
Scientology: A History of Man
Scientology: A History of Man is a book by L. Ron Hubbard, first published in 1952 under the title What To Audit. According to the author, it provides "a coldblooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years." It has gone through many editions since its first publication and is a key...
, he 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. Hubbard defined "genetic line" as a collection of the total "incidents
Incident (Scientology)
L. Ron Hubbard used the term Incident in a specific context for auditing in Scientology and Dianetics: the description of space opera events in our Universe's distant past, involving alien interventions in our past lives...
" which occurred during the evolution of what Scientology refers to as the "MEST body
MEST (Scientology)
MEST is an acronym used in Scientology and coined by author L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard used the first letters of the words matter, energy, space and time, the component parts of the physical universe. The term MEST is frequently used in writings and lectures by Scientology founder L...
".
OT III documents
Prior to its own direct conflict with the Church of Scientology, Operation Clambake had described on its site how Amazon.comAmazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
had pulled Jon Atack's book A Piece of Blue Sky
A Piece of Blue Sky
A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed, published in 1990, is an examination from a critical perspective by former British Scientologist Jon Atack of the history of L. Ron Hubbard and the development of Dianetics and the Church of Scientology...
, a work critical of Scientology. The site later became one of the focal points of what some have termed "the war between Scientology and the Internet". On November 8, 1996, Operation Clambake was one of the first sites to host the secretive OT III
Operating Thetan
In Scientology, the state of Operating Thetan is a spiritual state above Clear. L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, defined it as "knowing and willing cause over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time ". According to religious scholar J...
documents describing the story of Xenu
Xenu
Xenu ,also spelled Xemu, was, according to the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs...
. Operation Clambake maintains the position that posting these internal Church of Scientology documents is permitted under "fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
" allowance of internationally recognized copyright law. The Church of Scientology threatened legal action against various Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s that host the site, demanding it be removed from the Internet for hosting information copyrighted by the Church of Scientology.
In 1998 Salon reported that Scientologists were now blocked from viewing sites critical of Scientology including Operation Clambake and alt.religion.scientology
Alt.religion.scientology
The newsgroup alt.religion.scientology is a Usenet newsgroup started in 1991 to discuss the controversial beliefs of Scientology, as well as the Church of Scientology, which claims exclusive intellectual property rights thereto and is viewed by many as a dangerous cult...
, through the use of a content-control software
Content-control software
Content-control software, also known as censorware or web filtering software, is a term for software designed and optimized for controlling what content is permitted to a reader, especially when it is used to restrict material delivered over the Web...
program referred to by critics as Scieno Sitter
Scieno Sitter
Scieno Sitter is a term coined by critics of the Church of Scientology to refer to a content-control software package created by the organization, which, when installed on a computer, blocks certain Web sites critical of Scientology from being viewed. Critics assert that the program is a form of...
. The Church of Scientology was unable to shut down Operation Clambake's internet service provider in Norway. The organization succeeded in shutting down the upstream connection to the site's internet service provider, Netherlands-based Xtended Internet. In November 2002, Xtended Internet's upstream provider, Cignal Global Communications received a letter from Church of Scientology counsel alleging copyright and trademark infringement involved with Xenu.net. This letter led to Cignal Global Communications, a United States based company, terminating its service with Xtended Internet, which had to move their company to a new backbone provider.
DMCA and Google delisting
In various incidents documented in such publications as The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
and Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
, the Church of Scientology has also used the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
(DMCA) to force notable Web sites (including the Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
search engine) to remove the Operation Clambake homepage, and several leaflets containing copyrighted information, from their indexes. Because the Xenu.net site itself is based in Norway, it does not fall under the jurisdiction of the DMCA.
In March 2002, Google agreed to limit access to material critical of the Church of Scientology on www.xenu.net, after it was sued by the Church of Scientology for copyright infringement. Information the Church of Scientology had objected to included an internal report on the death of Lisa McPherson
Lisa McPherson
Lisa McPherson was a member of the Church of Scientology who died of a pulmonary embolism while under the care of the Flag Service Organization , a branch of the Church of Scientology...
, and images of L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
. Google received criticism for its actions, and The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
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". After Operation Clambake was delisted by Google, free speech advocates besieged Google, complaining that the company was censoring search results. Prior to Google's delisting of the Operation Clambake site, CBC News
CBC News
CBC News is the department within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on CBC television, radio and online services...
reported that the site was listed fourth in a search for "Scientology". After Google's actions, Xenu.net did not appear in searches for "Scientology".
Aftermath
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. In April 2002 the International Herald TribuneInternational Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
reported that the net effect of the copyright controversy actually drove up the number of links to www.xenu.net, which improved its search results in searches for "Scientology" on Google to number two on the results page – just below the official site of the Church of Scientology. Reflecting on the controversy in a February 2003 interview in The Boston Globe Magazine
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, Google founder Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin is a Russian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the largest internet companies. , his personal wealth is estimated to be $16.7 billion....
stated: "Ultimately where we ended up was the right conclusion, but we didn't initially handle it correctly." Some groups critical of the Church of Scientology's actions have later used the Google bomb
Google bomb
The terms Google bomb and Googlewashing refer to practices, such as creating large numbers of links, that cause a web page to have a high ranking for searches on unrelated or off topic keyword phrases, often for comical or satirical purposes...
technique to increase Operation Clambake's Google rankings to the number three slot in a search for "Scientology" on the search engine, by linking the term "Scientology" on their Web pages to http://www.xenu.net/. The Church of Scientology itself has also been accused of an attempt at Google bombing for making a large number of websites linking terms "Scientology" and "L. Ron Hubbard" to each other.
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. Chilling Effects contains the original complaint letter from the law firm used by the Church of Scientology, Moxon & Kobrin
Moxon & Kobrin
Moxon & Kobrin is a law firm with its headquarters located in the Wilshire Center Building in Wilshire Center, Los Angeles, California, consisting of Kendrick Moxon, Helena Kobrin, and Ava Paquette....
. Helena Kobrin, lawyer for the Church of Scientology, 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." Sergey Brin and Larry Page
Larry Page
Lawrence "Larry" Page is an American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Sergey Brin, is best known as the co-founder of Google. As of April 4, 2011, he is also the chief executive of Google, as announced on January 20, 2011...
were both questioned on Google's response to the Church of Scientology's complaints in a 2004 interview in Playboy Magazine, and they appreciated Chilling Effects as a "nice compromise". Brin explained the new scenario: "So now, if you do a generic search on Scientology, you get a link to a site that discusses the legal aspects of why the anti-Scientology site isn't listed."
Also in 2002, Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The 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.
Awards and recognition
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
"September 11 Web Archive," and in Spring 2002 www.xenu.net was listed as required reading for the course "Computers in Principle and Practice" at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, under a section on "Copyright and Censorship".
On May 17, 2003, Operation Clambake webmaster Andreas Heldal-Lund received the 2003 Leipzig Human Rights Award
Leipzig Human Rights Award
The Leipzig Human Rights Award is an honor given by the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA, which recognizes "efforts towards human rights and freedom of expression in the USA" and actions against what the organization refers to as "human rights...
from the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA, an organization which states it is composed of "Scientology opponents from all over the world". Operation Clambake was cited by the Committee for exposing what it referred to as "fraud and human rights violations" of the Church of Scientology in the United States. The former Secretary of State
Secretary of State
Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
of France, Alain Vivien
Alain Vivien
Alain Vivien is a French Socialist Party politician, best known for chairing the French Mission Interministérielle pour la Lutte contre les Sectes, MILS, a ministerial organism designed to observe the activities of various religious organizations defined as "Sectes" .-Early career:He was mayor of...
, presented Heldal-Lund with the Award, and stated that his work had revealed the actions of Scientologists with "respect and intelligence". In his acceptance speech, Heldal-Lund spoke about freedom of speech, and emphasized the role of the individual citizen.
Media resources
On June 16, 1998, Dateline NBCDateline NBC
Dateline NBC, or Dateline, is a U.S. weekly television newsmagazine broadcast by NBC. It previously was NBC's flagship news magazine, but now focuses on true crime stories. It airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST and after football season on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.-History:Dateline is historically notable for...
aired an investigative journalism
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
piece on Scientology, and Operation Clambake was referenced on-screen as a resource to learn about "Xenu and the exploded souls". The St. Petersburg Times
St. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...
called Operation Clambake: "the best known of the critical Web sites" on Scientology. New Straits Times
New Straits Times
The New Straits Times is an English-language newspaper published in Malaysia. It is Malaysia's oldest newspaper still in print , having been founded as The Straits Times in 1845, and was reestablished as the "New Straits Times" in 1965. The paper served as Malaysia's only broadsheet format English...
referred to the site as "a fantastic source of information for anyone interested in the Scientology cult". In July 2000 The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
included Operation Clambake among its list of "Our Favorite Sites" under the "Opinion, Commentary and Gossip" section. The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...
described Operation Clambake as "one of the most popular" sites critical of Scientology.
Many other news organizations that have recognized its work. BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
wrote: "The Operation Clambake site portrays The Church as a money-hungry cult.", and an article in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
stated: "The site portrays the church as a greedy cult that exploits its members and harasses critics." Still other news articles have called Operation Clambake "an anti-Scientology Web site", and the program "Technofile
Technofile
The Technofile was a daily radio show written and produced by talk show host Lazlow. It aired for over 12 years in the United States and several stations overseas and was on over 100 radio stations. The Technofile was only sixty seconds long, and usually covered a story surrounding a new type of...
" on Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
called it "one of the most controversial sites on the web". The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
cited the Xenu and OT III story in describing the Web site: "Critics at www.xenu.net and elsewhere say advanced Scientologists are taught that 75 million years ago, the cosmic ruler Xenu paralyzed billions of people in our galaxy, stacked them on Earth and destroyed their bodies with H-bombs, though the traumatized souls survived."
More recently, news media have consulted Operation Clambake and its proprietor when seeking out information for background on stories involving Church of Scientology and related organizations. The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
utilized Operation Clambake's resources, while doing a January 2007 story on Narconon
Narconon
Narconon is a residential program aimed at substance abusers, headquartered in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It operates through several dozen treatment centers worldwide, chiefly in the United States and Western Europe. Each Narconon center is independently owned and operated under a license...
and its links to the Church of Scientology. The Daily Reveille
The Daily Reveille
The Daily Reveille is the student newspaper for Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and has kept student informed for more than a century. It prints Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summer semester...
consulted Operation Clambake resources for an article on the "Second Chance
Criminon
Criminon is a program for rehabilitating prisoners using L. Ron Hubbard's teachings. Criminon International, a non-profit, public-benefit corporation managing the Criminon program, was spawned from Narconon International in 2000, and is part of Association for Better Living and Education's public...
" program, specifically for background on the Scientology doctrine known as the "Purification Rundown
Purification Rundown
The Purification Rundown, also known as the Purif or the Hubbard Method, is a controversial detoxification program developed by Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard and used by the Church of Scientology as an introductory service. Scientologists consider it the only effective way to deal with the...
". In April 2007, the Daily News cited an "emergency bulletin" disseminated by Church of Scientology leaders that was posted on Operation Clambake, which seemed to refute claims by Church of Scientology representatives that their ministers were forbidden from proselytizing on campus after the Virginia Tech massacre
Virginia Tech massacre
The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting that took place on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. In two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, the perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people...
. In August 2007, the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
included information from Operation Clambake in an article on Scientology's attempts to connect with religious leaders from other faiths.
Scholarly perception
Who Controls the Internet?
Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World is a 2006 book by Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu that offers an assessment of the struggle to control the Internet. Starting with a discussion of the early vision of a borderless global community, the authors present some of the most prominent...
, Jack Goldsmith
Jack Goldsmith
Jack Landman Goldsmith is a Harvard Law School professor who has written a number of texts regarding international law, cyber law, and national security law...
notes that the site's "secret library of Scientology" page was blocked from Google for a short time. He notes that Google's actions in the matter were indicative of its policy to remove search results when threatened by governmental action. The incident between Google and the Church of 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."
Fred von Lohmann
Fred von Lohmann
Fred von Lohmann is an American lawyer practicing as a senior copyright counsel at Google.Before joining Google in July 2010, Fred was a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, specializing in intellectual property matters. In that role, he has represented programmers,...
, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
, raised free speech concerns in the Xenu.net case, stating: "The danger is that people will attempt to silence critics under the guise of copyright infringement." In Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism
Beyond the First Amendment
Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism is a book about freedom of speech and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, written by author Samuel Peter Nelson. It was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2005...
, author Samuel Peter Nelson 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?" In an interview on the Xenu.net controversy, Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
professor Jonathan Zittrain
Jonathan Zittrain
Jonathan L. Zittrain is a US professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a faculty co-director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society...
predicted that more conflicts involving the Church of Scientology were likely to occur in the future. Zittrain stated: "The cutting edge on such battles is often the Church of Scientology. They have very well honed procedures and tactics to remove information that they find objectionable."
Mentioning Operation Clambake as an example of an Internet response to a controversial movement in their 2003 book Understanding New Religious Movements, John A. Saliba
John A. Saliba
John A. Saliba is a Maltese-born Jesuit priest, a professor of religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy and a noted writer and researcher in the field of new religious movements.Saliba has advocated a conciliatory approach towards new religions...
and J. Gordon Melton
J. Gordon Melton
John Gordon Melton is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently a research specialist in religion and New Religious Movements with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara...
referred to the site as "a Web page devoted to the negative aspects of Scientology". Douglas E. Cowan
Douglas E. Cowan
Douglas E. Cowan is a Canadian academic in religious studies and the sociology of religion and currently holds a teaching position at Renison College, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada...
, writing in Religion Online (2004), characterizes Operation Clambake as an example of a "surfeit of sites dedicated to so-called watchdog organizations or [...] home pages of disgruntled ex-members." According to Cowan, Internet coverage of the Church of Scientology represents an "important example of competing propagandas that struggle for authority and control both online and off". Cowan proposes that Operation Clambake seeks to demonstrate that the Church of Scientology "lacks any redeeming social value". Cowan notes that most of the content presented by the site is not the result of original research by the owner but rather a collection of hyperlinks to media reports, scholarly and popular articles, court documents and out-of-print books. Complemented by links to like-minded sites hosting essentially the same information, the result is thought by Cowan to be inflation of the apparent quantity of anti-Scientology material available. According to Cowan, Operation Clambake is not designed to be read by Scientologists, but rather meant for those who already hold negative views about Scientology and might join Heldal-Lund in his self-stated purpose: "The Fight Against the Church of Scientology on the Net." Cowan compares the site to a propaganda effort, and writes that a message is presented repeatedly, consistently to a target audience that already has some affinity with it, leading to a somewhat self-limiting construction of reality.
See also
- Berkman Center for Internet & SocietyBerkman Center for Internet & SocietyThe Berkman Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, the Center was elevated to an interfaculty initiative of...
- Freedom of speechFreedom of speechFreedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
- Project ChanologyProject ChanologyProject Chanology is a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous...
- Scientology and the Internet
- Scientology and the legal systemScientology and the legal systemThe Church of Scientology has been involved in court disputes in several countries. In some cases, when the Church has initiated the dispute, question has been raised as to its motives. The Church says that its use of the legal system is necessary to protect its intellectual property and its right...
- Scientology controversyScientology controversySince the Church of Scientology's inception in 1954, numerous Scientologists have been involved in scandals, at times serving prison sentences for crimes, such as those committed in Operation Snow White...