***** XS4ALL NEWS-FLASH  *****


Dear Friends,

Yesterday, tuesday september 5, 1995, the scientology church raided
the xs4all offices for a seizure. The permission of seizure that
scientology got against xs4all was issued on a false claim, relating
to a remailer that had not been active on xs4all for more than 2 months.

During scientology's visit no word was said about this remailer,
as it was not running at xs4all at all. The only concern seemed
to be a homepage from one of our users (http://www.xs4all.nl/~fonss).
This homepage contained the fishman affidavit, to which scientology
claims copyright. We had no prior notice about this homepage, and never
had the chance to contact the user. According to the user, fonss,
scientology had not contacted him about his page. (the scientologists
that where present at our offices specifically told us that they had
talked to this user, and 'where at his door'.)

We have explained to scientology's legal representation, and to the
scientologists that where present that as a provider we do not accept
responsibility for contents that our users disseminate. Users homepages
are the responsibility of the users themselves, and not of the internet-
provider. This fact is supported by various politicians in
dutch parliament, and by several organisations whom we had previously
consulted about this matter.

After scientology's visit we wrote an email notice to our user, fonss,
explaining him what had happened at the xs4all offices earlier that day.
We also explained our visions regarding his homepage, and that we would
not assume responsibility for it, as it is the users' own responsibility.
We have not asked our user to remove any content from his homepage,
as this is not our business. After our letter the user voluntarily removed the
fishman affidavit, and now has made a hyperlink to the same document on
another site on internet.

After scientology's visit we noticed that a personal snailmail-letter
adressed to one of our staff was missing. The sender of this letter
was called by scientology about 1 hour after the visit to our offices.
Ofcourse we will demand a thourough investigation into this whole case,
first because of the seizure that was issued on false grounds, and then
because of the personal letter that appears to have been stolen.

The whole case has attracted a fair amount of media coverage. We've
been handling journalists most of the day. They seem to be extremely
shocked by this whole situation, and reflect that in their media-coverage.

        The xs4all staff