Battleangel

Andreas Heldal-Lund’s Church of Scientology watch Xenu.net is being harassed again. Not the first time I am sure, nor will it be the last. The legal firm in question has grappled on to the old BBS / Forum strategy. We’ve had a couple of those in Sweden too and I assume that the Norwegian law is somewhat similar.

Essentially, this shady tactic builds on the fact that it is often difficult or even undesirable to monitor and censor electronic discussion forums. So what you do when you want to harass, sue or even close someone down is to browse a web board and find a handful of posts, among thousands, that deviate from good netiquette and borderline illegal activity. Such as in this case “inciting a crime”, however far fetched it may seem. Doesn’t matter if it really does break any laws. Most people don’t put it to the test. And obviously legal firms don’t scurry the net to keep it clean and tidy out of the goodness of their hearts. They target places like Xenu because their client tells them to, because it’s the only way to get to international dissenters like Andreas Heldal-Lund.