Keith Henson

Howard Keith Henson is an American Electrical Engineer and writer on life extension, cryonics, memetics and Evolutionary psychology. He is also a founding member of the L5 Society, a lifetime member of the National Space Society, and an activist against the Church of Scientology.

Critic of Scientology

As a critic of Scientology, Henson entered the Scientology battle when it was at its most heated, in the mid-1990s. He has become one of the focal points of the controversy between the Church of Scientology and its critics. As a result of his activities, he has found guilty of infringing Scientology's copyrights and has been convicted under a California law regarding the act of interfering with Scientologists civil rights. He has also been accused of being an explosives expert and a child molestor.

Copyright lawsuit

In 1996, many of Scientology's unpublished "secret writings" (see Scientology beliefs and practices) were released onto the Internet, and Scientology embarked on a massive worldwide campaign to keep them from being spread to the four corners of the earth. Henson examined these writings, entitled New Era Dianetics (known as NOTS in Scientology, and to the organization's critics), and from his examination of these "secret" documents, he claimed that Scientology was committing medical fraud.

The NOTS documents, he said, contained detailed instructions for the treatment of physical ailments and illnesses through the use of Scientology practices. However, a Supreme Court decision in 1971 had declared that Scientology's writings were meant for "purely spiritual" purposes, and all Scientology books published since then have included disclaimers stating that Scientology's E-meter device "does nothing" and does not cure any physical ailments. (United States v. Founding Church of Scientology et al., US District Court, District of Columbia 333 F. Supp. 357, July 30, 1971 [1]) The NOTS procedures, Henson claimed, were a violation of this decision. To prove his claim, Henson posted two pages from the NOTS documents onto the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology.

The Church of Scientology immediately threatened to sue Henson, but he did not back down from his claims. Immediately afterwards, Henson was served with a lawsuit by the Church's legal arm, the Religious Technology Center (RTC). Henson defended himself in order to avoid the massive legal costs incurred in a Scientology lawsuit (see Scientology and the Legal System). After a lengthy court battle involving massive amounts of paperwork, Henson was found guilty of copyright infringement. He was ordered to pay $75,000 in fines, an amount trumpeted by the Church as the largest copyright damages award ever levied against an individual. (Critics of Scientology estimate that the organization spent a total of about $2 million in litigation against Henson.)

Henson declared bankruptcy in response to the judgement, though the Church dogged him through every step of the filing process.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as Henson's supporters on the USENET newsgroup alt.religion.scientology claim that his trial was biased, unfair and a mockery of justice. Henson was prohibited by the trial judge, for instance, from arguing that copying documents for the purpose of criticism is fair use. [[2]]

Harrassment lawsuit

Henson began protesting Scientology regularly, standing outside of Scientology's film studio ("Gold Base," see Church of Scientology) with a picket sign. The organization sought assistance from the authorities, and finally Henson was arrested and brought on trial for criminal charges.

He was charged with three misdemeanors by Californian Law: making terrorist threats, attempting to make terrorist threats and making making threats to interfere with freedom to enjoy a constitutional privilege.

The jury verdict of the trial resulted in Henson being convicted of one of the three charges: "interfering with a religion." This charge carried a prison term of six months. The jury rejected Henson's claim that he was exercising his First Amendment right to criticize a dangerous cult, and convicted him of interfering with a religion (See California Penal Code, section 422.6). On the other two charges, the jury did not agree.

Henson, who had been pursued relentlessly by the Church since the original lawsuit over three years previous, stated his belief that if he went to prison, his life would be placed in jeopardy. Rather than serve his sentence, Henson chose to emigrate to Canada and apply for political asylum.

Shortly after his arrival in Canada, Henson was arrested by Canadian authorities at a public shopping mall. A squadron of armed officers surrounded and arrested him at gunpoint. Henson was unarmed when this occurred, and he is not known to have ever carried a firearm. The Toronto Police justified their use of force based on evidence that Keith was an explosives expert, had been allegedly distributing pipe bomb information on the internet, and the fact that a warrant for the arrest of Henson had already been issued by Citizenship and Immigration. The police later admitted that they had also received "a tip" from the Toronto branch of Scientology that Keith Hensons was a "dangerous fugitive" and wanted in the United States. Following this incident, Henson was taken to maximum security prison near Toronto, where he was held for 12 days before being released.

Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration stated that Henson's actions "warrant exclusion" from refugee status. Henson believes that his life would be threatened by Scientology if he returned to the United States to serve his sentence. The Church, on the other hand, has repeatedly declared that Henson is a criminal and a terrorist. According to the Immigration Law Section of Canada's Counsel for the Department of Justice, Keith Henson's activities "constitute terrorist activity."

A fugitive from U.S. justice, Henson is currently residing in Canada and seeking refugee asylum status where his application is still pending.

"Dead Agent" accusations against Henson

Critics of Scientology cite Henson's case as a typical example of the use of "dead agenting" in Scientology's attacks against its enemies.

Ken Hoden, the general manager of Golden Era (the Church of Scientology's film production facility) claimed that Henson was a stalker with extensive background in explosives, and compared Henson to Timothy McVeigh. "Based on evidence we were able to collect off the Internet, his intention was to destroy [Golden Era Productions, the Church of Scientology's film production facility] utterly, to leave not one stone unturned." Riverside County Sheriff’s Detective Tony Greer, the lead investigator, said, "In reviewing all of the Internet postings I did not see any direct threat of violence towards the church or any personnel of the church." According to LA Weekly, Henson worked in the 1970s for an explosives company in Arizona. During that time, Henson admits, he arranged pyrotechnic parties in the desert "similar to Burning Man".

Hoden also claimed that Scientology's prosecution of Henson had nothing to do with Scientology's Fair Game policy, claiming that no such policy existed. [3]. Twelve years before Hoden's statement, an appelate court decided in Wollersheim v. the Church of Scientology that Fair Game was not a constitutionally protected "core practice" of Scientology, as the Church had claimed in that trial.

Scientologists have also claimed that Henson is a "child molester." On October 15, 1997, 16 years after Henson's 1981 divorce, several usenet postings to alt.religion.scientology([4],[5]) contained reference to a signed affidavit from those proceedings: "$6,000 since May 1981 includes [daughter's name] operation and four-day hospital stay; ... and psychological counseling for [two daughter's names] as a result of father's sexual molestation of them." The full text of this affidavit has not been made available for public view. No further proof of this "child molesting" accusation has been offered by Scientology other than this one single excerpt from the legal filing. Seven days later, on October 22, 1997 another usenet posting on alt.religion.scientology, claiming to be Carolyn Meinel, denied the report[d47f516d68fc3c77?q=%22carolyn+meinel%22&rnum=4&hl=en#d47f516d68fc3c77. Keith claimed that accusations of the sort are common in divorce proceedings. Carolyn continues to support Henson by speak positively on his behalf [6].

Works

Henson, Carolyn and Keith: Closed Ecosystems of High Agricultural Yield, 1975
Henson, H.K., and K.E. Drexler. Vapor-phase Fabrication of Massive Structures in Space, Space Manufacturing AIAA 1977
Annita Harlan, Keith Henson, Carolyn Meinel with Brad Barber Ezekial's Wheel 1978 [7]
Henson, H.K., and K.E. Drexler. Gas Entrained Solids: A Heat Transfer Fluid for Use in Space Space Manufacturing AIAA 1979
H. Keith Henson and Arel Lucas: STAR LAWS Reason Magazine, Aug., 1982 [8]
Henson, H.K.: Memes, L5 and the religion of the space colonies. L5 News, September 1985, pp. 5-8. [9]
Henson, H.K.: More on Memes L5 News, June 1986 [10]
Henson, H.Keith: MEMETICS AND THE MODULAR-MIND Analog August 1987 [11]
Henson, Keith: "Memetics: The Science of Information Viruses". Whole Earth Review no. 57, 1987 [12]
Henson, H. Keith: MegaScale Engineering and Nanotechnology, 1987 [13]
Henson, H.Keith: Memes Meta-Memes and Politics , 1988 [14]
H. Keith Henson and Arel Lucas: Memes, Evolution, and Creationism, 1989, [15]
H. Keith Henson Green Rage [16]
H. Keith Henson and Arel Lucas: A Theoretical Understanding, 1993 [17]
Keith Henson Wogs at Cause--Car chases and other modern courtroom phenomena (adapted from the version published in Biased Journalism) [18]
H. Keith Henson South of the Border at the Road Kill Cafe (Part 1) [19]
Henson, H. Keith: Sex, Drugs, and Cults. An evolutionary psychology perspective on why and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people, and what might be done to mitigate the effects, The Human Nature Review 2002 Volume 2: 343-355 [20]
Keith Henson quotes

External links