Keith Henson
Encyclopedia
Howard Keith Henson is an American
electrical engineer and writer
on life extension
, cryonics
, memetics
and evolutionary psychology
.
In 1975, he and his then-wife Carolyn Meinel
founded the L5 Society
, which promoted space colonization
and which was eventually folded into the National Space Society
. More recently, Henson's outspoken criticism of the Church of Scientology
and subsequent criminal proceedings have gained him headlines.
officer who spent much of his career in Army Intelligence. The science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein
played a major role in influencing his early life. Henson graduated from Prescott High School
shortly after his father retired, before attending the University of Arizona
and receiving a degree in Electrical Engineering
.
Student Center, where a campus humor newspaper, The Frumious Bandersnatch was published in the late 1960s. He later cited an incident that occurred in his student days as a good example of memetic replication
. When asked to fill in a form that required him to disclose his religious affiliations he wrote Druid. His prank was soon noticed by other students and before long almost 20% of the student body had registered themselves as Reform Druids, Orthodox Druids, Members of the Church of the nth Druid, Zen Druids, Latter-Day Druids and so on. The university was forced to remove the religious affiliation question, breaking the chain of replication and variation.
During much of this period, Henson worked at a geophysics
company, mostly running induced polarization surveys in the western US and Peru
. Henson also programmed geophysical type cases and wrote data reduction programs for the company.
, in Tucson, Arizona
. While there, he worked on extremely low distortion quadrature oscillators and non-linear function modules (multipliers, vector adders and root-mean-square). His first patent was a design for a 4-quadrant log-antilog multiplier. He claims to have been fired (not from Burr-Brown) in 1972 for refusing to certify an electronic module for a nuclear power
plant that failed to meet a required MTBF specification. Henson then set up his own company, Analog Precision Inc., producing specialized computer interface equipment and related industrial control devices.
Henson married his first wife, Carolyn Meinel
, in 1967 and they divorced in 1981.
partner, physicist
Dr. Dan Jones, introduced him to the space colonization
work of Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University
. To promote these ideas, Henson and Meinel founded the L5 Society
in 1975.
Henson co-wrote papers for three Space Manufacturing conferences at Princeton. The 1977 and 1979 papers were co-authored with Eric Drexler. Patents were issued on both subjects—vapor phase fabrication and space radiators.
In 1980, Henson testified before the United States Congress
when the L5 Society successfully opposed the Moon Treaty
. The society was represented by Leigh Ratiner (later a figure in the Inslaw
proceedings). The experience eventually became an article, Star Laws, jointly written by Henson and Arel Lucas and published in Reason Magazine.
provided a route to make it work, Henson, his wife, and their two-year old daughter signed up with Alcor
for cryonic suspension. Henson's daughter was the youngest member ever signed up to Alcor. Following the Dora Kent
problems, Henson became increasingly active with Alcor. After Alcor had to freeze their chief surgeon, he learned enough surgery to put several cryonics patients on cardiac bypass. He also wrote a column for Alcor’s magazine, Cryonics, for a few years.
In that same year, Henson moved to Silicon Valley
, consulting for a number of firms, and eventually debugging garbage collection software for the last stage of Project Xanadu
. He was still working for the company that bought the Xanadu license when Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin tried to destroy
the news group alt.religion.scientology
. and later e-mailed legal warnings to participants who had quoted as few as six lines of Scientology texts.
in Metamagical Themas
for suggesting the study of memes be called memetics. Henson wrote two articles on memes in 1987, one published in Analog. The other, Memes, MetaMemes and Politics, circulated on the internet before being printed. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990753,00.html
Eric S. Raymond
, a long-time friend of Henson's, saw one of the early drafts of a later paper on cults, memes and religion and has publicly credited it as an influence on the theory of peer-esteem rewards he developed to explain the open-source movement. Richard Dawkins
, who originated the concept of meme
s, approvingly cites in the second edition of his book The Selfish Gene
Henson's coining of the neologism memeoids to refer to "victims who have been taken over by a meme to the extent that their own survival becomes inconsequential."
and its critics, often referred to as Scientology versus the Internet
. Henson entered the Scientology conflict when it was at its most heated, in the mid-1990s. In 1996, many of Scientology's secret writings
were released onto the Internet
, and the Church of Scientology embarked on a massive worldwide campaign to keep them from being spread to the general public. Henson examined these writings, entitled New Era Dianetics (NOTS), and from his examination of these secret documents, 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. 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. 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 initiated legal action, but Henson did not retract his claims. He was served with a lawsuit by the church's legal arm, the Religious Technology Center
, (RTC). Henson defended himself. 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. Henson declared bankruptcy
in response to the judgment. Henson began protesting Scientology regularly, standing outside of Scientology's Gold Base
, with a picket sign. The organization sought to obtain a restraining order, which failed.
As a result of this conflict, Henson was charged with three misdemeanor
s under California Law: making criminal threats (California Penal Code section 422), attempting to make criminal threats (California Penal Code section 422, charged pursuant to Penal Code 664, the "general attempt" statute), and threatening to interfere with freedom to enjoy a constitutional privilege. Sheriff’s Detective
Tony Greer, Riverside County
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."
The jury verdict of the trial resulted in Henson being convicted of one of the three charges: "interfering with a religion." This misdemeanor
charge carried a prison term of six months. On the other two charges, the jury did not agree. Ken Hoden, the general manager of Golden Era Productions
(the Church of Scientology's film production facility), claimed that Scientology's allegations against Henson had nothing to do with Scientology's Fair Game
policy, and that no such policy existed.
Henson stated his belief that if he went to prison, his life would be placed in jeopardy. Rather than serve his sentence, Henson chose to enter Canada
and apply for political asylum
. Henson lived quietly in Brantford for three years while he awaited the decision. His request was ultimately denied and, in 2005, he was ordered to present himself for deportation and transfer to US authorities. Instead, Henson fled to the United States and later presented himself to the Canadian consulate in Detroit. He then settled in Prescott, Arizona where he remained for two years until his arrest in 2007 by Arizona authorities.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
, as well as Henson's supporters on the USENET
newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, say that his trial was biased, unfair and a mockery of justice. Henson was prohibited by the trial judge, for example, from arguing that copying documents for the purpose of criticism is fair use
. Henson's location as of February 3, 2007 was the Yavapai Detention Center in Prescott, Arizona
, awaiting possible extradition to Riverside County, California
. At the "initial appearance" hearing on February 5, 2007, Henson stated through counsel that he was fighting extradition and requested release.
Judge Lindberg set a court date for March 5, 2007 in the Prescott Justice Court, and fixed the security for release at $7,500 cash or bond, with standard conditions. Henson's release on bond was secured. In spite of these distractions, Henson finished a space elevator
presentation for a European Space Agency conference. The paper was presented by proxy on February 28, 2007.http://www.congrex.nl/06a12/
The extradition hearing for Henson was postponed to May 8, 2007, at the request of Henson's attorney and the County attorney. At his release from jail, Henson was handed paper work from Riverside County, including a warrant from September 15, 2000. At the May 8, 2007 hearing, Henson was presented with an arrest warrant, and returned to jail. In 2007, Henson was jailed in Riverside, California for "using threats of force to interfere with another's exercise of civil rights". He was released in early September 2007.
1998
2001
2007
Bibliographical
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
electrical engineer and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
on life extension
Life extension
Life extension science, also known as anti-aging medicine, experimental gerontology, and biomedical gerontology, is the study of slowing down or reversing the processes of aging to extend both the maximum and average lifespan...
, cryonics
Cryonics
Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology...
, memetics
Memetics
Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a "unit of...
and evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...
.
In 1975, he and his then-wife Carolyn Meinel
Carolyn Meinel
Carolyn P. Meinel was notable in the hacking scene during the 1990s. Her books and website, called The Happy Hacker, are dedicated to a style known as script kiddie hacking...
founded the L5 Society
L5 Society
The L5 Society was founded in 1975 by Carolyn and Keith Henson to promote the space colony ideas of Dr Gerard K. O'Neill.The name comes from the and Lagrangian points in the Earth-Moon system proposed as locations for the huge rotating space habitats that Dr O'Neill envisioned...
, which promoted space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
and which was eventually folded into the National Space Society
National Space Society
The National Space Society is an international nonprofit 501, educational, and scientific organization specializing in space advocacy...
. More recently, Henson's outspoken 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...
and subsequent criminal proceedings have gained him headlines.
Early influences
Keith Henson was raised as an "army brat” attending seven schools before 7th grade. His father, Lt. Col. Howard W. Henson (1909–2001), was a decorated US ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
officer who spent much of his career in Army Intelligence. The science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
played a major role in influencing his early life. Henson graduated from Prescott High School
Prescott High School (Arizona)
Prescott High School is a public high school located in Yavapai County, Arizona, serving the Prescott Unified School District. Historically, Prescott High School drew students from various adjacent School Districts, mostly in Prescott Valley , and Chino Valley, Arizona , via bussing...
shortly after his father retired, before attending the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
and receiving a degree in Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
.
Druid prank
Henson was known at the University of Arizona as one of the founders of the DruidDruid
A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age....
Student Center, where a campus humor newspaper, The Frumious Bandersnatch was published in the late 1960s. He later cited an incident that occurred in his student days as a good example of memetic replication
Memetics
Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a "unit of...
. When asked to fill in a form that required him to disclose his religious affiliations he wrote Druid. His prank was soon noticed by other students and before long almost 20% of the student body had registered themselves as Reform Druids, Orthodox Druids, Members of the Church of the nth Druid, Zen Druids, Latter-Day Druids and so on. The university was forced to remove the religious affiliation question, breaking the chain of replication and variation.
During much of this period, Henson worked at a geophysics
Geophysics
Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...
company, mostly running induced polarization surveys in the western US and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
. Henson also programmed geophysical type cases and wrote data reduction programs for the company.
Analog engineering
After graduation, Henson went to work for Burr-Brown Research, now merged into Texas InstrumentsTexas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
, in Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
. While there, he worked on extremely low distortion quadrature oscillators and non-linear function modules (multipliers, vector adders and root-mean-square). His first patent was a design for a 4-quadrant log-antilog multiplier. He claims to have been fired (not from Burr-Brown) in 1972 for refusing to certify an electronic module for a nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
plant that failed to meet a required MTBF specification. Henson then set up his own company, Analog Precision Inc., producing specialized computer interface equipment and related industrial control devices.
Henson married his first wife, Carolyn Meinel
Carolyn Meinel
Carolyn P. Meinel was notable in the hacking scene during the 1990s. Her books and website, called The Happy Hacker, are dedicated to a style known as script kiddie hacking...
, in 1967 and they divorced in 1981.
L5 Society
In 1974, Henson's occasional rock climbingRock climbing
Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...
partner, physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
Dr. Dan Jones, introduced him to the space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
work of Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. To promote these ideas, Henson and Meinel founded the L5 Society
L5 Society
The L5 Society was founded in 1975 by Carolyn and Keith Henson to promote the space colony ideas of Dr Gerard K. O'Neill.The name comes from the and Lagrangian points in the Earth-Moon system proposed as locations for the huge rotating space habitats that Dr O'Neill envisioned...
in 1975.
Henson co-wrote papers for three Space Manufacturing conferences at Princeton. The 1977 and 1979 papers were co-authored with Eric Drexler. Patents were issued on both subjects—vapor phase fabrication and space radiators.
In 1980, Henson testified before the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
when the L5 Society successfully opposed the Moon Treaty
Moon Treaty
The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, better known as the Moon Treaty or Moon Agreement, is an international treaty that turns jurisdiction of all celestial bodies over to the international community...
. The society was represented by Leigh Ratiner (later a figure in the Inslaw
Inslaw
Inslaw, Inc. is a small, Washington, D.C.-based, information technology company. In the mid-1970s, Inslaw developed for the United States Department of Justice a highly efficient, people-tracking, software program known as: Prosecutor's Management Information System...
proceedings). The experience eventually became an article, Star Laws, jointly written by Henson and Arel Lucas and published in Reason Magazine.
Cryonics
In 1985, having been convinced by Eric Drexler that nanotechnologyNanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
provided a route to make it work, Henson, his wife, and their two-year old daughter signed up with Alcor
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, most often referred to as Alcor, is a Scottsdale, Arizona, USA-based nonprofit company that researches, advocates for and performs cryonics, the preservation of humans in liquid nitrogen after legal death, with hopes of restoring them to full health when new...
for cryonic suspension. Henson's daughter was the youngest member ever signed up to Alcor. Following the Dora Kent
Dora Kent
Dora Kent was the object of a 1988 legal controversy about whether she had been murdered to facilitate her cryonic suspension. She was Alcor's eighth patient and the oldest at that time to ever be cryopreserved. She was the mother of Saul Kent, a board member of Alcor...
problems, Henson became increasingly active with Alcor. After Alcor had to freeze their chief surgeon, he learned enough surgery to put several cryonics patients on cardiac bypass. He also wrote a column for Alcor’s magazine, Cryonics, for a few years.
In that same year, Henson moved to Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
, consulting for a number of firms, and eventually debugging garbage collection software for the last stage of Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu have declared it an improvement over the World Wide Web, with mission statement: "Today's popular software simulates paper...
. He was still working for the company that bought the Xanadu license when Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin tried to destroy
Scientology versus the Internet
"Scientology versus the Internet" refers to a number of disputes relating to the Church of Scientology's efforts to suppress material critical of Scientology on the Internet through the use of lawsuits and legal threats. In late 1994, the Church of Scientology began using various legal tactics to...
the news group 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...
. and later e-mailed legal warnings to participants who had quoted as few as six lines of Scientology texts.
Memetics
Henson's wife, Arel Lucas, was credited by Douglas HofstadterDouglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
in Metamagical Themas
Metamagical Themas
Metamagical Themas is a collection of eclectic articles written for Scientific American during the early 1980s by Douglas Hofstadter, and published together as a book in 1985 by Basic Books ....
for suggesting the study of memes be called memetics. Henson wrote two articles on memes in 1987, one published in Analog. The other, Memes, MetaMemes and Politics, circulated on the internet before being printed. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990753,00.html
Eric S. Raymond
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
, a long-time friend of Henson's, saw one of the early drafts of a later paper on cults, memes and religion and has publicly credited it as an influence on the theory of peer-esteem rewards he developed to explain the open-source movement. Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, who originated the concept of meme
Meme
A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
s, approvingly cites in the second edition of his book The Selfish Gene
The Selfish Gene
The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins coined the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the...
Henson's coining of the neologism memeoids to refer to "victims who have been taken over by a meme to the extent that their own survival becomes inconsequential."
Scientology
Henson has become one of the focal points of the ongoing struggle between the Church of ScientologyChurch 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...
and its critics, often referred to as Scientology versus the Internet
Scientology versus the Internet
"Scientology versus the Internet" refers to a number of disputes relating to the Church of Scientology's efforts to suppress material critical of Scientology on the Internet through the use of lawsuits and legal threats. In late 1994, the Church of Scientology began using various legal tactics to...
. Henson entered the Scientology conflict when it was at its most heated, in the mid-1990s. In 1996, many of Scientology's secret writings
Scientology beliefs and practices
Scientology is defined as a set of beliefs written by founder L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology describes itself as the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others, and all of life...
were released onto the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, and the Church of Scientology embarked on a massive worldwide campaign to keep them from being spread to the general public. Henson examined these writings, entitled New Era Dianetics (NOTS), and from his examination of these secret documents, claimed that Scientology was committing medical fraud
Quackery
Quackery is a derogatory term used to describe the promotion of unproven or fraudulent medical practices. Random House Dictionary describes a "quack" as a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, or...
. The NOTS documents, he said, contained detailed instructions for the treatment of physical ailments and illnesses through the use of Scientology practices. A Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
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
E-meter
An E-meter is an electronic device used during Dianetics and Scientology auditing. The device is a variation of a Wheatstone bridge, which measures electrical resistance and skin conductance. It is formally known as the Hubbard Electrometer, for the Church's founder, L. Ron Hubbard...
device "does nothing" and does not cure any physical ailments. 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
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup alt.religion.scientology.
The Church of Scientology immediately initiated legal action, but Henson did not retract his claims. He was served with a lawsuit by the church's legal arm, the Religious Technology Center
Religious Technology Center
The Religious Technology Center is a Californian non-profit corporation. RTC was founded in 1982 by the Church of Scientology in order to control and oversee the use of all of the trademarks, symbols and texts of Scientology and Dianetics, including the copyrighted works of Scientology founder and...
, (RTC). Henson defended himself. After a lengthy court battle involving massive amounts of paperwork, Henson was found guilty of copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
. He was ordered to pay $75,000 in fines. Henson declared bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
in response to the judgment. Henson began protesting Scientology regularly, standing outside of Scientology's Gold Base
Gold Base
The Gold Base is the international headquarters of the Church of Scientology on a parcel of land in unincorporated Riverside County, California, outside of San Jacinto, and north of Hemet....
, with a picket sign. The organization sought to obtain a restraining order, which failed.
As a result of this conflict, Henson was charged with three misdemeanor
Misdemeanor
A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
s under California Law: making criminal threats (California Penal Code section 422), attempting to make criminal threats (California Penal Code section 422, charged pursuant to Penal Code 664, the "general attempt" statute), and threatening to interfere with freedom to enjoy a constitutional privilege. Sheriff’s Detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
Tony Greer, Riverside County
Riverside County, California
Riverside County is a county in the U.S. state of California. One of 58 California counties, it covers in the southern part of the state, and stretches from Orange County to the Colorado River, which forms the state border with Arizona. The county derives its name from the city of Riverside,...
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."
The jury verdict of the trial resulted in Henson being convicted of one of the three charges: "interfering with a religion." This misdemeanor
Misdemeanor
A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
charge carried a prison term of six months. On the other two charges, the jury did not agree. Ken Hoden, the general manager of Golden Era Productions
Golden Era Productions
Golden Era Productions is an organization operated by the Church of Scientology that produces promotional material for the Church's membership, as well as many of the restored lectures, E-meters, training films and other materials related to the works of church founder L...
(the Church of Scientology's film production facility), claimed that Scientology's allegations against Henson had nothing to do with Scientology's Fair Game
Fair Game (Scientology)
The term Fair Game is used to describe policies and practices carried out by the Church of Scientology towards people and groups it perceives as its enemies. Founder L. Ron Hubbard established the policy in the 1960s, in response to criticism both from within and outside his organization...
policy, and that no such policy existed.
Henson stated his belief that if he went to prison, his life would be placed in jeopardy. Rather than serve his sentence, Henson chose to enter Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and apply for political asylum
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
. Henson lived quietly in Brantford for three years while he awaited the decision. His request was ultimately denied and, in 2005, he was ordered to present himself for deportation and transfer to US authorities. Instead, Henson fled to the United States and later presented himself to the Canadian consulate in Detroit. He then settled in Prescott, Arizona where he remained for two years until his arrest in 2007 by Arizona authorities.
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...
, as well as Henson's supporters on the USENET
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, say that his trial was biased, unfair and a mockery of justice. Henson was prohibited by the trial judge, for example, from arguing that copying documents for the purpose of criticism is 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...
. Henson's location as of February 3, 2007 was the Yavapai Detention Center in Prescott, Arizona
Prescott, Arizona
Prescott is a city in Yavapai County, Arizona, USA. It was designated "Arizona's Christmas City" by Arizona Governor Rose Mofford in the late 1980s....
, awaiting possible extradition to Riverside County, California
Riverside County, California
Riverside County is a county in the U.S. state of California. One of 58 California counties, it covers in the southern part of the state, and stretches from Orange County to the Colorado River, which forms the state border with Arizona. The county derives its name from the city of Riverside,...
. At the "initial appearance" hearing on February 5, 2007, Henson stated through counsel that he was fighting extradition and requested release.
Judge Lindberg set a court date for March 5, 2007 in the Prescott Justice Court, and fixed the security for release at $7,500 cash or bond, with standard conditions. Henson's release on bond was secured. In spite of these distractions, Henson finished a space elevator
Space elevator
A space elevator, also known as a geostationary orbital tether or a beanstalk, is a proposed non-rocket spacelaunch structure...
presentation for a European Space Agency conference. The paper was presented by proxy on February 28, 2007.http://www.congrex.nl/06a12/
The extradition hearing for Henson was postponed to May 8, 2007, at the request of Henson's attorney and the County attorney. At his release from jail, Henson was handed paper work from Riverside County, including a warrant from September 15, 2000. At the May 8, 2007 hearing, Henson was presented with an arrest warrant, and returned to jail. In 2007, Henson was jailed in Riverside, California for "using threats of force to interfere with another's exercise of civil rights". He was released in early September 2007.
Works
- Henson, H.K., and K.E. Drexler: Vapor-phase Fabrication of Massive Structures in Space, Space Manufacturing AIAA 1977
- 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
- Henson, H.K.: Memes, L5 and the religion of the space colonies. L5 News, September 1985, pp. 5–8.
- Henson, H.K.: More on Memes L5 News, June 1986
- Henson, H.Keith: MEMETICS AND THE MODULAR-MIND Analog August 1987
- Henson, Keith: "Memetics: The Science of Information Viruses". Whole Earth Review no. 57, 1987
- Henson, H. Keith: MegaScale Engineering and Nanotechnology, 1987
- Henson, H. Keith: Memes Meta-Memes and Politics, 1988
- H. Keith Henson and Arel Lucas: Memes, Evolution, and Creationism, 1989,
- H. Keith Henson: Green Rage
- H. Keith Henson: and Arel Lucas: A Theoretical Understanding, 1993
- Keith Henson: Wogs at Cause--Car chases and other modern courtroom phenomena (adapted from the version published in Biased Journalism) Also http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/21/171516/867
- H. Keith Henson: South of the Border at the Road Kill Cafe (Part 1)
- 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
- H. Keith Henson: Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War. Also http://www.mankindquarterly.org/summer2006_henson.html
- H. Keith Henson: A 2000 tonne per day Space Elevator ESA Conference presentation Feb 2007
- H. Keith Henson: http://www.terasemjournals.org/GNJournal/GN0202/henson1.html, The Clinic Seed—Africa.
- Keith Henson: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2007/10/30/18253/301, Tunnel of Love.
- H. Keith Henson: Beamed Energy and the Economics of Space Based Solar Power, Beamed Energy Propulsion: 6th International Symposium, American Inst. of Physics, 2010 ISBN 978-0735407749
- Keith Henson quotes
Further reading
Media/Press mention1998
- Judge OKs picketing of church, The Press-Enterprise, 21 February 1998
- Internet Czar?, Wall Street Journal, 21 July 1998
2001
- Scientology Critic Convicted, 27 April 2001 WiredWired (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...
article on Henson's conviction - Unorthodox Arrest, Enzo Di Matteo, NOW MagazineNOW (magazine)Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
, June 7-June 13, 2001. - Unfair Game: Scientologists get their man, LA WeeklyLA WeeklyLA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
, June 22, 2001
2007
- Scientology Fugitive Arrested, 10 Zen Monkeys, 4 February 2007
- Scientology foe Keith Henson arrested, defense mobilized, Institute for Ethics and Emerging TechnologiesInstitute for Ethics and Emerging TechnologiesThe Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies was founded in 2004 by philosopher Nick Bostrom and bioethicist James Hughes. Incorporated in the United States as a non-profit 501 organization, the IEET is a self-described "technoprogressive think tank" that seeks to contribute to understanding...
, 2007-02-04 - Scientology activist arrested, p2p.net, February 5, 2007
- Scientology Critic Arrested After 6 Years, SlashdotSlashdotSlashdot 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...
, February 5, 2007 - Anti-Scientology Activist Keith Henson Arrested, All Headline NewsAll Headline NewsAll Headline News is a United States based news agency or wire service. Launched in 2003 it has grown to become a major worldwide online news wire service, providing news and other content, to websites, digital signage, and other publishers who pay a fee for the service.The company's daily news...
, February 6, 2007, PrescottPrescott, ArizonaPrescott is a city in Yavapai County, Arizona, USA. It was designated "Arizona's Christmas City" by Arizona Governor Rose Mofford in the late 1980s....
, ArizonaArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix... - 'Tom Cruise' missile jokester arrested, CNET News.com, February 5, 2007, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
- The Tom Cruise Missile, About.comAbout.comAbout.com is an online source for original information and advice. It is written in English, and is aimed primarily at North Americans. It is owned by The New York Times Company....
, February 6, 2007 - Prescott police arrest California fugitive, The Daily Courier, Yavapai CountyYavapai County, Arizona-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*89.3% White*0.6% Black*1.7% Native American*0.8% Asian*0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*2.5% Two or more races*5.0% Other races*13.6% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...
, ArizonaArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, February 6, 2007. - Arizona to extradite Scientology protester to Riverside County, The Press-Enterprise , February 8, 2007, Riverside CountyRiverside County, CaliforniaRiverside County is a county in the U.S. state of California. One of 58 California counties, it covers in the southern part of the state, and stretches from Orange County to the Colorado River, which forms the state border with Arizona. The county derives its name from the city of Riverside,...
, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
External links
Biographical- Keith Henson Information
- Copy of Henson trial transcript
- Electronic Frontier Foundation statement re. Henson process (Internet Archive Mirror of press release's original location on the EFF website)
- Exile on Meme Street - Keith Henson Talks about Memetics, Evolutionary Psychology and Scientology
Bibliographical