Alt.religion.scientoiogy is not like, say, a bookstore or some similar physical "place" that can be located, boarded up, and its operators hauled into court; like the Internet itself, it has no owner, no operator, no central computer on which it "lives." Usenet groups like
alt.religion.scientology come into existence when someone (like Scott Goehring) sends a proposal to establish the group to the specific newsgroup (named "
alt.config") set up for receiving such proposals.