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Wikileaks Airs Scientology Black Ops

Posted by kdawson on Tue Mar 11, 2008 07:25 PM
from the no-fair-game dept.
Censorship
An anonymous reader alerts us to new material up on Wikileaks: 208 scanned pages (in one PDF) relating to the Church of Scientology and its former "Office of Special Affairs" employee (and subsequent apostate) Frank Oliver. "The documents are dated between 1986 and 1992 inclusive, when, according to the file, Frank Oliver was declared a 'suppressive person' and excommunicated. Frank Oliver should be able to verify the material and has appeared in the media before on subjects relating to the church. Starting on page 107, the document shows that at the time of writing the Church of Scientology was still actively engaged in black propaganda (especially concerning psychiatry), 'fair game' and infiltration."
+ -
story

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Submission: Wikileaks: Office of Special Affairs - Black Ops by Anonymous Coward
[+] News: Scientology's Credibility Questioned Over Video Channel 450 comments
stonyandcher writes to share that the Church of Scientology has come under fire for some items on their recently launched video channel. Most notably, claims have been leveled that dignitaries in one of their videos were faked and at least one of the people featured in the video is claiming their statements were taken out of context.
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  • Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Carnildo (712617) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:27PM (#22723750) Homepage Journal
    Make sure you get your copy before the Scientologists take the site down.

    • slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)

      by EmbeddedJanitor (597831) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:30PM (#22723772)
      I bet this is a Scientology plot to overload wikileaks.

            • Re:slashdotted (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Detritus (11846) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @11:12PM (#22725108) Homepage
              They survived the aftermath of Operation "Snow White" with no long-term consequences.

              • Re:slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)

                by fishbowl (7759) <nethack.cox@net> on Wednesday March 12 2008, @12:38AM (#22725512)

                >They survived the aftermath of Operation "Snow White" with no long-term consequences.

                Several people were tried, convicted, and served lengthy prison sentences, putting the church in
                the public eye and simultaneously making it a laughingstock. One long-term consequence was that
                the media exposure about the church reached the attention of one Ivan Stang, inspiring him to start
                a competing scam religious cult company.

      • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)

        by aarggh (806617) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:58PM (#22724002)
        The official course of action for COS in cases like these is set down by elron himself, basically sue, sue, harass, and then sue some more regardless of winning or losing. And unfortunately they have so much sway that sending multiple C&D's to sites/ISP's will cause most sites to drop any links or references anyway as they are too intimidated by the COS. Note that by "COS" I am of course referring to the "Cult of Scientology", as no-one could ever confuse this group with any modern day religion!

          • If I asked you what you believe, you would point me to materials I can read, tell me yourself, or point me to someone else who can explain it better.

            Scientology forces you to pay lots of money and undergo questionable interrogations before they will trust you to with their secrets. By which point you have made a huge emotional and financial investment. So it's unlikely you would question what you are being told anyway.

          • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Marful (861873) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @09:35PM (#22724554)
            Probably because it is classed as a "Cult" and not a "Religion" due to the secretive nature of the core teachings, ceremonies, inner workings, etc, etc.

            Oh and the fact that the "founder" pretty much straight up acknowledges that he made up the fictitious "religion" *cough*Cult*cough* to sell books and make money.

              • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Informative)

                by FooAtWFU (699187) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @11:17PM (#22725148) Homepage

                • It's a cult if its founder is still alive, or is recently dead.
                • It's a religion if the founder has been dead so long that his adherents have had time to rewrite his character.
                • (In no case is any of it rational, practical, or efficient. Religion is for those who are insufficiently honest to build their own philosophy.)

                A cult, in other words, has elements of personality-worship in it. Religions are old enough to claim that the founder's personality could not have unduly influenced their membership.

                The Cult Information Centre [cultinformation.org.uk] describes it as such:

                • It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
                • It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
                • Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
                • It believes 'the end justifies the means' in order to solicit funds recruit people.
                • Its wealth does not benefit its members or society.
                (Project Clambake, likewise, quotes this list.)

                In my opinion, a lot of it is a matter of a qualitative differences in what they do. There's a number of things. Some people in certain religions will try to bring you back if you leave. Cults, on the other hand, may blackmail, harass or threaten people who try to depart. Many religions ask for money; Scientology asks for money, and spends it on lawsuits against its critics. Many religions have people who approach you on the street and tell you that you need to convert or $badstuff (with varying degrees of pushiness). Scientology sets up a table with a "Free Stress Test" (presumably designed to be rather Scientific-looking) first to attract passerbys, then when you test positive for stress they try to sell you various courses, then ease into the dogma later.

          • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)

            by aarggh (806617) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @09:54PM (#22724666)
            Without starting a flame war on who has the best imaginary friend, and while there are many valid points raised as to the validity of reilgion with regards to suicide bombings, hangings, etc, I should have generalized more along the lines of "modern day, somewhat civilized" religions. In other words religions that over the millennium have evolved from the original (somewhat fairly hideous and violent) sect beginnings to what most western based religions are now, which for all their faults generally try to be a positive source of strength and support in todays society. Unlike specifically the money making machine that is the COS built on a Sci-Fi story as part of a bet, that routinely victimises and harasses any form of opposition, sometimes to their deaths. Thanks to living in democracies, people can voice their opinion that the COS is being picked on, or question how is it different to any modern day religion, and so on, but I would not expect that the vast majority of people in the western world would even remotely consider suicide bombings, hangings, persecution, etc, to be the norm in religion. And for that same reason, I don't think it unreasonable to consider the "documented and recorded" behaviour and practices of the COS falls most certainly more into the organised cult area than a western based church. Especially given that people have no excuse to not know more about COS with the release of large amounts of information legally and illegaly. Sometimes people confuse playing Devil's Advocate with being pedantic.

                  • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)

                    by geekboy642 (799087) on Wednesday March 12 2008, @02:47AM (#22725930) Journal
                    Anybody that shoots up a school is a person who has severe mental issues.

                    People with severe mental issues are frequently prescribed drugs to try to alleviate those issues.

                    Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation. In fact the most recent school shooting I can remember occurred when the shooter stopped taking his drugs and regressed to a much worse state. Clearly the drugs were at least holding his psychosis in check while he was taking them. To put your statement in a clearer light, "the 9-11 hijackers took aspirin when they had head-aches! Ban aspirin, it causes hijackers!"

          • The story from the beginning (Score:5, Funny)

            by symbolset (646467) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @10:32PM (#22724884) Journal

            At the dining room table, two couples playing bridge:

            LRH: My books aren't selling. Who makes the most popular books?

            RAH: The Boy Scouts. After that the Q'uran and the Bible.

            LRH: Religion sure sells a lot of books.

            RAH: Yeah, I thought about writing out some book for that a while back. I turned it into a short story "Gulf".

            LRH: I don't think you could do it with a short story. All the big religions have high word counts. I would think a trilogy at least.

            RAH: I could do it in one book.

            LRH: I bet a dollar I could do it better than you.

            RAH: Done and done. Now shuffle the cards.

            ... Three years later ...

            LRH: Can you believe it? I've got groupies! They worship me!

            RAH: You can have mine too if you want them. They're camped on the lawn. They're scaring Ginny. Here's your buck. The bet's over.

            LRH: Win!

            RAH: Whatever. Shuffle the cards.

          • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Insightful)

            by budgenator (254554) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @11:10PM (#22725090) Journal
            Modern day religions typically have a single benevolent deity the is normally credited with creation that extols it's followers to behave in a moral and kindly manner. Scientologist on the other hand behave as others are either prey (even their own) or minions, and they have no deity.
            Modern religions have a theology or a philosophy and they actively share that with their peers and others, while a particular translation of a religions holy book may be copyrighted, the original is not, a person can typically obtain the holy book of any modern religion simply by asking; scientology text are copyrighted and the copyrights, trademarks and servicemarks are vigorously defended, the only way to legally obtain scientology texts are to purchase them and not even the CoS members in good standing have access to the totality of the "religion" Scientology is secretive rather than open like modern religions. Scientology just doesn't fit any definition of religion that applies to modern religions, it's a form of shammanism or which doctor-ism where only the annoited have the secret knowledge reveled to them who then shake their beads and rattles for the unwashed masses.

            • In Church of Scientology, God is You! (Score:5, Informative)

              by Cheesey (70139) on Wednesday March 12 2008, @05:50AM (#22726496)
              (Sorry.) But that's part of the teaching. You've got all these godlike powers, telekinesis for example, and your thetans are the only thing stopping you from using them. You can get rid of your thetans by giving the CoS all of your money for the rest of your life, and if you are sufficiently committed to the church, maybe one day you will be as magical as LRH. And then you'll never really die. Your entire life is a small price to pay for the chance of being a God.

              This is pretty similar to other religious claims, I think. It covers all the basic tickboxes: "you are more important than non-believers", "you get everlasting life" and "you get to be like God". I think it is specifically tuned for extremely arrogant people, though, because there is no notion of God as something better than you, that you can at best only aspire to be like. I think this is a deliberate choice by LRH, who liked hanging around with film stars and seems to have figured out what they wanted to hear:

              LRH: You're the most important guy in the Universe!

              Tom Cruise: I already knew that, L. Ron. Have some more of my money!

          • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Interesting)

            by modecx (130548) on Wednesday March 12 2008, @12:11AM (#22725396)
            I'm curious; why wouldn't you confuse it with a religion?

            1) All real religions will gladly tell you what they're about before hand. 2) No real religion will brainwash you into mortgaging your house. 3) No real religion protects their materials by copyright, so they can do #2, and use the law to squelch leaks and critics. 4) No real religion will make you disconnect from your friends and family, so you will have nobody to instill some sense into you--and stop you from doing #2. 5) All real religions on this planet are inclusive, instead of exclusive.

            I could go on and on (and on and on), but I really don't want fingertip blisters pointing out stuff that's obvious to the un-brainwashed masses after they've completed about 10 minutes of research (2 of which might be clicking on google links).

            What is a 'modern day' religion?

            I'm guessing he means any religion that is widely practiced, and has evolved enough to be generally accepted as (at least) "mostly not evil" by most people (especially by most who don't practice that particular religion). For instance, there's plenty of passages from the old testament, and all of the Abrahamic traditions, which are not generally acknowledged as being things which apply to the modern world; and extremists who believe these things are generally shunned from the mainstream of their own religion. Islam is probably the one exception to the last part, because Islamic extremists are often heroes within their communities. So, whatever.

            That scientology eventually teaches the idea that some Xenu character planted frosty dead people and hydrogen bombs in the Worlds' volcanoes, and that they have these ghosts stuck to them doesn't particularly enrage most of the scientology critics I know; it's their abuses and covertly hostile nature that disturbs them, and me. Fact is, that part isn't all that much different from other equally silly stories religions teach.

            Still, the fact that it was dreamed up by some twice divorced sea-faring, drugged up satanic NAMBLA perv, is a lot less noble than the supposed origins of the other religions... And scientology makes it out that LRH was a 7' tall descendant of European nobility, who shot rainbows and unicorns out of his ass. So, because of that, add this to my list: 6) It's easily demonstrable that a) the people who run scientology are either purely malevolent because of the lies and contradictions in their teachings, or b) they're incredibly incompetent nincompoops who couldn't find their asses with both hands.

              • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Interesting)

                by MoriaOrc (822758) on Wednesday March 12 2008, @05:21AM (#22726384)
                Consider this difference:

                When Bin Laden calls for a Jihad against the US, we can say that it isn't Islam that's at fault, because the religion of Islam itself grants no inherent authority to Bin Laden, he simply twists some of its teachings.

                However, if the Pope were to call for a Crusade and start up a new Inquisition, and Catholics (or at least enough of them) were to go along with him, we would be more justified holding Catholicism at fault. It teaches obedience to the Pope and its core leadership would have initiated the action.

                You can certainly separate the religion from its followers. However, with Scientology you have a situation where the leadership of the church practices abusive actions against individuals, the majority of its followers go along with the abusive practices of the leadership (or are unaware of them), and the teachings of the church often call for those abusive practices. It's because of this that many people lay the blame on the church as a whole.

          • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Informative)

            by ArcherB (796902) * on Tuesday March 11 2008, @09:56PM (#22724688) Journal

            Scientology doesn't use hangings or suicide bombings to silence their critics and apostates.
            Are you sure [wordpress.com]?

            Follow this link (http://youtube.com/watch?v=LYnu5Q6ONbo#) to see ex-members speak about their experiences with Scientology. Included among the commentors are the author who was framed for bomb threats and attempted to have put in a mental institution, and a former Scientologist Internal Security officer who spent 4 years spying on, intimidating, threatening, and attempting to ruin the lives of those who would criticize the "Church". In this video, ex-members accuse the organization of mind control techniques, totalitarianism, manipulation, and various forms of terrorism

      • Re:Get 'em while they're hot (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2008, @08:16PM (#22724114)
        I wonder if they'll care if they do. They're set up in many different countries with mirrors across the world for a reason - because they *expect* every organization they mention to try to shut them down. Won't work. The cult might bring down a server or two, but they'll just pop back up as quickly as they can and in the mean time alternate servers will take the burden.

        I know the cult is sue-happy and has successes under its belt, but wikileaks is set up *specifically* for this. The documents are out, they're on servers worldwide already, and a dozen bit torrents as well. There is no way to suppress this even if they were to somehow take down all of wikileaks.

  • Remember what happened last time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sgtron (35704) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:30PM (#22723770)
    Do a google search for slashdot deleted posts scientology, and see what comes up.

  • Here come da judge! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot (19622) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:31PM (#22723782)
    Bet that won't result in any legal harassment.

  • Anonymous marches March 15. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:34PM (#22723808)
    Anonymous marches on March 15, the "March of Ides".

    Are you going to be there? Find the closest church and be there! [enturbulation.org]

    It is your civic duty. I hope to march alongside you.

  • On a completely unrelated note... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:45PM (#22723902)
    My friends and I walked into the London scientology building while drunk and demanded a stress test. We were turned away. Truly the lowpoint in my life when not even Scientology wants me :

    • You've given me an idea for a wicked prank (Score:5, Funny)

      by Weaselmancer (533834) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @10:58PM (#22725020)

      An eMeter [wikipedia.org] is really just a wheatstone bridge, right? All they're really doing is just measuring your resistance by inducing a tiny current through you.

      Go into one of these centers and have them hook you up. Lick your other palm and every so often jam a 9v battery against it. Screw with the guy's mind. Keep twitching the needle at just the right time and see if you can convince them you're L. Ron reincarnated or something like that.

      If you're really good, make some sort of a Van de Graff generator and use it to build up a gigantic static charge on you before you get hooked up. See if you can actually bust the thing.

  • Passed the test, going for the brass ring (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JavaRob (28971) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:46PM (#22723916) Homepage Journal
    Maybe they figure that now they've cut their teeth on a big player (and they came out on top, eventually) they can tackle the big guys. I won't be fun, though... Scientology doesn't play by the same rules as normal corporations with rational customers. They fight as dirty as possible; tactics that would easily sink a normal business if they got out are business as usual, and they don't pretend otherwise to their members; they just made it part of their belief system that it's morally okay to use any means necessary to stop their detractors.

    This is probably the best time to do it, though, while WikiLeaks still has quite a lot of active attention because of the Julius Baer legal business.

    I just hope they didn't waste some of that capital calling for the eNom boycott [slashdot.org]. Not exactly the same level of "evil"....

    But I guess we'll see, either way. Stay tuned -- same bat-time, same bat-channel!

  • This is hilarious (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2008, @07:53PM (#22723960)
    Check out how the contract begins:

    I FRANK OLIVER DO HEREBY AGREE to enter into employment with the SEA ORGANIZATION and, being of sound mind, do fully realize and agree to abide by its purpose which is to get ETHICS IN on this PLANET AND THE UNIVERSE and, fully and without reservation, subscribe to the discipline, mores and conditions of this group and pledge to abide by them.

    THEREFORE, I CONTRACT MYSELF TO THE SEA ORGANIZATION FOR THE NEXT BILLION YEARS.
    being of sound mind...CONTRACT MYSELF FOR THE NEXT NEXT BILLION YEARS... :)

  • As the original submitter... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2008, @08:13PM (#22724096)

    As the original submitter of the article, I'd like to mention that it is the now the second Wikileaks held set of documents for Scientology. Though I must apologize for the badly written rushed body of the firehose article, it's the linked content that is important :

    Citizens Commission on Human Rights" (CCHR) exposed as an illegal Scientology front. [slashdot.org] exposes their LEAF (Letter to the Editor ATTACK Force) campaign, and illegal govt lobbying.

    Many apologize to the Wikileaks admins for the /. effect, but this news HAD to be made public.

    To the $clilos - Disclaimer - I did not personally leak these documents, nor did Slashdot, I'm merely posting legal links.

    The peaceful protests of Anonymous against the CoS are also legal. Anonymous is ONLY protesting the CoS organization, no other religion and not religious beliefs themselves. There is a campaign of fabricating/doctoring Anonymous protest images and footage to try to frame Anonymous for anti-religious protests (they started by attempting to attack the Vatican): take a guess at who might want to be doing that!

    Rather worrying, a similar anti Anonymous "ad hominem" attack force is trying to re-define the cake meme from the game Portal into one about underage pornography.

    PS. Everything I post is posted via strings of proxies and most importantly Tor !
    (wish it was faster, and didn't have so many problems with slashdot, lol)

  • Send them to Venus (Score:5, Funny)

    by SlashWombat (1227578) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @08:16PM (#22724116)
    Easily fixed. First we modify all the old DC3's we can get our hands on by adding shuttle solid fuel boosters. Then we dress up as Aliens ...
    We then encourage all the COS members to migrate to Venus to separate them from the unclean non-believers.
    IMHO, COS members are all "B Ark" material anyway!

  • This is quite scary (Score:5, Informative)

    by Monsuco (998964) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @09:27PM (#22724492) Homepage

    In the case of a bad article which is signed, use the following procedures

    1. Tell them by letter to restract the statement at once.

    2. Hire a private investigator of the national type to investigate the writer not the magazine and get any criminal or communist background the man has. ...

    3. Have your lawyers or solicitors write the magazines threatening suit. (Hardly ever permit a real suit - there more of a nuisance than their worth.)

    4. Use the data you got off the detective at long last to write the author a very tantalizing letter. Don't give him your data on him. Just tell him we know something very interesting about him and wouldn't he like to come in and talk about it. (If he comes ask him to sign a confession of collusion and slander - people at that level often will just to commit suicide - and publish it as a paid ad in the paper if you get it.) Chances are he won't arrive but he's sure to shudder in silence.

    5. Give the data you got from your detective to your lawyers to use against the magazine.

    6. Don't let the matter upset you, take much time, or disrupt the central organization.

    This is on page 100. Page 101 talks about "punishment". Pg. 116 explains a conspiracy theory about why government attacks religion.It appears there is a long list of conspiracies that Scientology has about the government. They talk about the constant need to deal with enemies, they seem more paranoid than Nixon, and with a longer enemies list. Pg. 148 has information about the need to attack. Pg. 149 rants about how Scientology is victimized by a conspiracy of public opinion, government, and media. I mentioned an enemy list, pg 165-206 is just that. Pg. 208 discusses Oliver's "crimes".

    This is scarier than any horror film ever could be. Thank god Wikileaks. Kudos to Frank Oliver.

    • Re:This is quite scary (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kestasjk (933987) on Wednesday March 12 2008, @01:40AM (#22725734) Homepage
      Page 99:

      None of us like to judge or punish. Yet we may be the only people on Earth with a right to punish

      Guilt is established by a person's actions and statements, by witnesses and written evidence and by an expertly run E-meter
      Page 100:

      If he comes, ask him to sign a confession of collusion and slander - people at that level often will, just to commit suicide - and publish it in a paid ad in a paper if you get it

      Tell the detective "We don't care if they know you're investigating them for us. In fact, the louder the better."

      When to Sue
      Never if you can help it. It consumes time, means little but trouble for you. Suits are basically best as threats.
      Page 101:

      At this instance there are men hiding in terror on Earth because they found out what they were attacking. There are men dead because they attacked us - for instance Dr. Joe Winter. He simply realized what he did and died. There are men bankrupt because they attacked us

      But if you do put the wrong head on a pike, be sure to put it back on the body again as soon as the need for its being on a pike is over
      Page 102:

      It is mercy to put the padlock on such a person's activities. Every word he says or writes against us, every plot he enters into, alike punish him further and further down
      How bad can it get? We have evidence in a book Dr. Winder wrote. He knew it consisted of stolen ideas and enthete lies. Every code it sold killed him a little more. And one day he died
      Page 103:

      It's a relief for a bad case to be punished. Sometimes they choose us for their executioners - worse luck
      Page 107:

      2. By having high-toned investigators who have no possibility of being blackmailed, we can make up in effectiveness what we at this time lack in numbers.

      L. Ron Hubbard
      Wow.. I started out by cherry picking the juicy parts, but once Hubbard's memos start appearing it's pretty much all juicy.. Black propaganda--Hubbard, The genus of insane governments--Hubbard, Why governments attack religion--Hubbard

      Look at the situation. Every time the enemy offers an attack, you defend against it and that is all you do. Any castle, to hold out, has got to sortie. The proper strategy for any battle is to find a weak point in the enemy lines and attack it.

      The reason the United States is losing against communism is simply on these same mathematics. That they are losing is patent. All they are doing is defending the points attacked.
      We are lucky Hubbard was a sci-fi writer and didn't go on to become a politician.. I would have like to see his handling of the Cuba missile crisis going by the above logic..

      I can see the parallels of religion to CoS, but I have to say this goes way beyond any religion. Nothing other than a cult would write such aggressive, practical advice on silencing critics as this. With Immams declaring fatwahs at least that's not actually an officially sanctioned part of Islam, with Scientology it is.

      I think all the media attention will eventually kill scientology. Hearing about "Xenu" has been worse for Scientology than hearing about even the worst silencing of critics, blackmail, and manslaughter.

  • Best parts start on page 100 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Scareduck (177470) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @09:35PM (#22724552) Homepage Journal
    I got a copy of the PDF from the Bittorrent posted upthread, and the best part is on page 100 (so far), talking about dealing with lawsuits ("Never if you can help it"), what to do when being investigated ("don't co-operate"), and how to deal with "entheta press":

    1. Tell them by letter to retract at once in the next issue.
    2. Hire a private detective to investigate the writer ...
    3. Have your lawyers or solicitors write the magazine threatening suit ...
    4. Use the data you got from the detective (!!) at long last to write the author of the article a very tantalizing letter. Don't give him your data on him. Just tell him we know something very interesting about him and wouldn't he like to come in and talk about it. (If he comes, ask him to sign a confession of collusion and slander -- people at that level often will, just to commit suicide -- and publish it in a paid ad in a paper if you get it.) Chances are he won't arrive. But he'll sure shudder into silence.

  • Daughters of Scientology's top brass speaking out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2008, @09:56PM (#22724676)
    Three girls who are ex-scientology kids have come forward and started a website about the issues with Scientology. (Not bad looking either). One is Jenna Miscavige Hill (niece of David Miscavige, the current head of Scientology). Another is Kendra Wiseman, who is the daughter of the current head of CCHR (Scilon front group).

    http://www.exscientologykids.com/admins.html [exscientologykids.com]

    The stories of all three are quite fascinating in terms of getting a look on the inside.

  • This shows Germany was 100% right to ban them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by golodh (893453) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @11:05PM (#22725062)
    I have heard a lot of (fairly uninformed) criticism of Germany's decision to outlaw the Scientology sect.

    However, with the Fishman affidavit, the whole case concerning Karin Spaink (see http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/home.html [xs4all.nl]), and now this I feel strengthened in my support for the decision of the German government to outlaw this sect.

    Regrettably it doesn't work like that in the US. We gave them the tax-exempt status of "church" instead.

    • Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dbIII (701233) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @08:46PM (#22724298)

      I'm wondering why it is that Slashdot continues to post so many negative stories about Scientology

      Because Scientology took legal action against Slashdot on what appeared to be a trivial matter. I do not think any other group has taken legal action against Slashdot in it's ten years of operation.

    • I wonder why... (Score:5, Informative)

      by deesine (722173) on Tuesday March 11 2008, @08:55PM (#22724338)
      your very first comment on /. is to ask why /. hates CoS?

      -

    • Re:Slashdot vs. Scientology? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 11 2008, @09:06PM (#22724378)
      (Hello, Article submitter here again)

      users first post , check (not always the case but very common)
      'witch hunt' comment, check
      'bigotry' comment, check

      *CoS countermeasures 101 detected.*

      'cyber terrorists' comment expected soon
      'ad hominem' attacks, coming 'real soon now'.

      Slashdot posts what people submit, it gets front paged if enough people care about the story and vote it up.

      With Scientology stories it takes a hell of a lot more people voting it up than normal as OSA and the LEAF campaign try to force such things down.

      So the story only makes it if people REALLY care, are interested, and strongly think the story has merit.

      Don't you wonder MAYBE such stories might at least have SOME truth in them if THAT many people are so interested in them even OSA can't keep them down?

      Now you've pondered that for a pico-second enjoy your invasive security 'sec check'.

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