Diskeeper Accused of Scientology Indoctrination 779
touretzky writes "Two ex-employees have sued Diskeeper Corporation in Los Angeles Superior Court after being fired, alleging that the company makes Scientology training a mandatory condition of employment (complaint, PDF). Diskeeper founder and CEO Craig Jensen is a high-level, publicly avowed Scientologist who has given millions to his Church. Diskeeper's surprising response to the lawsuit (PDF) appears to be that religious instruction in a place of employment is protected by the First Amendment." The blogger at RealityBasedCommunity.net believes that the legal mechanism that Diskeeper is using to advance this argument ("motion to strike") is inappropriate and will be disallowed, but that the company will eventually be permitted to present its novel legal theory.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Discrminiation. Period. (Score:5, Insightful)
Diskeeper is not a country club. It's not some sort of fraternal organization of old men in funny hats.
It is a COMPANY. It EMPLOYS People.
Religious preferences, or training has nothing at all to do with the ability to program software. So it's not like some big hairy dude getting mad since the strip club won't let him on the pole.
The laws are extraordinarily clear about this. You cannot base your decisions on whether to employ somebody, or to continue employing them based on religion. The 1st Amendment does not apply here. Last time I checked PEOPLE, NOT CORPORATIONS enjoyed constitutional protections such as the 1st Amendment.
It's a novel argument, but it won't last 60 seconds in court.
Re:California is a at will state (Score:5, Insightful)
Good to know, that means I won't have to hire Blacks, cripples or homosexuals either.
Oh wait, that's not how it really works now is it?
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty easy. Most of the 'bottom tier' of Scientology is really just self-help books. A vast majority of what they teach to beginners is just about calming the mind and mastering your emotions. The crazy stuff doesn't come until later.
Re:Religion: the ultimate free pass (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people don't feel they need to behave unless there is an omniscient parental figure monitoring their every thought. Essentially a large group of people never progressed beyond childhood. They are just children with a job and a mortgage.
When referring to Scientology.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone who says otherwise is either stupid, or lying... and, if you disagree with this then you must be, by definition, complicit in their crimes.
Re:What the hell? (Score:2, Insightful)
Religious discrimination is ignorant and only bigoted people practice it. You don't have to belong to any of the major religions to be against lying, cheating, or stealing. That Sir, is just offensive and obnoxious. Lying, Cheating, and Stealing are a matter of Ethics, not the exclusive domain of morality.
Do you want to give out personality tests to help determine someone's ethics and likelihood of lying, cheating, and stealing? Fine.
Asking them if they are a member of religion A and equating a false answer with, "well this person clearly fondles small pre-pubescent children" is going to far.
I don't mind burning the Karma her sir. You are deeply offensive and I am calling you on it. Moderators, +flamebait away!
Redundancy in TFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Diskeeper founder and CEO Craig Jensen is a high levelI, publicly avowed Scientologist who has given millions to his Church ...but we're repeating ourselves...
Re:What the hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
So tome this a complicated case. Here is guy with a private business, who in this time of successful deregulation and religious tolerance maybe should be allowed to do what the executives feels is necessary for the bottom line. OTOH, they are an american company, and american federal laws says you cannot discriminate against people based on religion, and I think most people would consider such action discrimination. I certainly would consider it discrimination if I had to listen to, for instance, OSteen tell me to pray before I went to buy a cell phone, or pray that the client would accept my deceptive offer, even if I did get paid for such mad ravings.
In the end, if this guy wants the freedom to discriminate, perhaps he should open a church instead of a bussiness. Given the profit that some churches brings in, he could still sell his software.
Re:No, they're in violation of the law (Score:3, Insightful)
When has prior law ever mattered to the Church of Scientology?
In this case, the Church of Scientology is not, to my knowledge, being sued. But Diskeeper is going to find out, like many companies have, that the law starts to matter to public corporations very quickly when equal opportunity violations happen.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be worthwhile to ensure that everyone you know who might otherwise buy their software know that it funds a confidence scam.
diskeeper is confused... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:5, Insightful)
As one of my professors loved to say:
You can fire someone for no reason, but you can't fire them for the wrong reason.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
A tenet of scientology is that it's okay to lie, cheat, and steal. The doctrine of "Fair Game" [xenu.net] (note that if you're a paid-up scientologist you may have a web filter helpfully installed that blocks or modifies that page).
It is almost cheesy-movie-villain evil. If someone claims to be a scientologist in particular, they are saying they're fine with that and therefore trusting them would be totally insane.
That is in marked contrast to real religions, which tend to at least have at their core some variant of "be excellent unto eachother" (even if a power-hungry priesthood fucks it up in practice), the so-called "Golden Rule". While I'm an atheist, I do believe if more people followed the basic humanistic teachings attributed to, say, Jesus or the Buddha, the world would be a better place. If everyone followed the crazed teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, the world would be a nightmarish hellhole.
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Missing the Point (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, but the Constitution applies to the PEOPLE of America, NOT corporations.
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Forcing someone to actively practice a religion is probably illegal
There's no 'probably' about it. It is illegal.
but requiring someone to be knowledgeable in the religions practices even if it requires training, probably isn't anymore illegal than requiring someone to receive training about how to operate a piece of machinery.
Cause that makes sense. A company that develops software would have need of its employees being knowledgeable in any religion.
Re:Another Reason to Avoid Windows (Score:3, Insightful)
The "link" (however security-audited and tested) that was entirely removed for Server 2008/Vista? Really?
Christ, freetard. Get a grip.
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:3, Insightful)
Religions more than carry their weight in society. They don't pay taxes, but they do provide services to the community that more than make up for that, which would cost the state far more to provide on its own than the tax revenue it would gain.
Furthermore, many of the great institutions in America were started by churches, including most hospitals and the primary school system. All were run as non-profits, and most still are. If a church is making a profit that they aren't re-investing in ministry to the community in which they live, there's something wrong with that church.
Re:When referring to Scientology.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. Religion is fundamentally belief in a deity or a particular set of values or both. Believing in a deity does not indicate anything wrong with critical thinking skills any more than believing in string theory. Both involve belief in things that are currently untestable. Similarly, in many ways, the rules of mathematics are arbitrary. The operations have some basis in reason, but so too do nearly all religious rules, when examined in the context of conditions at the time and place those rules were established.
This is, of course, ignoring the question of people who continue to dogmatically believe in something even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That's a completely different matter altogether. However, such dogmatism is not an inherent characteristic of all religions, nor inherently true of all religious people. Thus, painting religion in general with such a broad brush just makes you look every bit as closed-minded and arrogant as you are portraying religious people to be.
Re:What the hell? (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, giving children alcohol? (Christians)
Mutilating babies? (Jews)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I don't want that criminal cult having anything even remotely to do with my system.
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:3, Insightful)
That is total and utter bullshit. There is more than adequate proof throughout the ages that religion retards society. It is the basis of many of the wars we have fought and continue to fight, it is the basis of much of the discrimination that we still see practiced, and it is the basis of many teachings that threaten the future of mankind on this planet - such as the ban on birth control by the Catholic church.
Not true. They use the provision of these "services" as the basis for spreading their beliefs. You can't get the "services" without the propaganda. If you want that, go work for Diskeeper.
Lets see what religion brings to the table right now:
The Bible, like many religious texts, is hate literature writ big.
And that just means that the money was there, and that it could have been just as easily raised by taxation, keeping religion out of it. So, why did religion do this? So that they could get their religious teachings as part of the system. Start class with prayer. Keep a cross in the classroom. Provide jobs for the faithful, rather than for secular teachers.
Fuck that shit. The world wil be better off once the last religion is abandoned.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What the hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does every asshole think they're being smart by pointing out that for whatever reason, they believe it's not ok to say bad things about your former employer if they were complete cock-wipes?
If a company is run by jerks, every person who has worked for them should tell people to stay away. It's a two way street, and it can bite you in the ass if you don't play nicely. Personally, I'd love to know if a potential entity that I might want services from were like this. It would make me think twice about giving them any sort of money.
Some companies believe they always have the upper hand. Unbeknownst to them, they usually don't. When you let someone good go, everyone who works there will feel it. I doubt it's really easy to find someone who can effectively manage three different groups, and do so right in the middle of some major projects. My guess is that they probably hired at least two people to do his job.
Most of us here probably don't mind working for the man, but when the man fucks us, we will take any opportunity to fuck him even harder.
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah... but the first amendment also does not prevent a private employer from discriminating on the basis of religion either, because it is impossible for a private employer to violate the first amendment (see state action doctrine). Instead, the violations (if there are any) are of federal statutory law.. and if a statute is deemed to violate the constitution the constitution will win. It looks like Diskeeper is trying to argue that current statutes that these employees are using to sue them are unconstitutional restraints on their first amendment rights to practice their religion. This is an interesting issue since there definitely are cases where it is completely acceptable to have private discriminate based on religion.... like for example it is perfectly acceptable to prevent non-Catholics from becoming Catholic priests. However, since Diskeeper maintains an outward appearance of being a normal, for-profit company, it will likely not get the extra leeway that an organization based around a particular religion would receive. Scientology is a whack-job cult, but its tax-exempt status is still a matter of law (unless they manage to screw up and lose it again).
Re:Been There, Forced To Do That (Score:4, Insightful)
The uncertainty principle says that you can't know the exact location and velocity of a particle. It doesn't say that a space warlord nuked some aliens on Earth thousands of years ago, set up a force field to keep their souls trapped here, that those trapped souls are the source of all problems in the world, and that the only way to get rid of them is to pay the Church of Scientology thousands of dollars to take courses.
Good Luck (Score:4, Insightful)
Evangelical Christians have been doing this for years. You've either 'found Jesus' or you're out. And complaining about a hostile workplace can work both ways. The Christians can claim a hostile environment is being created by those of other faiths in their workplace.
Re:How ironic it would be (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I would posit that the "hate literature writ big" would accurately describe your entire post. That anti-religion thing has sure made you a better person, huh?
Christianity, properly practiced, is none of the things you describe it to be. I go to a church that practices it properly. Not one full of legalistic judgmentalism, just full of serving one another and our community. Can your atheistic "community" say it does that? For free?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
You can tell if it's a religion by ... (Score:5, Insightful)
A religion does two things: Prays to God, and passes the collection basket.
Scientology is not a religion.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a religion.
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, rather, we call cutting off the entirety of the pleasure-generating organ in females the same thing we call trimming small amounts of skin in males.
"Circumcision is bad" is a potentially legitimate position to hold, but if you think it's remotely comparable to what gets called "Female circumcision," you're way off base.
Reason? (Score:3, Insightful)
So how much of Linux was programmed by avowed Scientologists? Christian fanatics? Or other types of people who some others might not like?
Will we really want to split up the world along such kinds of lines?
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
This doesn't follow at all. The first amendment guarantees individuals the right to practice their religion of choice. It does not grant the right to force religion on others nor does it allow for a corporation to force a religion on the workers.
This'll end up going down in flames with either a settlement or precedence being set in favor of the employees.
As far as employment requirements go, the first amendment doesn't apply at all, the relevant rules are from case law and human rights legislation. Religious beliefs do qualify a person as a protected class regardless of the particular religion and as such they cannot be used as a method for choosing candidates for non-religious jobs. Basically unless you're hiring for clergy or similar you're not going to be able to get away with it.
Re:When referring to Scientology.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say, it's every bit as much a church as anything else, and every bit as much a religion as anything else. It's just that most churches in most religions aren't quite as directly evil.
Anyone who says otherwise is either stupid, or lying... and, if you disagree with this then you must be, by definition, complicit in their crimes.
Now that's a high-class troll! That sounds like something right out of Scientology's Fair Game doctrine!
Look, I'm glad you're fighting the good fight and all, but that's just embarrassing.
Scientology (Score:2, Insightful)
In a civilized country this "church" would be declared to be a criminal organization, banned, and its leaders would be prosecuted for fraud, extortion and other obviously illegal activities -- all without a need for a single complaint or a civil lawsuit because this is what police and criminal courts are for.
However in US, where people value "freedom" (the American version of "freedom" that means "you can get away with anything as long as you are rich enough"), they would rather pretend, it's all perfectly normal, and instead chase pot smokers and random Arabs.
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Religions more than carry their weight in society. They don't pay taxes, but they do provide services to the community that more than make up for that, which would cost the state far more to provide on its own than the tax revenue it would gain.
I challenge you to back up that statement with any verifiable data. Because churches don't have to file form 990, there's NO way to verify that they do indeed put substantial money back into the community. Some do, some don't. (And some own the office building across the street, and have just installed really gorgeous travertine mosaics in the elevator lobbies of all the floors they occupy.)
Based on good estimates of how much churches actually spend on works, it turns out that people who give only to secular charities end up putting MORE money back into the community. This is because most charities run at 10-20% admin overhead, and churches run much higher, so much less of the money donated to the church actually goes to program.
Re:How ironic it would be (Score:5, Insightful)
Who Cares About Reiser? (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally don't care if the developer killed his wife or not - if the filesystem works, it works.
Re:What the hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
Meditiation does *not* need a religious basis, though many religions incorporate meditation into their practices. However, even without religious context, it is wrong to demand that employees should participate in mental training exercises. Employment must be based on whether the employee does their work, not on how they choose to think.
All that said, even if something can't be explicitly required, working in an environment that is filled with members of the Church of Scientology and where the management consists of such, must cause problems to the free people who would be under pressure and intimidation from the rest.
Re:Another Reason to Avoid Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
While working at a place may have you end up with forced Scientology indoctrination, I really don't think a file system is going to make you kill your wife.
However, I'd say that a program with a root-level access to the disk made by a Scientologist is a risky thing to have on your computer. While the CoS has officially abandoned their Fair Game doctrine, I would not go so far as to assume it is completely abandoned in practice. Maybe I'm paranoid, but techincally, the moment you oppose them, your data may be theirs. It's not like we can inspect the source.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Most Windows users describe MS with much stronger language.
Re:Reason? (Score:4, Insightful)
If we can inspect the source, it doesn't really matter who they are. The moment the source is closed, we can trust it about as much as we can trust the author.
Would you trust a program with a root-level access to your data written by a Scientologist, and whose source you cannot inpect?
Re:When referring to Scientology.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And for the record, the non-existence of something cannot be proven. It also does not ever need to be proven. The default state of everything in the universe is non-existent, and it takes proof to establish existence. God is not a special case; the burden of proof still lies upon the one asserting existence. Sure, you stand a chance of being wrong, but that's what being right is all about. If we had to prove non-existence, things get a little silly; for example, how can you prove that invisible purple monkeys DON'T steal socks from the laundry? You can't, because to do so would require you watch ALL laundry rooms 24 hours a day and 365 days a year for all eternity, starting from the beginning of time, and I don't want to hear you telling anyone they didn't really have their socks stolen by purple monkeys until you prove they don't exist. See how much nonsense it is to assume something starts in a state of "between"? Therefore, science (and logical reasoning in general), start at null. I am sorry if that breaks your world-view, but it breaks most people's.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing neither person, your willingness to make an assumption one way or the other says more about you than it does about anyone else.
Re:Interesting case (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to be crazy to join a cult, just vulnerable. And that's all of us at some point.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't actively seek out actors that are part of Scientology, but if I know that they are then I usually try to avoid it. I can't stand any of Tom Cruise's recent work. Ditto for John Travola but I do admit I've seen a few more of his. Battlefield Earth was watched just to see how horrible it was (it is) as well as Face/Off and Punisher just to see him killed in the movie. While it's not a movie, I use to watch JAG on TV when it was on but once I discovered Catherine Bell was into Scientology, she didn't look nearly as soft on the eyes.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Your actually willing to dump a product that you already tested and found worthy for your uses because the bosses of the company who makes it are brainwashed?
Yes. That's the wonders of a free market: You influence it with your choices.
Re:Been There, Forced To Do That (Score:3, Insightful)
What kind of logic is that? You assert the Uncertainty Principle and conclude that science may or may not be right.
Then it follows that the Uncertainty Principle itself may or may not be right!
*POOF*, there goes your argument.
Re:What the hell? (Score:1, Insightful)
His point is that throwing things at people is extremely childish, and not remotely the proper way to handle any situation. If this guy handled being layed off by throwing things, what are the odds that he handled any other conflict within the company in a professional manner?
I also noticed his saying that he wasn't a "team player" (sort of hints that he raised a stink) and that he went on to make it his "personal crusade" to get back at his former employer.
Overall I agree with the OP but he also mentions several things that imply he's not the most professional employee, or very good at handling conflict. It seems reasonable that these could have been the real reason for his being the first to go at layoff time.
Re:Been There, Forced To Do That (Score:3, Insightful)
First, quantum mechanics "proves" no such thing. What you're talking about related to the fact that atomic scale objects (molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, etc) behave in ways consistent both with waves and particles.
Second, the uncertainty principle deals with PARTICLES ONLY, in that you can not know with infinite precision both the location of a particle, and it's velocity. The greater precision you measure one, the less certain the other becomes.
Third, you have proven beyond a doubt that having a low slashdot UID truly does NOT mean one is smarter than high UID users. For this, I thank you.
Re:Another Reason to Avoid Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahem... If I were to walk into, say, a predominately black church, stand at the pulpit and say "Water is wet, niggers!" my 'correctness' would not even slightly dampen the raw power of trollishness that I have just unleashed.
When are you insecure nerds (I'm a secure nerd, myself) going to learn that being smart and being a douchbag don't go hand in hand, nor does being right excuse unnecessarily rude behavior. People like to joke that nerds can't get girls, but it's just not true. Nerds can get girls, but nerds who've never bothered to spend even an ounce of thought about social graces don't get along with much of ANYBODY (especially girls), except similar people who are willing to overlook your social ineptitudes out of sheer loneliness.
BTW, this applies to that "I'm going to be so helpful and easy to push over she'll HAVE to love me" train of thought too, which is a thought that most people would easily see the flaw in, if they bothered to spend the effort thinking about it.
In short, anyone who can successfully manage memory in C should EASILY be able to discern at least basic social rules and strategies. Slinging terms like 'freetard' because someone is misinformed about a recent development in some obscure topic is 10x the fail of getting the fact wrong in the first place.
I don't know how it is around your family and friends, but in THIS place, you're not the brightest bulb in the box, there are many bright bulbs here. Random insults at strangers on the internet don't make you look cool, or too smart for the rest of us, or 'leet' or whatever you're going for, it makes you look immature. The GP was troll, flamebait and informative all in one, but I would argue that it's more of the first one than it is the last.
Re:Another Reason to Avoid Windows (Score:3, Insightful)
You know what the fun thing is? I agree with you.
I did not call NeverVotedBush a freetard because he was "uninformed." I called him a freetard because he is very much exemplifying the knee-jerk, "MUST TIE EVERYTHING INTO WHY WINDOWS SUCKS" attitude that pervades a very large part of Slashdot. The groupthink that anything even peripherally related to Windows or Microsoft, whether or not it still applies, is--well, more or less precisely that: the act of a freetard. It's a behavior pattern, not simply a pejorative.
And for what it's worth, I agree with you regarding insecure nerds. My fiancee might suggest that it doesn't quite apply to me, though. ;-) Or, at least, not IRL, and I don't consider being pointed and aggressive online to be a mark of security or insecurity. I have no real issue with being as pointed as the situation warrants--and given that the person I replied to is more or less a troll himself, "very pointed" was the order of the day. You'll notice that in speaking to you, to another poster who writes with a degree of eloquence and intelligence, I'm making a concerted effort to be respectful and explain my position. "NeverVotedBush" does not rate that, and so I did not do so. :-)
Re:What the hell? (Score:1, Insightful)
A tantrum is an outburst of rage usually associated with a small child who cannot get their own way. When you have been persecuted for your religious beliefs, or lack of them, and wish to settle the score by one means or another it is not a tantrum. Ever. The response can be out of proportion, it can be unproductive, it can even be illegal - but it is not a tantrum and to characterise is as such greatly demeans the injustice that was perpetrated.
To draw a very easy parallel to an overused hot-topic (but valid since you lack the cerbral capacity to understand what happened as it stands): is it still a tantrum if the EXACT same thing happened but the notebook thrower was Jewish and was forced out by a company run by Nazis?
By the way my parents raised me just fine thank you, I haven't come to blows with another human being in twenty years (I was 9), neither have I ever thrown anything at anybody. However I was raised to never back down to bullys of any stripe and find the religious type to be particularly disgusting. Almost as disgusting are spineless automatons who follow the corporate line uber alles but perhaps the most disgusting of all are hypocrites - another poster said you work for apple, so how can you rationalise working under somebody who has a documented history of lashing out at employees when you find it so unacceptable?
In short you should just come down from your high horse and apologise for calling the OP a bitch, rather than continuing this sad excursion into your lack of guts and character.
Re:JkDefrag: Better, free, open source, and no cul (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Another Reason to Avoid Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to be that falsely claiming you are officially abandoning your Fair Game doctrine would be perfectly fine under the Fair Game doctrine.
Re:It doesn't work like that. (Score:1, Insightful)
A wiccan might not be able to hold a job as an ED nurse if she were required by her religion to display numerous dangling body piercings that could become entangled in tubing, patient body parts, etc. (not to single out witches but this is a matter I actually had to deal with).
Ah, but that Wiccan, if they were indeed fired over this matter, would not be fired for being a Wiccan: they'd be fired for wearing jewelry that interferes with their ability to do their job. If anyone else did the same thing without citing religious reasons and then get fired for refusing to remove them, nobody would bat an eyelash at that.
The Wiccan in question may bring up their religion, but - and this is important - it'd be THEM who did so. The employer, throughout the whole process, would be entirely agnostic, and would at no point care about the religion of the employee at all.
I think these two things - religion obviously and demonstrably NOT being the reason for the firing, and there being ANOTHER reason for the firing - would quash any argument that it's religious discrimination.