Subject: Scientology Discredited III Date: 22 Nov 90 15:31:51 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BE

Path: ncsuvm!ncsuvx!mcnc!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!THETA-GO!XEMU-SP
From: XEMU-SP@THETA-GO ("Xemu, Suppressive Person, Extraordinaire")
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Scientology Discredited III
Message-ID: <9011221539.AA00401@lilac.berkeley.edu>
Date: 22 Nov 90 15:31:51 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 119


Hello Again,

The Crimes of Scientology

Those of you who read my first two postings will know about a few criminal
actions by the Church of Scientology ranging from the simple breaking and
entering which I personally was subjected to, to the death threats that a
friend of mine received.  In this posting I will discuss some of the more
large scale crimes of which they have been suspected (and convicted).

Operation Snow White

In 1972, L.Ron Hubbard became concerned about the bad reputation which
his creation, the Church of Scientology, had with organizations such as
the IRS, the FBI, CIA, RCMP, Interpol, and so forth.  So he devised what
he called Operation Snow White to 'clean up' these organizations' records.
The direct supervisor of this plan was Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue.  The plan
was to infiltrate as many of Scientology's enemies as possible and to
launder their records regarding the church.  By 1975, there were well placed
agents in the IRS, the US Coast Guard, and the US Drug Enforcement Agency.
It was their job to steal as many relavent government documents as possible.
(Does this sound like high treason to you?)  Gerald Wolfe (code name Silver)
was one of these agents.  He was placed as a clerk in the IRS in Washington
where he managed to steal more than 30,000 pages of documents relating to
the org and its founder.  He later turned out to be a key witness.

To help the org avoid legal problems with such activities, there were also
agents placed in the US Attorney's office so that any they could be tipped
off about any investigations going on and destroy the evidence.

Tens of thousands of secret government documents were stolen and copied by
Scientology agents in several burglaries at the Department of Justice in
Washington.  The Washington operation was headed by Michael Meisner.  In
1977, however, Meisner was a fujative because of these crimes.  He spent 6
months fleeing from the authorities before he tried to 'blow' (leave the org).
He was placed under guard by the org, but managed to escape and went straight
to the FBI.  Two weeks later, the FBI conducted simultaneous raids on the
orgs in Washington and Los Angeles, siezing 48,149 illegally obtained
government documents.

All of this information was made public at the ensuing trial.  On August 15,
1978, nine Scientologists, including Mary Sue Hubbard, were indicted on
28 counts of conspiring to steal government documents, theft of government
documents, burglarizing government offices, intercepting government
 communications, harbouring a fugitive, purjory, and obstruction of justice.
In the end, they were convicted of only a small fraction of these charges
primarily because the prosecution did not want to persue any charges for
which there was not an enourmous amount of evidence (a real pity, in my
opinion... but then I think that it was a pity that they allowed 9 scape
goats to stand trial rather than the entire church), and all were sentenced
to 1-5 year jail terms and large fines.  L.Ron, being the gallant hero he
was, disappeared and permitted his wife to take the rap.

In Toronto, there is currently a trial taking place on a related raid conducted
on the Toronto org by the O.P.P. and R.C.M.P.  That case is under media
blackout, so I can only tell you what I have gleaned from some witnesses and
court observers whom I happen to know.  The charges are very similar to
those levelled against Mary Sue and her friends.  There were additional
charges concerning burglaries at the Clark Institute of Psychaitry in
Toronto, but those have been dropped (unfortunately) because the prosecution
was unable to establish a value on the documents stolen (if they were worth
less than $200, then it was petty theft and the Attorney General's office
didn't want to waste their time with misdemeaners).  The other evidence
is very damning, and there will be a conviction soon.  For example, the
raid apparantly came as a surprise to the org as when the police went in,
they caught several people red-handed feeding classified government documents
into shredding machines!  This proves, and I stress that the case is not
yet settled so this is purely my opinion, that there were several people
in the org who knew about the documents, knew that they were illegally
obtained, and deliberately attempted to obstruct justice by destroying
them.  Again, the Toronto case merely singled out a few scape goats rather
than indicting the entire organization.  Of course, the official Church's
reaction to all of this criminal investigation is one of outrage.  These
people actually claim that they have been singled out for religious
persecution!

Operation PC Freak Out

This little caper is more an example of the sort of vindictive persecution
which Scientology can inflict when its evil nature is pointed out publicly.
In 1971, Paulette Cooper wrote the book _The Scandal of Scientology_ which
was a journalistic expose.  As with every other book written about Scientology
except those from within, it was very critical and alerted people to the
dangers of this cult.  Also as with other such books, the author and
publishers were immediately the subject of a law suit from the Church.
 Scientology, apparantly knowing that the suit could not be won on the
strength of any legitimate claims, merely sought to tie the matter
up in court as long as possible hoping to break Ms. Cooper and her publisher.
At the same time, however, the Church embarked on a campaign of harrassment
against Ms. Cooper in an effort to discredit her.  This project was called
Operation PC Freak Out.  She was robbed, letters were sent to her friends
and neighbors claiming that she was a sexual deviant with terrible venereal
diseases.  She was even threatened at gun-point.  They also framed her on
charges of making bomb threats against the Church.  It was very fortunate
for her that internal memoes concerning this campaign were discovered
during the raids mentioned above.  Charges against her (for the bomb
threat) were dropped and she successfully sued the Church for many millions
of dollars.


There are many such stories.  James Randy in his book _Flim Flam_ reports
on Operation Humanist Humiliation, an attempt to discredit CSICOP because
of its long record of debunking claims of out of body experiences and other
such paranormal reports.  Those of you who have been following the discussion
which  preceeded my first posting will remember that Scientology counts on
this sort of mumbo jumbo being believed.

I have not been able to find out anything more recent than these stories
because I don't have terribly recent documents, however, my own personal
experiences with the org in Toronto (see my first posting for a brief
account) have convinced me that absolutely nothing has changed.

Kevin Dooley
(NB.  This is not my account; please do not send e-mail to this address)

PS.  I have recently discovered a more complete description of the TR's
(training routines) which I discussed in my second posting.  I will post
an article on that if there is sufficient interest.