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- inactive, on 03/03/2008, -9/+199Buried for requiring registration
- littlebylittle, on 03/03/2008, -4/+186A Church's Lethal Contract
By Dr. David S. Touretzky and Peter Alexander
"Imagine a church so dangerous, you must sign a release form before you can receive its 'spiritual assistance.' This assistance might involve holding you against your will for an indefinite period, isolating you from friends and family, and denying you access to appropriate medical care. You will of course be billed for this treatment - assuming you survive it. If not, the release form absolves your caretakers of all responsibility for your suffering and death. Welcome to the Church of Scientology."
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Scientology/ReleaseForm ...
Exposure of this SINISTER CULT will continue to the end of the eras.
***** the "Bridge to Freedom." It's the bridge to destruction! - KlogereEndGrim, on 03/03/2008, -6/+164OH *****!
The Internet is here! - oxphantomxo, on 03/03/2008, -2/+155A growing number of critics and disgruntled ex-members are using the Web to attack the church's tightly controlled image.
By David Sarno, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 3, 2008
"We were born. We grew up. We escaped."
So reads the motto of ExScientologyKids.com, a website launched Thursday by three young women raised in the Church of Scientology who are speaking out against the religion. Their website accuses the church of physical abuse, denying some children a proper education and alienating members from family.
One of the women behind the site, Jenna Miscavige Hill, is the niece of David Miscavige, the head of the church, and Kendra Wiseman is the daughter of Bruce Wiseman, president of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a Scientology-sponsored organization opposed to the practice of psychiatry.
he day before ExScientologyKids.com launched, another inflammatory allegation about the church began to circulate virulently online. "L. Ron Hubbard Plagiarized Scientology," read a headline at the popular Internet culture blog BoingBoing. The post linked to images of a translated 1934 German book called "Scientologie," which critics say contains similar themes to Hubbard's Scientology, which he codified in 1952, according to a church website.
These were just the latest in a series of Scientology-related stories to burn across the Internet like grass fires in recent weeks, testing the church's well-established ability to tightly control its public image. The largest thorn in the church's side has been a group called Anonymous, a diffuse online coalition of skeptics, hackers and activists, many of them young and Web-savvy. The high-wattage movement has inspired former Scientologists to come forward and has repeatedly trained an Internet spotlight on any story or rumor that portrays Scientology in unflattering terms.
No corner of the Web, it appears, is safe for Scientology. Blogger and lawyer Scott Pilutik recently posted a story noting that Scientology was yanking down EBay auctions for used e-meters, the device the church uses for spiritual counseling. EBay allows brand owners -- Louis Vuitton or Rolex, say -- to remove items they believe infringe on their trademark or patent rights. Basically, fakes. But, Pilutik said, the used e-meters being taken down were genuine. Reselling them was no different than putting a for-sale sign on your old Chevy.
"What's actually going on here," he wrote, is that the church is "knowingly alleging intellectual property violations that clearly don't exist." Within a day Pilutik's blog had gotten over 45,000 visitors -- so much traffic that his site crashed completely.
Facing a steady stream of negative publicity and a growing number of critical voices, Scientology has found itself on the defensive.
The church has referred to Anonymous as a group of "cyber-terrorists" and, in a statement, said the group's aims were "reminiscent of Al Qaeda spreading anti-American hatred and calling for U.S. destruction."
"These people are posing extremely serious death threats to our people," said church spokeswoman Karin Pouw in a phone interview. "We are talking about religious hatred and bigotry."
A recent video posted to YouTube contained a threat to bomb a Southern California Scientology building. An FBI spokeswoman said an investigation was in progress but that no suspects had been identified.
Reporters have long had to tread carefully when writing about Scientology, fearful that lawsuits and other kinds of retaliation would follow any story that Scientology did not like. But that may be changing.
"Before this Internet onslaught," said Douglas Frantz, a contributing editor at Portfolio magazine who covered Scientology for the New York Times in the 1990s (and is a former editor at the L.A. Times), "they were always able to go after their critics and do a good job of being able to discredit or intimidate them."
Angry former church members also perceive a kind of safety in numbers afforded by the Internet, and more are coming forward to share their stories.
"People have been scared out of their minds to speak out about Scientology," said Hill, Miscavige's niece, in an interview. "Nobody should have to be that scared to speak out about a church."
Wiseman echoed the sentiment, adding that the Anonymous campaign had influenced her decision to reveal her identity last week. "The Internet is listening. If something happens to me, all of these people will know."
The current wave of anti-Scientology activity began in January, when a video of Tom Cruise extolling the religion's tech-based approach to enlightenment was leaked onto YouTube, where users holding it up to ridicule copied and recopied it; several sites posted it without hesitation.
It wasn't long before Nick Denton, who as publisher of the blog syndicate Gawker Media had put the video online first, received a legal threat from a law firm representing Scientology, alleging copyright infringement. But Denton refused to take the video down.
"It was an awesome news story," Denton wrote in an e-mail. "If we didn't race to post it up, some other site would have. That, rather than litigation by Scientology, was the fear going through my mind."
The church's whack-a-mole campaign with the Cruise video became a rallying cry for Anonymous, which saw efforts to remove the videos from YouTube as an unwanted incursion into the domain of digital culture, where information and media, copyrighted or no, are often exchanged freely.
n a YouTube video of its own, Anonymous declared open war on the church. Early on, the group also staged cyber-attacks on Scientology websites.
But on Feb. 10, thousands of masked Anonymous members picketed at Scientology locations around the globe, chanting slogans and handing out fliers. No violent incidents were reported. The protests generated yet another wave of online media -- videos, photos, news stories, blog posts -- little of it in praise of Scientology.
The result of all this attention has been that just about any story critical of Scientology -- even those that have been publicly accessible for years -- can gain immediate Web currency. On Digg.com, a popular "social news" aggregator that features popular stories from around the Web, dozens of Scientology stories have ascended to the site's most-viewed list in the last several weeks. A successful Digg story can drive tens of thousands of views to the originating site, as was the case with Pilutik's post about e-meters.
In addition, the clamor generated by Anonymous has raised the profile of the small but vehement anti-Scientology community that existed before Anonymous, and even made for some cross-pollination between the two camps.
Scientology's longtime detractors, such as those at Operation Clambake (xenu.net) and Scientology Lies, claim it is not a religion at all but a business that charges its parishioners ever more onerous fees for access to revealed truths. Other online forums, such as the Ex-Scientologist Message Board and ExScientologyKids, have become places for former members to congregate, share stories and offer support
Ironically, it is the church's aversion to negative publicity -- and the legal strategy it has long used to prevent it, that has aroused more online ire than any other issue.
The website ChillingEffects .com has posted dozens of cease-and-desist letters sent by Scientology's lawyers to various website and Internet service providers requesting that copyrighted material be removed.
But in the diffuse and often Byzantine world of the Web, some precision legal strikes are more likely to backfire than hit their target. Scientology's use of copyright law appears to be an increasingly losing battle on the Web, said Andrew Bridges, a San Francisco-based intellectual property attorney. "The big question is: Is the copyright serving the purpose of promoting science and the useful arts, or is the purpose essentially the stifling of criticism?"
Still, according to Scientology spokeswoman Pouw, the church views the Internet as a positive tool. It is, Pouw said, "concentrating on using the Internet as a resource for promoting its message and mission in this world, not as a ground for litigation."
But now that goal will have to exist alongside a seemingly steady stream of online attacks. And while anonymous political activity, such as postering around a town, is nothing new, Bridges noted, the speed of the Web is what is giving Scientology trouble.
"What's different is that more people can see the stuff faster than Scientology can go around and get it taken down." - deanoplex, on 03/03/2008, -5/+125Nice! It even mentions digg and links to xenu!
- moxley, on 03/03/2008, -0/+95HEre's a link that doesn't make you register, (at least it doesn't as of 3:15pm):
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/newmedia ... - jeremyduffy, on 03/03/2008, -1/+95Dugg just because I'll digg anything that talks about Scientology and exposes them for what they are. It makes me feel like I'm doing something in my own small way.
- littlebylittle, on 03/03/2008, -4/+86Tom. Tom, Tom, you don't even — you're glib. ... No, you see. Here's the problem. You don't know about psychiatry. I do. And guess what Tom? I know about Scientology too. It's an alien Cult. It's a book selling scam that turned into a "religion." LOL!
- inactive, on 03/03/2008, -0/+74Knock, knock. Who's there? The Internet, bitch!
- AerosM, on 03/03/2008, -10/+68Scientology had no clue what they were dealing with when Anonymous declared war.
They do now. Oh do they know now.
But it's too late. - fcrow, on 03/03/2008, -4/+61"On Digg.com, a popular "social news" aggregator that features popular stories from around the Web, dozens of Scientology stories have ascended to the site's most-viewed list in the last several weeks. A successful Digg story can drive tens of thousands of views to the originating site, as was the case with Pilutik's post about e-meters."
Go Digg!! - unicronband, on 03/03/2008, -1/+52WARNING COPYPASTA!
A growing number of critics and disgruntled ex-members are using the Web to attack the church's tightly controlled image.
By David Sarno, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 3, 2008
"We were born. We grew up. We escaped."
So reads the motto of ExScientologyKids.com, a website launched Thursday by three young women raised in the Church of Scientology who are speaking out against the religion. Their website accuses the church of physical abuse, denying some children a proper education and alienating members from family.
One of the women behind the site, Jenna Miscavige Hill, is the niece of David Miscavige, the head of the church, and Kendra Wiseman is the daughter of Bruce Wiseman, president of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a Scientology-sponsored organization opposed to the practice of psychiatry.
The day before ExScientologyKids.com launched, another inflammatory allegation about the church began to circulate virulently online. "L. Ron Hubbard Plagiarized Scientology," read a headline at the popular Internet culture blog BoingBoing. The post linked to images of a translated 1934 German book called "Scientologie," which critics say contains similar themes to Hubbard's Scientology, which he codified in 1952, according to a church website.
These were just the latest in a series of Scientology-related stories to burn across the Internet like grass fires in recent weeks, testing the church's well-established ability to tightly control its public image. The largest thorn in the church's side has been a group called Anonymous, a diffuse online coalition of skeptics, hackers and activists, many of them young and Web-savvy. The high-wattage movement has inspired former Scientologists to come forward and has repeatedly trained an Internet spotlight on any story or rumor that portrays Scientology in unflattering terms.
No corner of the Web, it appears, is safe for Scientology. Blogger and lawyer Scott Pilutik recently posted a story noting that Scientology was yanking down EBay auctions for used e-meters, the device the church uses for spiritual counseling. EBay allows brand owners -- Louis Vuitton or Rolex, say -- to remove items they believe infringe on their trademark or patent rights. Basically, fakes. But, Pilutik said, the used e-meters being taken down were genuine. Reselling them was no different than putting a for-sale sign on your old Chevy.
"What's actually going on here," he wrote, is that the church is "knowingly alleging intellectual property violations that clearly don't exist." Within a day Pilutik's blog had gotten over 45,000 visitors -- so much traffic that his site crashed completely.
Facing a steady stream of negative publicity and a growing number of critical voices, Scientology has found itself on the defensive.
The church has referred to Anonymous as a group of "cyber-terrorists" and, in a statement, said the group's aims were "reminiscent of Al Qaeda spreading anti-American hatred and calling for U.S. destruction."
"These people are posing extremely serious death threats to our people," said church spokeswoman Karin Pouw in a phone interview. "We are talking about religious hatred and bigotry."
A recent video posted to YouTube contained a threat to bomb a Southern California Scientology building. An FBI spokeswoman said an investigation was in progress but that no suspects had been identified.
Reporters have long had to tread carefully when writing about Scientology, fearful that lawsuits and other kinds of retaliation would follow any story that Scientology did not like. But that may be changing.
"Before this Internet onslaught," said Douglas Frantz, a contributing editor at Portfolio magazine who covered Scientology for the New York Times in the 1990s (and is a former editor at the L.A. Times), "they were always able to go after their critics and do a good job of being able to discredit or intimidate them."
Angry former church members also perceive a kind of safety in numbers afforded by the Internet, and more are coming forward to share their stories.
"People have been scared out of their minds to speak out about Scientology," said Hill, Miscavige's niece, in an interview. "Nobody should have to be that scared to speak out about a church."
Wiseman echoed the sentiment, adding that the Anonymous campaign had influenced her decision to reveal her identity last week. "The Internet is listening. If something happens to me, all of these people will know."
The current wave of anti-Scientology activity began in January, when a video of Tom Cruise extolling the religion's tech-based approach to enlightenment was leaked onto YouTube, where users holding it up to ridicule copied and recopied it; several sites posted it without hesitation.
It wasn't long before Nick Denton, who as publisher of the blog syndicate Gawker Media had put the video online first, received a legal threat from a law firm representing Scientology, alleging copyright infringement. But Denton refused to take the video down.
"It was an awesome news story," Denton wrote in an e-mail. "If we didn't race to post it up, some other site would have. That, rather than litigation by Scientology, was the fear going through my mind."
The church's whack-a-mole campaign with the Cruise video became a rallying cry for Anonymous, which saw efforts to remove the videos from YouTube as an unwanted incursion into the domain of digital culture, where information and media, copyrighted or no, are often exchanged freely.
In a YouTube video of its own, Anonymous declared open war on the church. Early on, the group also staged cyber-attacks on Scientology websites.
But on Feb. 10, thousands of masked Anonymous members picketed at Scientology locations around the globe, chanting slogans and handing out fliers. No violent incidents were reported. The protests generated yet another wave of online media -- videos, photos, news stories, blog posts -- little of it in praise of Scientology.
The result of all this attention has been that just about any story critical of Scientology -- even those that have been publicly accessible for years -- can gain immediate Web currency. On Digg.com, a popular "social news" aggregator that features popular stories from around the Web, dozens of Scientology stories have ascended to the site's most-viewed list in the last several weeks. A successful Digg story can drive tens of thousands of views to the originating site, as was the case with Pilutik's post about e-meters.
In addition, the clamor generated by Anonymous has raised the profile of the small but vehement anti-Scientology community that existed before Anonymous, and even made for some cross-pollination between the two camps.
Scientology's longtime detractors, such as those at Operation Clambake (xenu.net) and Scientology Lies, claim it is not a religion at all but a business that charges its parishioners ever more onerous fees for access to revealed truths. Other online forums, such as the Ex-Scientologist Message Board and ExScientologyKids, have become places for former members to congregate, share stories and offer support
Ironically, it is the church's aversion to negative publicity -- and the legal strategy it has long used to prevent it, that has aroused more online ire than any other issue.
The website ChillingEffects .com has posted dozens of cease-and-desist letters sent by Scientology's lawyers to various website and Internet service providers requesting that copyrighted material be removed.
But in the diffuse and often Byzantine world of the Web, some precision legal strikes are more likely to backfire than hit their target. Scientology's use of copyright law appears to be an increasingly losing battle on the Web, said Andrew Bridges, a San Francisco-based intellectual property attorney. "The big question is: Is the copyright serving the purpose of promoting science and the useful arts, or is the purpose essentially the stifling of criticism?"
Still, according to Scientology spokeswoman Pouw, the church views the Internet as a positive tool. It is, Pouw said, "concentrating on using the Internet as a resource for promoting its message and mission in this world, not as a ground for litigation."
But now that goal will have to exist alongside a seemingly steady stream of online attacks. And while anonymous political activity, such as postering around a town, is nothing new, Bridges noted, the speed of the Web is what is giving Scientology trouble.
"What's different is that more people can see the stuff faster than Scientology can go around and get it taken down." - EvanVolm, on 03/03/2008, -3/+50Whatever happened to Anonymous anyways? One minute they're all over the place, the next we don't hear a peep from them.
- inactive, on 03/03/2008, -1/+48Remember to use Bugmenot to bypass compulsory registration, kids.
user: bugmenot@mailinator.com
pass: bugmenot - mark076h, on 03/03/2008, -2/+44***** $cientology
- desertrain7, on 03/03/2008, -3/+42Well written.
Thank you Los Angles Times!
I keep hoping that other major media will step forward
and not be afraid anymore of telling the truth about
Scientology. - unicronband, on 03/03/2008, -4/+40Earlier today they were harassing the puppy-killing marine on his Bebo page. Sometimes you can find them at Habbo Hotel, blocking the pool for AIDS outbreaks.
- AngryIrishMan12, on 03/03/2008, -0/+36Anything to hurt scientology is good in my book. I've had a problem with this cult since i first read about it in Rolling Stone but it just recently hit home. A dianetics information booth was set up on my University last week and I am now strongly fearing how easily this ***** could spread to my region of the country. I'm going to post some things around campus with some real facts about the CoS but if anyone else has any good ideas about how to protest this bull ***** on my campus im open to ideas.
- kb29, on 03/03/2008, -0/+35March 15th. Your local Co$. Be there.
- captainmarvel, on 03/03/2008, -0/+35http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-sc ... -- no reg on this one
- treed, on 03/03/2008, -0/+34Getting ready for the March 15th protest.
- vongole, on 03/03/2008, -2/+35+ 500 internets to the LA Times for getting it right for once. Now the Napoleonic Midget Führer Miscavige needs to be brought to trial in a court of law... The interbutt has done a great job of exposing (some of) his crimes... maybe now (only maybe) he might start to understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end a gang-bang sec-check. Anonymous, the Old Guard and the Interbutt are your Ethics Officers, Davey!
- purplegraciegrl, on 03/03/2008, -7/+36Didn't Anonymous actually report the bomb threat to the FBI? Might have added that bit in for balance. But, overall, great article.
- ridiggulous, on 03/03/2008, -9/+36buried for linking a subscription site
- rofltrain, on 03/03/2008, -1/+28After months of lurking, just created an account to digg this story. Will be in DC on 3/15!
- jd72277, on 03/03/2008, -0/+27serious scientology question - how come they are anti-psychology and Cruise can move stuff with his mind, yet Kirstie Alley needs Jenny Craig to drop a few lbs? Is that not a significant underlap in their ultimate mind powers?
- unicronband, on 03/03/2008, -0/+26She keeps eating the thetans.
- littlebylittle, on 03/03/2008, -0/+26"Hey, man, you're making fun of my religion?"
"Jenna repeatedly said "What crimes have you committed?" and began screaming at Roecker, "Have you raped a baby?"
-- When Elfmans Explode
http://www.tmz.com/2006/06/13/when-elfmans-explode ... - theaceoffire, on 03/03/2008, -1/+25What you say?!?
- Hoekje, on 03/03/2008, -3/+27Anon connects. Picture from Dutch protest used.
- rhabd0mancer, on 03/03/2008, -2/+244chan just got a hardcore board.
- RealmDown, on 03/03/2008, -0/+21What I noticed most was the mention of how journalists have been afraid of them due to their retribution tactics. That more than anything else will have the media on Anonymous' side.
- Nougat, on 03/03/2008, -2/+23Someone set up us the bomb.
- ncdave101, on 03/03/2008, -0/+20I really wish people would stop calling Scientology a cult. Call it what it really is: A criminal organization.
- inactive, on 03/03/2008, -1/+21Dugg for Digg
- IphtashuFitz, on 03/03/2008, -0/+19What the hell is the deal with these Scientologists who start screaming "what crimes have you committed?" when they get into any sort of confrontation? Don't they realize it just makes them look even more loony and more like brainwashed cult followers when their behavior gets printed up in the press, posted to YouTube, etc?
- tumbler360, on 03/03/2008, -1/+20no kidding, can someone post a link to this article, registration is not ok to read a @#$@#% newspaper.
- BlankyBlank, on 03/03/2008, -4/+22Well DONE!
- chw944, on 03/03/2008, -0/+18http://youtube.com/watch?v=OxQX9fYf2aI
- nunu4u, on 03/03/2008, -0/+18Love to imagine Tom sputtering his morning coffee while reading this. March 15 for more win.
- LeCollectif, on 03/03/2008, -1/+19It's now only open to subscribers. Anyone want to paste it here?
- rolf, on 03/03/2008, -0/+17Scientology has an "image" it needs to protect?
- Ploppyplop, on 03/03/2008, -0/+17Comment hijack on behalf of all the lazy people... bugmenot logins worked for me:
UN - latimes013108@trashymail.com
PW - blabla - iainc, on 03/03/2008, -1/+18Would someone mind posting article copy? LAT requires login. Bah! Thanks.
- GreenAlien, on 03/03/2008, -1/+17Consider attending the demonstrations on 15th March.
http://www.xenu.net/news/20080210-picket_signs.htm ... - bruce86, on 03/03/2008, -1/+17If you mean the Church framing Anonymous for a bomb threat... then yes.
- evilbunnys2, on 03/03/2008, -0/+16Bitches don't know 'bout my thetans.
- theymos, on 03/03/2008, -1/+16What's with
the random
line breaks? - theAlbinoFox, on 03/03/2008, -0/+15Fixing the broken link...
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Scientology/ReleaseForm ...
Also, a funny thing I noticed is that it quotes "we will bury you", the exact same phrase once quoted from a certain former Soviet Union leader during the Cold War. It was, in the historical case, misunderstood to be much harsher than they meant it (this Russian speaker meant something more like "we will be there at your burial"), but I wonder what the phrase meant this time around. - fcrow, on 03/03/2008, -2/+16Excellent article for the masses!
-
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