Monday’s Los Angeles Times featured a short op-ed piece by Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society about Anonymous’ protests against Scientology, which is rightly both critical of Anonymous and Scientology.
Noted Scientologist critic and tireless picketer of Scientology’s London Org, Dave Bird, died on Sunday, the same day as the largest London Scientology picket that has ever occurred. David Gerard has posted a nice couple of obituaries and some photos at his blog. Dave Bird had a crazy mountain man look, and I thought his postings and tactics were sometimes over the top, but he also had a gift for showmanship and entertainment, as you can see from the photos of his props that he brought to protests. He was one of the protesters that Scientology took seriously enough to attack on their “Religious Freedom Watch” website (which seems to still be offline since being attacked by “Anonymous”).
Jenna Hill, niece of David Miscavige, head of the Church of Scientology, left the church in 2005 (her parents left in 2000). Her main point in this Inside Edition clip is to confirm claims that the church has a policy of “disconnection” that cuts off Scientologists from critical family members outside the church. (I wasn’t aware that the Church actually denied that it does this, as it’s quite well documented.) A NY Post story about Hill is a bit more informative than the clip. UPDATE (April 24, 2008): Jenna Miscavige Hill is now one of the admins at the Ex-Scientology Kids website. ...
“Anonymous” came through today with protests at Scientology organizations worldwide, getting media coverage for protests in Sydney, London, Edinburgh, Dallas, Detroit, Toronto, Amsterdam, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Clearwater, Seattle, Montreal, Milwaukee, and Boston, among other cities. There’s an excellent description of the London protests here. A protest here in Phoenix brought about 60 protesters. Today, February 10, was chosen because it was the birthday of Lisa McPherson, who died in Scientology care in Clearwater, Florida in 1995, and whose death was brought to public attention on the Internet through the efforts of Scientology critic Jeff Jacobsen, my co-author on our Skeptic magazine article about Scientology. Overcompensating has a cartoon on the Scientology protests. UPDATE (February 13, 2008): Here’s some British media coverage in which the Church of Scientology representative refers to the protesters as a “terrorist group."
Police are investigating mailings of suspicious white powder, which proved to be a hoax (apparently cornstarch and wheat germ), to nineteen Church of Scientology addresses today, which led to evacuations and closures. The LAPD and FBI are both investigating. The LA Times says that “there was no evidence that Wednesday’s mailings were connected to the hacking” (“a cyber attack last week”), though I suspect the mailings were from somebody participating in the “Anonymous” “war” on Scientology. If they happen to catch the people behind the hoax, I won’t have sympathy for them. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a married couple in Stockton were incorrectly targeted for harrassment on the belief they were pro-Scientology hackers. The Scientology main website has been moved to Prolexic Technologies, a company that sells a service to filter denial of service traffic. “Google bombing” has been used to make the Church of Scientology’s website the top Google search result for “dangerous cult” and Xenu.net the third result for “Scientology." The Economist has now reported on the battle, under the title “Fair game." The Wikipedia page on “Project Chanology” is a good place to keep up-to-date on the events of the latest Internet battles involving Scientology. ...
In a press release yesterday that cites an article I co-authored in Skeptic magazine, a group referring to itself as “Anonymous” has announced that it has declared war against Scientology. The stated justification for the “war” is the Church of Scientology’s attempts to keep a video of Tom Cruise off the net. That video, which is still viewable at Gawker.com, was made for a Scientology awards ceremony. The longer video from which it was taken is also now viewable there. Gawker.com responded to a cease and desist letter with a refusal to remove the video, which it considers to be fair use for news and comment, but I’m not so sure that it has a good legal case for putting up more than short excerpts. (In case you’re wondering about all the Scientology jargon in the Tom Cruise video, MTV has done a good job of explaining it. Actor Jerry O’Connell has also put out a good parody.) The “war,” which is described at another site under the name “Project Chanology” (a reference to 4chan, a popular message board, where most posts are made by people who don’t login and are thus attributed to “Anonymous”), calls for denial of service attacks over the Internet, prank phone calls, spam emails, and personal visits involving vandalism and harassment. Apparently Scientology’s main website was down due to denial of service for at least part of the day yesterday. The press release cites a number of web pages for further information about Scientology, the second of which is the article “Scientology v. the Internet: Free Speech & Copyright Infringement on the Information Super-Highway” which Jeff Jacobsen and I wrote for Skeptic magazine in 1995 after Scientology effectively declared war on the Internet. (A much lesser-known sequel to that article, published only on the web, is “Scientology v. the Internet: An Update and Response to Leisa Goodman.") I completely disagree with the tactics being used here–Scientology has as much right to free speech and protection of their copyrights as anyone else, though I also condemn Scientology’s habitual misuse of copyright to try to suppress fair use of information. To the extent this is a prank designed to get media attention, well done. To the extent it gets taken seriously, though, it’s something that may not end well. Read the material, watch the videos, have a laugh, and tell others about the absurdity and abuses of Scientology. But please, don’t launch attacks on their websites, harass individuals, or engage in vandalism. “Anonymous” previously received coverage for attacks on MySpace accounts on Fox 11 in Los Angeles on July 26, 2007. BTW, the press release gets its facts wrong when it claims that the alt.religion.scientology Usenet newsgroup was “shut down.” Scientology attorney Helena Kobrin issued an rmgroup message, but almost all news servers ignored it. The accurate facts may be found in Jeff’s and my Skeptic article. UPDATE: Wikinews and Xenu.net have more. ...
Dlisted has the scoop on Andrew Morton’s book on Tom Cruise, to be released on January 15. I would surmise that it will not be published in the UK, which has much stricter libel laws. Cruise was threatening to sue Morton for this book back in February 2006, before he had even started writing it, because Morton hired gay porn star turned private investigator Paul Baressi, whose allegations of a gay affair with John Travolta were published in the National Enquirer, only to retract them after being sued by Travolta. Photos of Travolta kissing a man on the steps of his private plane during the production of “Hairspray” were widely published in 2006. L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology consider homosexuality to be a perversion which falls at 1.1 on the tone scale, between fear and anger. UPDATE (January 12, 2007): Slate reads Morton’s book so you don’t have to, and reveals that the Tom Cruise of Morton’s book is strictly heterosexual. ...
CNN reports that the Church of Scientology is partnering with ministers of low-income Christian churches to provide free tutoring, using L. Ron Hubbard’s “study technology.” More at the Secular Outpost.
A heckler took on Mitt Romney for not “stand[ing] for the Lord Jesus Christ” because he’s a Mormon (video clip). This resulted in boos from the audience. Romney replied by saying that “one of the great things about this great land is that we have people of different faiths and different persuasions, and I’m convinced that the nation does need to have people of different faiths, but we need to have a person of faith lead the country.” This led to audience applause and a standing ovation. Radley Balko observes: “Romney and his supporters have already deflected as religious bigotry (correctly, in my view) the idea (supported by polls) that America isn’t ready for a Mormon in the White House. But Romney has no problem declaring that America isn’t ready for an atheist or agnostic in the White House. Frankly, that’s offensive." I agree, but also note this comment from the above video link: ...
Arizona Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor (R-Gilbert) is at it again, with a bill that prohibits any public school or college instructor from advocating or opposing a political candidate or issue. This is the same legislator who last year proposed a bill that would have required colleges and universities to “provide a student with alternative coursework if the student deems regular coursework to be personally offensive” where “a course, coursework, learning material or activity is personally offensive if it conflicts with the student’s beliefs or practices in sex, morality or religion." While it is appropriate to define limits on partisan advocacy in public primary and secondary schools (where state educational standards define the curriculum and individual school districts set policy on appropriate classroom behavior), it doesn’t make sense to do it at the college level, where professors have much broader freedom to create their own course curricula. Verschoor was also one of several legislators accepting gifts from the Church of Scientology and sponsoring legislation for Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights last year.