Scientology

Scientology critic Keith Henson was arrested on Friday evening in Prescott, Arizona. Henson had been a fugitive since his conviction in Riverside County, California on April 26, 2001, on charges of interfering with a religion for his picketing of Scientology in Hemet, California and online jokes about a “[Tom] Cruise missile.” Henson was sentenced to six months in prison, but he fled to Ontario, Canada, where he unsuccessfully sought asylum as a victim of religious persecution. His application for refugee status was rejected in 2004, and he voluntarily left the country in September 2005, and has apparently been living in Arizona. Henson’s arrest has also been covered by the 10 Zen Monkeys blog and Sentient Developments blog. UPDATE (February 7, 2007): Declan McCullagh has reported more details at News.com. Henson’s bond was raised from $7,500 to $500,000 at the request of prosecutors, then reduced back to $5,000. He was released from jail Monday night, and must appear for an extradition hearing on March 5. He is being defended by a local libertarian of my acquaintance, Michael Kielsky. UPDATE (February 9, 2007): For a deeper look at exactly what caused Keith Henson to be convicted on a misdemeanor charge, see this ex-Scientologist’s web page of postings from Henson and Scientology critic Diane Richardson. Diane Richardson is a meticulously accurate critic who has come under fire from fellow critics for negative posts about critics rather than restricting her focus to Scientology. While I’ve disagreed with her from time to time, when it comes to facts she is quite reliable. She is, as am I, a skeptic of claims of “cult mind control." UPDATE (March 27, 2008): I’m quite remiss in updating this. Keith Henson was extradited to Riverside, California, after his hearings were delayed into May 2007, where he was jailed on August 11. He was subsequently released from jail in September and is now a free man. UPDATE (July 7, 2008): Keith served four months of a 180-day (six-month) sentence, and is currently on probation. The Riverside County Superior Court website lists the terms of his probation: Case HEM014371 Defendant 547981 HENSON, KEITH Probation Type: SUMMARY Granted: 05/30/2007 Expire: 05/29/2010 SUMMARY PROBATION GRANTED FOR A PERIOD OF 36 MONTHS, UNDER THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS: 1) OBEY ALL LAWS, ORDINANCES, AND COURT ORDERS. 2) BE COMMITTED TO THE CUSTODY OF THE RIVERSIDE COUNTY SHERIFF FOR 180 DAYS; 3) PAY A FINE AND ASSESSMENT IN THE TOTAL OF $346.00, PAYABLE TO THE COURT, AS DIRECTED BY FINANCIAL SERVICES. 4) PAY VICTIM RESTITUTION, TO BE DETERMINED BY FINANCIAL SERVICES; ANY DISPUTE TO BE RESOLVED IN A COURT HEARING. PAY RESTITUTION (VICTIM) IN AN AMOUNT DETERMINED BY AND PAYABLE TO THE COURT, AS DIRECTED BY FINANCIAL SVCS; ANY DISPUTE TO BE RESOLVED IN A COURT HRG 5) NOT HAVE ANY NEGATIVE CONTACT WITH ANY MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY. 6) ADDED TERM: DONT KNOWINGLY COME WITHIN 1000FT OF ANY 7) ADDED TERM: DONT ANNOY OR HARASS ANY MEMBER OF CHURCH OF

Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson (R, District 18-Mesa) is no stranger to stupidity. She was one of a number of legislators who got in bed with the Church of Scientology last year, accepting invitations to Scientology events and sponsoring anti-psychiatric legislation pushed by Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) front organization. Now she’s behind SCR 1026, a proposal to amend the Arizona Constitution to prevent courts from the ability to address violations of the separation of church and state: Her proposal, SCR 1026, would specifically bar courts from being able to grant any injunctions or other legal relief if the question involves “the acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty or government.” And that bar would remain in place whether the action were brought against the government as a whole or any state or local official.She goes on to demonstrate that she doesn’t understand the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause: Johnson said she is unhappy that judges in other states have ruled that the words “under God” have to come out of the Pledge of Allegiance, and that a monument of the Ten Commandments had to be removed from an Alabama courthouse. “We don’t want that,” she said. ...

Arizona State Representative Pamela Gorman (R-District 6, Anthem) was one of several legislators who accepted gifts from the Church of Scientology and helped promote bills for Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights. She is also on the Legislative Advisory Board to the Heartland Institute, publisher of Environmental & Climate News, a publication that is still, as of its February 2007 issue, arguing that global warming is mythical. This issue contains articles such as “Greenland Coldest in 60 Years” and “Little Ice Age May Return Soon,” and contains a set of graphs of global satellite temperatures on p. 7 that attributes 1998’s high temperatures to El Nino. The Heartland Institute’s past articles have included titles like “Eight Reasons Why ‘Global Warming’ is a Scam” (2003), “National Geographic Promotes Global Warming Myths” (2004), and “Michael Crichton is Right!" (2005) (Rep. Gorman’s Blogger profile lists “Anthem Shrugged” as one of her favorite books. Ayn Rand wrote books called Anthem and Atlas Shrugged, but it appears Rep. Gorman has combined them. She has apparently been too busy to blog much; she posted twice in January 2006 and has only posted again this month.) ...

I’ve got a couple of websites of hierarchically organized links that I’ve maintained for quite some time, though I haven’t really worked on them much lately. I currently get more spam link submissions than genuine link submissions to each, so I’d like to request contributions of legitimate entries. One is my skeptical links site, which is fairly extensive, especially on a few topics such as Scientology, creationism, the websites of skeptical groups, and critiques of organized skepticism. The other is my security links site, which is much less extensive, but still has some useful links, mostly on security and hacking tools and security standards. Contributions are welcome–just go to the appropriate area and click the “add a site” link at the top of the page. ...

It looks like Missouri has followed the lead of Arizona lawmakers in helping out Scientology–they’ve allowed Scientology to set up an “Industry of Death” exhibit attacking psychiatry in the Capitol Rotunda: The “Industry of Death” exhibit is sponsored by the Church of Scientology and makes a host of outrageous claims about the field of psychiatry. Twenty-five percent of psychiatrists sexually abuse their patients. … And for the big surprise, psychiatrists were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks - guilty by association, at least, since psychiatrists are responsible for the existence of terrorists and suicide bombers.Crazy. ...

Independent filmmaker Brett Hanover made a very nice little one-hour film called “The Bridge," about the Church of Scientology, which he put out on Google Video and YouTube about a month ago. Scientology came after him, and he buckled, withdrawing the film and saying that he no longer supports it. Google and YouTube took it down. But it’s still out there. Watch it, it’s pretty well done.

It looks like ex-Congressman Foley has been a Scientology-friendly U.S. Representative, attending Scientology events at Scientology’s Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater and having Clearwater Scientologists raise funds for him. Wonkette asks whether there are any non-Scientology-run rehabilitation centers in Clearwater, Florida, which appears to be where Foley is getting treatment. Clearwater is the home of Narconon, Scientology’s pseudo-scientific drug treatment program. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Foley is a Scientologist or has taken any Scientology courses, but it does demonstrate that he’s shown poor judgment in multiple areas of his life. I’ve previously reported on a number of Arizona state legislators who have likewise shown poor judgment in accepting gifts from and sponsoring legislation from Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights. ...

The stuff you’re looking for is here (though looks like the Clearwater searcher, who may or may not be a Scientologist but certainly lives among them, found it already). Scientology visits: Domain Name (Unknown) IP Address 205.227.165.# (Church of Scientology International) ISP Level 3 Communications Location Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : California City : Los Angeles Lat/Long : 34.1281, -118.2893 (Map) Distance : 363 miles Language English en Operating System Microsoft WinXP Browser Opera 9.01 Opera/9.01 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en) Javascript version 1.4 Monitor Resolution : 1024 x 768 Color Depth : 32 bits Time of Visit Sep 21 2006 3:49:33 pm Last Page View Sep 21 2006 3:49:33 pm Visit Length 0 seconds Page Views 1 Referring URL http://www.google.co...d&btnG=Google Search Search Engine google.com Search Words jim lippard Visit Entry Page http://lippard.blogspot.com/ Visit Exit Page http://lippard.blogspot.com/ Out Click Time Zone UTC-8:00 Visitor’s Time Sep 21 2006 2:49:33 pm Visit Number 32,144 Domain Name rr.com ? (Commercial) IP Address 68.200.46.# (Road Runner) ISP ROADRUNNER-SOUTHWEST Location Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : Florida City : Clearwater Lat/Long : 27.9617, -82.7368 (Map) Distance : 1,773 miles Language English en Operating System Macintosh MacOSX Browser Safari 1.3 Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.8 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/312 Javascript version 1.5 Monitor Resolution : 1440 x 900 Color Depth : 32 bits Time of Visit Sep 21 2006 1:39:58 pm Last Page View Sep 21 2006 1:39:58 pm Visit Length 0 seconds Page Views 1 Referring URL http://www.google.co...gy&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 Search Engine google.com Search Words blog, scientology Visit Entry Page http://lippard.blogs...ntology-sampler.html Visit Exit Page http://lippard.blogs...ntology-sampler.html Out Click Time Zone UTC-5:00 Visitor’s Time Sep 21 2006 3:39:58 pm Visit Number 32,125

As I noted in my “Scientology Sampler” post on March 4, my web sites still get periodic visits from Church of Scientology IP addresses, at that time most recently on January 1. They just came by again on May 22, attempting to look at my online copy of Russell Miller’s biography of L. Ron Hubbard, Bare-Faced Messiah, as well as the article I co-authored with Jeff Jacobsen, “Scientology v. the Internet,” and my skeptical links pages on Scientology. Here’s an example web log entry: [Mon May 22 11:42:00 2006] [error] [client 205.227.165.11] client denied by server configuration: path deleted/03.3.jl-jj-scientology.html, referer: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-09%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=Jim+Lippard+Scientology Then, yesterday afternoon, this blog got a visit and a comment (from a brand-new Blogger account) on my post on Arizona legislators accepting trips from the Church of Scientology in return for sponsoring bills for Scientology’s front group the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. This poster, asking why I don’t support Scientology’s mental health efforts, came across the entry by Googling for “CCHR”: Time of Visit May 29 2006 4:49:43 pm Last Page View May 29 2006 4:59:42 pm Visit Length 9 minutes 59 seconds Page Views 4 Referring URL http://search.blogger.com/?ui=blg&q=cchr Search Engine search.blogger.com Search Words cchr Visit Entry Page http://lippard.blogs...ponsoring-bills.html Visit Exit Page http://lippard.blogs...ponsoring-bills.html Out Click a number of Arizona legislators have been sponsoring bills http://www.azcentral...cientologists11.html Time Zone UTC-6:00 This individual’s source IP, however, is an Ameritech/SBC IP out of Springfield, Illinois (not a big Scientology stronghold like Los Angeles or Clearwater, FL). Illinois is, however, the location where Scientology won a battle to get an exhibit that compares psychiatry to Nazis put back on public property in the Thompson Center–so it looks like the CCHR Chicago has a bit of pull. Anyway, this is a good opportunity to recommend reading Janet Reitman’s “Inside Scientology” from Rolling Stone magazine from February, an excellent overview and introduction to Scientology’s beliefs and history.

A CBS series called “Orpheus” sounds like it involves a fictional cult based on Scientology. In the pilot script, a group called GD or “Grand Design” is based on a popular “quasi-philosophical” book that resembles Hubbard’s Dianetics. Members of the group are ranked, with a level called “Galatean” that may be equivalent to an Operating Thetan (OT) level. A CBS Paramount spokesperson said that “The cult is an amalgamation of all cults throughout history.” The show stars Nicholas D’Agosto and Mena Suvari, and is being produced by Nicholas Meyer. Let’s hope Tom Cruise doesn’t cause this to be killed–it is another Paramount property, like Mission Impossible 3, so the possibility is certainly there.