Scientology goes after Anonymous on YouTube

UPDATE: A Church of Scientology spokeswoman has confirmed the video was produced and posted by the Church.

A flashy new  video appeared on YouTube on Tuesday that portrayed the anti-Scientology group Anonymous as hateful, violent and opposed to freedom of religion.  The video, called "Anonymous - Hate Crimes & Terrorism Directed at Scientology," was created under a YouTube profile named "AnonymousFacts," which describes itself as the "Scientology Official Report on Anonymous Hate Crimes." 

(Above, a screen grab from the video showing the number of alleged death threats.)

The video, which has the high production values and slick aesthetic reminiscent of other Scientology-produced footage, is a sort of timeline of alleged harassment and threat tactics against the church by Anonymous members.  It concentrates heavily on the first several weeks of the conflict between Anonymous and the church--a time when Anonymous was using more inflammatory rhetoric and employing illegal tactics like hacking and cyber-attacks. The largely peaceful protests of Feb. 10 are not mentioned in the video.

(Here, an excerpt of an alleged death threat is replayed.)

The video offers multiple digital-clock-type counters to add up the number of each type of alleged harassment the church has received:  "8,139 harrassing [sic] or threatening phone calls, 3.6 million malicious emails, 141 million hits against church web sites, 10 acts of vandalism, and 8 death threats."

"These are the facts," concludes the video.

Though the video unequivocally blames Anonymous for all the incidents, no supporting evidence or documentation of the incidents is made available or linked to.  The FBI has said that no suspects have been named in the investigation of some of the threats -- including the white powder mailings -- and Anonymous has repeatedly denied participation in the more severe instances.

Comments

[swingleftshootright]

Creepy creepy creepy creepy.

[Tahler]

I can;t believe how hateful people can be. Let people live their own lives and choose whatever religion they want, if they so desire!

[anonymous]

So typical of the "church" of Scientology: always attack, never defend, never acknowledge the accusation.

Even crazier if true (from an alleged leaked briefing of scientology higher ups) , is the tactic of trying to incite Anonymous to violence in the presence of scientology children!! Here is the link to the discussion: http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6849

This is so crazy!
1) The protests for the Ides of March (15th) was announced weeks ago
2) in the past few days the 'church' of Scientology has tried to get a restraining order against Anonymous for the 15th of March. In the complaint they call Anonymous 'terrorists' and claim that they are frightend for their lives..
3) BUT, then they announce that they will have a party of their own.. and tell their members to bring the children!!!!
Is there some sort of disconnect because if you are deathly frightened of a group, you do not decide to hold a party in the same locale as where the group will be.. and then bring your children!!!

Whatever! Anonymous' protest on the 10th of Febuary was totally peaceful and the only acts of violence were committed by scientologists. The local authorities have seen the actions of Anonymous and know that we are not what the scientologists try to label us.

Come join us on the Ides of March, come and join us to stand for freedom, to stand for human rights, to stand for justice, to stand for those who have died.

We are Anonymous
We are Legion
We do not Forgive
We do not Forget
Expect us....
... and maybe expect cake!

[Rob McMillin]

The Wikileaks documents published earlier this week concerning the apostate Frank Oliver is chock full of the kind of borderline criminal behavior that Scientology accuses others of indulging in. The "church", in any decent and civilized country, would be prosecuted into nonexistence, its corrupt officialdom serving life sentences, and clowns like Tom Cruise made into public laughingstocks; Scientology would be seen as career suicide, akin to joining the Jim Jones cult back in the 70's. In some European countries, the "church" is being dealt with properly.

[wattersedward@sbcglobal.net]

Anonymous: whatever the roots of your obsession, you need to leave it alone. You're only going to create sympathy for the Scientologists. Everyone thinks of them as nut cases - anyone who obsesses over nut cases must be a nut case too...

[John]

wattersedward: See how easy that works out? Sympathy is exactly what the parishioners and staff members need. Some of them can't quit, because they've been locked up in their own world for so long that they don't know how the real world works. If they snuck out, where would they go? How long would their $50 paycheck get them?

Tahler: You need to get out more. Did you know Scientology has better tax benefits than any religion in the US? There are some very unusual and unbalanced privledges, including protections for some of their for-profit organizations. The IRS revoked benefits in the 60's because there wasn't much church to this religion, but Scientologists harassed the IRS so hard throughout the 70's and 80's (up to and including "infiltrating" federal government offices resulting in convictions) that the IRS finally broke down and gave Scientology what they wanted.

Did you know that members that go into the "Sea Org" have to sign a contract that prevents them from leaving the church whenever they want? These are the folks that earn the whopping $50 per week and never get the vacation time they were promised. They are forced to "disconnect" from their families and effectively become slaves. (You'll hear more about that tomorrow in L.A.) Sure, there is technically an exit procedure, but it takes months and is designed to actually keep someone from leaving. Should a member leave, they'll find themselves without any resources and no where to go, so they usually end up crawling back.

This isn't about the religion. If it were, we could poke fun at the galactic ruler, Xenu, that started all of this 75 million years ago - he was quite the murderer. That contract I mentioned above? It's a billion year personal contract. I'm not kidding. The teachings? Well, when the methods (or "tech" as they call it) has been used in schools and other environments, it's often been thrown out.

But you're right. People are free to believe whatever they want, as long as they're not being lied to or taken advantage of, and they should be free to walk away when they decide it's not for them. I wish that were the case with this "religion."

[Mark]

Wow.. I've been following this discussion for weeks now, and it is becoming more and more clear that Scientology is the "bad guy" in this situation. It is not a matter of hate, or not believing in someones religion. John (above) did an excellent job of describing the problems within the Church.

It essentially boils down to this: If you act like a corporation, why do you get to be tax exempt?

What kind of Church sues over copyright violations and sends attack dogs (private investigators) out against critics? Can you imagine what kind of press this would get if it were the Catholic church doing this?

Scientology is much, much worse than we all think.

[Terryeieio]

What do judges have to say about this dangerous cult?http://www.xenu.net/archive/disk/archive/quotes.htm
scientology ruins lives, it's only purpose is to seperate people from their money and reduce their free will and independant thought.
The "church" of $cientology has made a point of setting itself apart from the other religions of this world by its venal use of deception in order to get people involved in it and it's use of the legal system to silence any critics by using lawsuits as a constant bludgeon against any who dare criticize it.
If people would inform and educate themselves about this cult and it's criminal acts (Google "operation snow white" and "operation freakout") and bring pressure to bear on our representatives to investigate this group they would be forced to clean up their act.

[Onewhoknows]

John- you are terribly mis-informed. My neice was in the Sea Org and she left because she decided it wasn't for her. There was no big scene, or attempts to make her life hell. Why dont you do yourself a favor and look & think for yourself rather than listen to everything you hear or read.
And as far as being told to bring our children to a danger zone- totally wrong!!! I would never put my kid in a situation where she has to see the asinine behavior of this meek, cowardly group called anonymous.

[Brian Peppers]

John, Anonymous is cowardly. Fair Game doctrine is still alive; it proves that Anonymous is standing up to a formerly powerful corporation which has used illegal tactics to silence critics. What are the crimes of Scientology? The answer is: over 9000 acts of espionage, frivolous lawsuits, denying basic fundamentals of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (oops, psychology is Scientology's kryptonite!)