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http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1048134.ece

I'm only posting a small portion of the article!  And I can't post the video, at the top of the story.

It's most certainly worth the read, and worth reading for those who don't know much about Scientology and its activities. 

Chased by their church: When you try to leave Scientology, they try to bring you back

For years, the Church of Scientology chased down and brought back staff members who tried to leave.

Ex-staffers describe being pursued by their church and detained, cut off from family and friends and subjected to months of interrogation, humiliation and manual labor.

One said he was locked in a room and guarded around the clock.

Some who did leave said the church spied on them for years.

Others said that, as a condition for leaving, the church cowed them into signing embellished affidavits that could be used to discredit them if they ever spoke out.

The St. Petersburg Times has interviewed former high-ranking Scientology officials who coordinated the intelligence gathering and supervised the retrieval of staff who left, or "blew."

They say the church, led by David Miscavige, wanted to contain the threat that those who left might reveal secrets of life inside Scientology.

Marty Rathbun, a former church official and confidant of Miscavige, said the leader especially targeted those he had edged aside during his rise to the top or anyone he feared might threaten his position or the church if left alone on the outside.

When the church founder L. Ron Hubbard was in charge, "there were no fences," Rathbun said. "If somebody blew, they blew. It wasn't until these purges started with Miscavige — where he was creating enemies and people … became a threat to him — that we went into this overdrive scenario."

Church spokesman Tommy Davis "categorically denied'' Miscavige knew about or was involved in the pursuit of runaways or spying on former members. He said Rathbun and other former staff are liars, taking their own misdeeds and blaming them on Miscavige and the religion they have forsaken. He said they are trying to undermine Miscavige's leadership even as he presides over unprecedented church growth.

Miscavige "redefines the term 'religious leader,' " Davis said, while some of the Times sources are on the "lunatic fringe'' of anti-Scientology. He said they are the real villains, who Miscavige dismissed for "suborning perjury, obstruction of justice and wasting millions of dollars of parishioner funds.''

He accused the Times of "naked bias" and engaging in tabloid journalism.

"You have a few petty allegations,'' Davis said.

"In fact, all you have is a few people who left a religion after committing destructive acts and are now complaining about what they did while in the church.''

The story of how the church commands and controls its staff is told by the pursuers and the pursued, by those who sent spies and those spied upon, by those who interrogated and those who rode the hot seat. In addition to Rathbun, they include:

• Mike Rinder, who for 25 years oversaw the church's Office of Special Affairs, which handled intelligence, legal and public affairs matters. Rinder and Rathbun said they had private investigators spy on perceived or potential enemies.

They say they had an operative infiltrate a group of five former Scientology staffers that included the Gillham sisters, Terri and Janis, two of the original four "messengers" who delivered Hubbard's communications. They and other disaffected Scientologists said they were spied on for almost a decade.

• Gary Morehead, the security chief for seven years at the church's international base in the desert east of Los Angeles. He said he helped develop the procedure the church followed to chase and return those who ran, and he brought back at least 75 of them. "I lost count there for awhile.''

Staffers signed a waiver when they came to work at the base that allowed their mail to be opened, Morehead said. His department opened all of it, including credit card statements and other information that was used to help track runaways.

• Don Jason, for seven years the second-ranking officer at Scientology's spiritual mecca in Clearwater, supervised a staff of 350. He said that after he ran, he turned himself in and ended up locked in his cabin on the church cruise ship, the Freewinds. He said he was held against his will.

And then there's the story of the cook, his wife and the movie stars.

WINTER IN THE ROCKIES

 Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were to be married on Christmas Eve 1990. The setting: a large rented cabin outside Telluride, Colo., a resort town at the floor of a Rocky Mountain valley.

The couple starred together that summer in Days of Thunder. He was the megastar, she the up-and-coming Australian.

In the desert east of Los Angeles, a small contingent from the Church of Scientology's international base took Cruise's plane to Colorado.

Miscavige would be the actor's best man. Ray Mithoff, a long-time Scientologist who worked closely with Hubbard, would officiate. The church's pastry chef, Pinucio Tisi, would bake the cake. Its five-star chef, Sinar Parman, would prepare the feast.

Parman had been with Scientology's dedicated work force, the Sea Org, for 12 years. He started in 1978, fresh from an apprenticeship at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. He worked as Hubbard's personal chef for two years. (The founder was a meat-and-potatoes man who also enjoyed fish.)

Parman later cooked for celebrity parishioners who visited the church's base camp.

He made chicken noodle soup the way Kirstie Alley's grandmother did, and the actor sent him flowers. John Travolta gave him a carton of Camels for his birthday. Cruise brought him a jacket from the set of Days of Thunder and would hand him Cuban cigars.

For Telluride, Cruise insisted the minister, the baker and the chef bring their wives for the holiday.

Christmas in the Rockies with Tom Cruise? Parman's wife, Jackie Wolff, was beyond excited.

When they married four years earlier, Wolff worked as a personal assistant to Miscavige and his wife, Shelly. She ironed his shirts, prepared the couple's breakfast, lunch and snacks, and woke them each morning.

Now she worked in personnel, recruiting Sea Org members.

Before flying to the wedding, everybody drew names for a gift exchange. Wolff drew Cruise and got him a Hubbard novelette. It cost $50, a week's pay.

Cruise put up the Scientology contingent in a hotel in Telluride, but they spent much of their time at his rented estate. Parman cooked; Wolff hung decorations, tidied rooms and helped in the kitchen.

The Miscaviges let it be known not to give church-related gifts, a nod to the non-Scientologists at the wedding. Wolff went into town and picked a substitute gift, a black ski mask.

At sunset on Christmas Eve, Cruise and Kidman took their vows. The guests sipped Cristal champagne and Parman prepared a holiday spread that included saddle of lamb.

The next afternoon, Wolff and Parman saw police officers standing at the driveway to keep back the paparazzi. Cruise made sure the officers were fed.

The newlyweds took their guests skiing that day. Wolff will always remember seeing Cruise on the slopes, wearing his new black ski mask.

[ethercat]

When the church founder L. Ron Hubbard was in charge, "there were no fences," Rathbun said. "If somebody blew, they blew. It wasn't until these purges started with Miscavige — where he was creating enemies and people … became a threat to him — that we went into this overdrive scenario."

This is an idea promoted by people who can't give up on scientology even though they've left the organization - Hubbard was abusive also, even going so far as to ordering children into a chain locker on the Apollo, he practiced overboarding of people from the ship, and he was the one who came up with the RPF as a means of punishment. 

History is full of Hubbard's abuses, and while denying it may serve Marty Rathbun's agenda of earning a living by catering to disaffected members of the organization, it is untrue that the abuses started with Miscavige.  This praise of "St. Hubbard" needs to be publicly debunked.

Scientology in and of itself is abusive.

[mefree]

^^^
Agreed

Also you don't see this kind of information in the press very often. Has anyone seen a copy of the waiver mentioned?

Staffers signed a waiver when they came to work at the base that allowed their mail to be opened, Morehead said. His department opened all of it, including credit card statements and other information that was used to help track runaways.

The account numbers came from Morehead, whose guards opened every piece of mail at the base, logging staff financial information as they went. Morehead said Sea Org members were told their personal correspondence was examined for security reasons. He said they were not told this included financial information.