Scientology's Spy Program: Anatomy of a Covert Operation - Village Voice (blog)8 July 2011, 9:06 amFor Scientology watchers, one of the reasons this is a particularly exciting time is that we're getting our hands on remarkable church documents, smuggled out through one of Scientology's top former executives.
At Marty Rathbun's blog, formerly secret documents made public in recent days have revealed a Western U.S. "enemies list," as well as an accounting of that region's ordinary (and celebrity) Scientologists willing to do intelligence work. Another leaked e-mail showed how a high-level and wealthy church member trashed the reputation of a well-known Hollywood acting coach because he had fallen behind in his Scientology training.
But for me, the documents that have proved most interesting are the ones that detail OSA's black-ops work against church enemies.
The Office of Special Affairs is Scientology's intelligence and covert operations wing. (And sometimes you just have to stop and let that sink in. Imagine your local Baptist or Presbyterian church having an official Intelligence office. Difficult, isn't it?)
There's a mountain of information online about the disturbing things OSA and its predecessor, The Guardian's Office, have done in the name of Scientology. But it can still be surprising, and instructive, to see how OSA operatives work in a particular case.
I've been talking with Marc Headley lately about his own experiences since leaving Scientology in 2005. We wrote earlier about his thrilling escape narrative, Blown For Good, a book I highly recommend for its vivid account of life at Scientology's secretive headquarters in the California desert.
Recently, Headley received some formerly secret OSA documents from Rathbun which describe how, shortly after he left the church, Headley's friends were used as spies to gather information about him. Headley says he hasn't revealed the contents of the documents at his blog, but he decided to share them with the Voice. And he not only decoded some of their arcane language for us but also explained how he confirmed the information in them and learned more fully how his church had gone after him once he decided to leave.
more at
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/07/scientologys_spy.php
