Scientology and Freedom of Speech

 Although the Church of Scientology will claim they fight for this freedom  the facts say otherwise. Scientology is actively against anyone who speaks out against their  crimes  and abuses calling them Suppressive Persons or SP’s for short and they have a Fair Game Policy which states:

“ENEMY: SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”

HCO Policy Letter of 18 October 1967

Issue IV

L. RON HUBBARD

Although many Scientologist will claim that this policy was cancelled this is sadly not the case as seen here:

The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations. This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP.

HCO Policy Letter of 21 October 1968

L.Ron Hubbard

There have been many people who went through this abuse from the cult but, the most well know story of Scientology's Fair Game Policy is that of  Paulette Cooper  who was the sole target of Scientology's Guardian's Office or GO  (which was a combination of an intelligence agency, legal office and public relations for Scientology) after she published the first critical book on the subject called The Scandal of Scientology. The Guardian's Office called this Operation Freakout and intended to have Paulette Cooper either put in jail or committed to a mental institution where she would no longer be seen as threat to the sect. However the FBI discovered evidence of the plot and the Church ended paying compensation to Paulette Cooper  in an out of court settlement.

But Paulette Cooper went through years of harassment from the Guardian Office before it came to an end. Even before Operation Freakout began the Church's then most senior official Jane Kember, sent an order to find any information about Cooper so that she could be disposed of and in response to that order Guardian Office members, were instructed to attack her in as many ways possible and undertake a wide scale exposure of Paulette Coopers sex life as per L. Ron Hubbard policies which currently are still in effect.

 "If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace."

L. Ron Hubbard

HCOPL 15 August 1960

Dept. of Govt. Affairs

Scientology then stepped up the harassment after Paulette Cooper sued them for damages and ongoing harassment however the cult continued by painting her name and phone number on street walls so that she would receive obscene phone calls, and subscribing her to various pornographic mailing lists. She also received death threats and her neighbors received letters claiming that she had a venereal disease.

 "The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly."

 L. Ron Hubbard

 A Manual on the Dissemination of Material

 1955

The first of the fake bomb threats.

 In December 1972, Operation Freakout began and a woman stole a quantity of stationery from Paulette Cooper’s apartment and a few days later, the New York Church of Scientology “received” two anonymous bomb threats. The following May, Cooper was charged for making the bomb threats and found guilty by a Federal Grand Jury. The threats had been written on her stationery and was marked with her fingerprints. The charges were eventually dropped in 1975 with the filing of a Nolle prosequi order by the local US Attorney’s office however, it was not until the Fall of 1977 that the FBI discovered that the bomb threats had been staged by the Guardian’s Office.

The second of the fake bomb threats.

When Operation Freakout was first constructed it consisted of three different plans. First, a woman was to imitate Paulette Cooper’s voice and make telephone threats to Arab consulates in New York. Second, a threatening letter was to be mailed to an Arab consulate in a way that it would appear that Paulette Cooper had sent it and third, a Scientologist volunteer was to impersonate Paulette Cooper at a laundromat and threaten the current President Gerald Ford and then the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. A second Scientologist would thereafter inform the FBI of the threat. Then two additional plans were added later Operation Freakout. The fourth plan called for Scientologist agents to gather information from Cooper so that the success of the first three plans could be assessed. The fifth plan was for a Scientologist to warn an Arab consulate by telephone that Paulette Cooper had been talking about bombing it.

 Paulette Coopers's story is just one of many however the cult doesn't only go after critics but also ex-members who speak about the abuses of the cult and Scientology is known to spend a lot of money to keep ex-members quiet forcing them to sign a gag order before leaving. This is just one of the basic rights that the Church of Scientology tries to deny to it's critics and ex-members.