The Passion of ‘Anonymous’

 

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Mark Bunker, a prominent critic of the church whose Web site claims to get a million hits a month, says he is delighted to see a large group of young activists galvanized to take on Scientology. But in a popular YouTubevideo of his own, he cautioned Anonymous against vandalism or any other illegal displays of disaffection. "I know the way Scientology works: they're going to get these people in trouble," he tells NEWSWEEK. "I'm very concerned about their safety, and I'm concerned about the Scientologists' safety, too." Last week a suspicious white powder was mailed to several church locations in Southern California, and the FBI is investigating whether the mailings are connected to previous hacking. On its Web site and in the local press, Anonymous has denied sending the powder. Bunker, unaffiliated with the group himself, says he has received nearly 6,000 e-mails, largely supportive, from people claiming to belong to Anonymous.

One South Carolina-based member in her mid-20s (who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution) says the group no longer condones the illegal hacking or spamming it had engaged in previously. "We're trying really hard to prove to the church and the rest of the public that we're very serious about this movement, and we're not just a bunch of hackers on steroids," says the woman, who has never been a Scientologist. "The cause is a very moving one. With just a couple more minutes of research you'll see that they ... have abused their parishioners and they've done the most horrible things to people they say they are helping." (Indeed, a few quick Google searches reveal no shortage of conspiracy theories--some more credible than others.)

She says Anonymous has been around for about four years. Indeed their proclivity for posting disturbing videos online is not new--last July they issued this message to Fox News, in which a masked speaker with a disguised voice claims "we are the face of chaos ... we ruin the lives of others simply because we can." Some  Anonymous members assert the clip was a satirical response to a news report on the group. But with no centralized leadership, anyone can claim to be a member of the group. The Anonymous spokeswoman says the group plans to start a lobbying campaign to have the church stripped of its 501(c)3 tax-exempt status, which was reinstated in 1993. (In 1967, tax authorities revoked its tax-exemption status on the grounds that the organization's auditing scheme operated as Hubbard's personal for-profit venture, and in 1984 the U.S. Tax Court found the organization guilty of "manufacturing and falsifying records to present to the IRS, burglarizing IRS offices and stealing government documents, and subverting government processes for unlawful purposes.") In any event, Anonymous says it won't give up without a fight--something the church has proven itself more than happy to provide.

© 2008

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Member Comments

  • Posted By: martialguy @ 01/07/2009 6:06:10 PM

    I think it is interesting to explore and know other religions. Thanks to the internet, you can type a search word in many encyclopedias (such as wikipedia.org) and learn with amazements.

    In scientology, it is believed that:

    * Psychiatry and psychology are destructive fields which must be abolished.

    * Spiritual beings ( thetans) live many lifetimes. Thetans lived among extraterrestrial cultures before becoming trapped in bodies on Earth. Thetans were brainwashed by these extraterrestrial cultures as a means of population control

    * Thetans have existed for ???tens of trillions??? of years. During that time, thetans have been exposed to a vast number of traumatic incidents and have made a great many decisions that influence their present state. Thetans were conditioned by extraterrestrial dictatorships such as Helatrobus in an attempt to brainwash and control the population. These early events collectively are called "space opera."

    * Xenu is the ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy." 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs in the volcanoes. The thetans then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to do this today. Isolating thetans and neutralizing their ill effects are neccesary.

  • Posted By: depaul Consiglio @ 05/16/2008 7:05:47 PM

    Anonymous must have felt threatend by Scientology. Maybe even it was the actor Tom Cruise's comments over the years regarding psychiatry. Some people believe that Humor is a sporting game. Others know that Humor is in the Mind of the Amused. Whatever the reason I don't believe that it is an attack on Scientology as a religion. Still the KKK does burn crosses as if to swear at Jesus or call him back.
    And in the sense that the belief or sense of humor becomes threatening is terroristic in nature, the US has other religious terrorists in the form of for instance abortion clinic bombers and murderers of abortion MDs.
    So what evever the reason I would feel threatend too.
    By the way anonymous ,what is your IP address?

    dePaul Consiglio
    Monsey N.Y.

  • Posted By: take2la @ 04/18/2008 1:45:30 PM




    what can we learn from this. Well lets see. There's religious bigotry. There's misinformation
    & media manipulation. Qui bono? Qui might bono? The masks say it all. Where there isn't any responsibility, there isn't any credibility. Who better than an ANONYMOUS entity to make unsubstantiated claims & ridiculous parallels. & these are just the broader, public & systemic issues. On the personal level, when was the last instance you sought approval for your beliefs. Did you check the internet before your wedding? How about checking your social networks administers opinion about the leader of your church.
    Or how about the person you haven't seen in your church for a while. Did you make a missing persons report & assume they have been "disappeared".
    I can answer all these questions for you, NO because you didn't ask my permission. Had you, I would have laughed. Which is my response to masked, anonymous, whiners. I don't want, seek or need your approval. This was assured more than 250 years ago.
    We have many more important issues these "effective(ly) targeted communication tools" could be used for.
    But no, we're wasting them on whether or not some religious bigots feel "validated" or "liked".

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