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Diskeeper Accused of Scientology Indoctrination

Posted by kdawson on from the is-that-perfectly-clear dept.

touretzky writes "Two ex-employees have sued Diskeeper Corporation in Los Angeles Superior Court after being fired, alleging that the company makes Scientology training a mandatory condition of employment (complaint, PDF). Diskeeper founder and CEO Craig Jensen is a high-level, publicly avowed Scientologist who has given millions to his Church. Diskeeper's surprising response to the lawsuit (PDF) appears to be that religious instruction in a place of employment is protected by the First Amendment." The blogger at RealityBasedCommunity.net believes that the legal mechanism that Diskeeper is using to advance this argument ("motion to strike") is inappropriate and will be disallowed, but that the company will eventually be permitted to present its novel legal theory.

34 of 779 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess it is Raxco's PerfectDisk to defrag my disks from now on....

    1. Re:Wow by cephah · · Score: 5, Informative

      Otherwise I can recommend this one.

    2. Re:Wow by deniable · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's a cut-down version of Diskeeper. The scientology / Diskeeper / Windows connection has caused problems in the past. Here's one link.

    3. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Otherwise I can recommend this one.

      Note that JkDefrag uses the Windows defrag API, so it should be as safe to use as the original defrag. Also, Windows occasionally runs a boot optimizing defrag while your screen saver is on, which tends to mess up JkDefrag's logic. You might want to disable it, if you intend to run JkDefrag.

    4. Re:Wow by Dan541 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well I don't want that criminal cult having anything even remotely to do with my system.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    5. Re:Wow by Slashdotvagina · · Score: 5, Informative

      The article you quote contradicts your statement:

      "While it is true that ext3 is more resistant to file fragmentation than FAT, and NTFS filesystems, nonetheless ext3 filesystems can and do get fragmented over time.[14] Consequently the successor to the ext3 filesystem, ext4, includes a filesystem defragmentation utility and support for extents (contiguous file regions)."

      14: "We found heavily fragmented free areas on an intensively used IMAP server which stores all its emails in individual files - although more than 900 GB of the total disk space of 1.4 TB were still available." http://www.heise-online.co.uk/open/Tuning-the-Linux-file-system-Ext3--/features/110398/3

      --
      Advertising that I'm a girl on Slashdot since 2008.
    6. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, that's using strong language to describe Microsoft, isn't it? I guess if the shoe fits...

    7. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, yes, actually. If I'm opposed to the owners of a company actively contributing millions of dollars to a cause I strongly disagree with, I would discontinue funding this person's personal wealth. I also would not, if given the opportunity, to work for such an individual.

      I would also look for alternatives, since there are almost always an alternative. If none can be found, then I would have to determine how important this product is. I have not found a need for defragging except for in the case of making a partimage of the disk.

    8. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      criminal? historically

      cult? I think the word you're looking for is "Apple"

    9. Re:Wow by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not to mention the idea of patronizing companies who treat their employees well over patronizing those who mistreat them. And forced Scientology training is certainly mistreatment.

      --
      This space available.
    10. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      All you need to demonstrate fragmentation is multiple parallel streaming writes, which you can demonstrate on any UNIX-like system easily enough with two dd(1) commands.

      There is a clear tradeoff between fragmentation during writing due to writing out interleaved series of blocks (which incurs a read penalty) and avoiding fragmentation on a sufficiently empty filesystem by doing lots of track-to-track head motion to write contiguous blocks for each file. The latter is an approximation anyway in modern individual drives anyway, and becomes difficult to analyse in multi-drive arrays.

      Almost no modern filesystem will opt for a potentially huge write-time seek penalty in order to improve read times. The general consensus is that whatever is doing the streaming writing may be highly time-sensitive (you don't want to drop frames if capturing live video, for example), and is likely to be somewhat time-sensitive (when will this damn copy finish?).

      The downside is that the trade-offs in contiguous-block-quantums is not so clear; it probably ought to be timed in milliseconds, but generally is some power of two number of logical 512-octet blocks (it can be tuned in some cases -- tunefs(8) for example, or at file system creation time; some APIs allow for tuning with a per-filedescriptor ioctl(2) call).

      Finally, busy filesystems that create and delete lots of files will end up with the free space scattered into lots of individual regions, which will also incur a large write time penalty as the free space fragmentation decreases, which is likely as the disk fills.

      Consequently, Apple introduced (boot-volume-only) automatic small-file "sliding". When the system opens a file that is less than about 20MBytes and it has more than 8 fragments, the entire file will be consolidated by the operating system into a single fragment-free file in a way which heuristically decreases the free space fragmentation. (One heuristic involves sliding "hot" files, the most frequently accessed files, to a region near the start of the volume, and sliding cooled-off files out of that region into a best fit, rather than first fit, part of free space; the assumption is that cooled-off files are likely to stay relatively cool so a relatively slow best-fit search can be done with little worry).

      Other very un-UNIX-like operating systems have similar approaches to automatic background file and free space defragmentation. Most of the free space defragmentation in practice in such OSes is much more aggressive than what has been done in Mac OS X to date, partly because it is less clear to the Apple developers (and the Darwin open source community) that free space fragmentation has a likely penalty when there is more than 5% of a volume free. Free space defragmentation takes real energy (lots of i/o and lots of compute power, and the maintenance of state to deal with crashes/power failures that occur during the process), and where large files must be "slid" this can interfere with a system that is actually trying to be put to use by a time-sensitive user.

      Most other open-source UNIX-like OSes do *no* automatic defragmentation of files or free space at all. Mac OS X doesn't either, on non-boot volumes.

  2. What the hell? by DurendalMac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't that religious discrimination in the workplace? Seems like a cut and dried case to me. I'm sure the Co$ will lawyer up and try to fight it, but I don't see how they could possibly win this case.

    1. Re:What the hell? by deniable · · Score: 5, Funny

      Self help books have taught me that the best way to make money is to write the self-help books. Scientology really makes that point.

    2. Re:What the hell? by M1rth · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Cult of $cientology's standard response to ANYTHING is "freedom of religion, nyah nyah nyah."

      Caught evading taxes and breaking into the IRS? No problem - "Freedom of Religion."

      Caught Trying to drive someone to suicide and framing them for crimes they didn't commit? No problem - "Freedom of Religion."

      Making false medical claims? Drag a cross in the door, claim "Freedom of Religion."

      Killed Someone? after removing them from a hospital? No problem - it was "Freedom of Religion."

      Take advantage of a poor man having a stroke and playing "Weekend at Bernie's" with him to badmouth your critics? No problem - "Freedom of Religion."

      Framing people? Lying about them under oath? "Fair Game" is a "Freedom of Religion" practice.

      Ordering someone killed? Sorry, that's a practice of "Freedom of Religion."

      --
      If you can read this sig, congratulations, you have your glasses on!
    3. Re:What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A tenet of scientology is that it's okay to lie, cheat, and steal. The doctrine of "Fair Game" (note that if you're a paid-up scientologist you may have a web filter helpfully installed that blocks or modifies that page).

      It is almost cheesy-movie-villain evil. If someone claims to be a scientologist in particular, they are saying they're fine with that and therefore trusting them would be totally insane.

      That is in marked contrast to real religions, which tend to at least have at their core some variant of "be excellent unto eachother" (even if a power-hungry priesthood fucks it up in practice), the so-called "Golden Rule". While I'm an atheist, I do believe if more people followed the basic humanistic teachings attributed to, say, Jesus or the Buddha, the world would be a better place. If everyone followed the crazed teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, the world would be a nightmarish hellhole.

    4. Re:What the hell? by Tisha_AH · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I ran into a similar predicament at my former employer. Unbeknownst to me at the time of my interview and hiring there was a significant religious component that developed within the management group.
      Our Vice President of operations based many of his decisions on who went to "his" church. Of course, none of this was provable but it became increasingly apparent when he would lead us in prayer at the beginning of our managers meetings twice a week. There were two of us who were not "team players" in this regard, a highly respected director and myself (I managed three different departments and had the highest reviews of any of the managers in the operations group).

      When it came time for lay-off's, guess who was let go, the director and myself. Eventually the director was re-hired as a consultant. I decided to burn that bridge and when packing my personal effects I threw a notepad at the vice president and told him in a long tirade to get fuxed. Also, I refused to provide any future assistance when they called me later to figure out how to proceed on some of the projects I was working on.

      Since this was in a "right to work" state I had little recourse and would not go back, even if they had doubled my salary and given me a public apology. I went on to a different company and made it my personal crusade to steer every customer away from my earlier employer. Sometimes those types of layoffs come back in spades and bite you in the behind.

      Religious fanaticism, discriminatory hiring practices and the glass ceiling are still a major problem in many American companies to this day. I guess that you could fight these practices in court but in the long run, do you really want to work for people like this?

      Let the best talent go to where we are appreciated and our quirks (religious beliefs, the shoes you wear, your not so politically correct conversation or personal convictions) matter the least. They say that it is a different job marketplace today with companies able to pick and choose who they want. It is a fool who does not hire the most capable and talented individuals because of some personal bias caused by their own ignorance.

      --
      Tisha Hayes
  3. It doesn't work like that. by khasim · · Score: 5, Informative

    They can fire you, at will, for any LEGAL reason.

    Discrimination based upon religious preference is NOT a legal reason.

    1. Re:It doesn't work like that. by queequeg1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Perhaps this is a semantic quibble, but the rule is really the flip side. They can fire for *any* reason so long as there is not a law (or common law court decision) that specifically makes the reason unlawful. Discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, marital status, and pregnancy are just a few of the proscribed reasons. Various state statutes add a lot more. At one point, Oregon had a statute that prohibited employers from taking adverse action against employees based on their non-workplace use of tobacco products (I don't know if this is still on the books). The point being, unless it is a specifically prohibited reason, the employer can use it as a basis for termination. In practice, things get much more complex and employers often use non-prohibited reasons as a pretext for firing someone for a prohibited reason.

      Employers with a religious purpose (churches immediately come to mind) have limited leeway with respect to employing people who share the same religious belief (at least with respect to positions that are overtly religious in nature). For regular companies that offer non-religious services and products, the rules are much more restrictive and you would have to look at actual conduct rather than the naked fact of religious affiliation. A wiccan might not be able to hold a job as an ED nurse if she were required by her religion to display numerous dangling body piercings that could become entangled in tubing, patient body parts, etc. (not to single out witches but this is a matter I actually had to deal with). In this particular case, I canmpt imagine any defense that has been approved by any appellate court. Novel defense indeed.

    2. Re:It doesn't work like that. by Jeian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As one of my professors loved to say:

      You can fire someone for no reason, but you can't fire them for the wrong reason.

    3. Re:It doesn't work like that. by SBFCOblivion · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Forcing someone to actively practice a religion is probably illegal

      There's no 'probably' about it. It is illegal.

      but requiring someone to be knowledgeable in the religions practices even if it requires training, probably isn't anymore illegal than requiring someone to receive training about how to operate a piece of machinery.

      Cause that makes sense. A company that develops software would have need of its employees being knowledgeable in any religion.

  4. Wrong by dotslashdot · · Score: 5, Informative

    Under title VII, they will lose. Unless the Supreme Court declares Title VII unconstitutional with respect to the 1st Amendment, of course, which they might since the new ones are a bunch of religious fundamentalists. The 1st Amendment does not give anyone a right to impose their religion on others as a condition of employment. http://www.eeoc.gov/types/religion.html

  5. No, they're in violation of the law by the_skywise · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the EEOC's official position-

    http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html#_Toc203359505

    A. Prohibited Conduct

    Religious harassment in violation of Title VII occurs when employees are: (1) required or coerced to abandon, alter, or adopt a religious practice as a condition of employment (this type of âoequid pro quoâ harassment may also give rise to a disparate treatment or denial of accommodation claim in some circumstances),[71] or (2) subjected to unwelcome statements or conduct that is based on religion and is so severe or pervasive that the individual being harassed reasonably finds the work environment to be hostile or abusive, and there is a basis for holding the employer liable.[72]
    1. Religious Coercion That Constitutes a Tangible Employment Action

    That's less than 2 minutes googling. But somehow I still think hundreds of thousands of dollars will be spent figuring that out...

  6. Re:California is a at will state by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good to know, that means I won't have to hire Blacks, cripples or homosexuals either.
    Oh wait, that's not how it really works now is it?

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  7. Scientology is the best troll religion ever... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If only the cult members could be let in on the joke!

  8. If this bothers you.... by 8127972 · · Score: 5, Informative

    .... Wikipedia has a list of software that defragments disks. Take out Diskeeper and you have a bunch of options. Nothing changes behaviour like the loss of sales.

    --
    This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
  9. Re:Well... by schon · · Score: 5, Funny

    several people threatened them with the 'L' word

    Umm.. they threatened to become lesbians?

  10. Missing the Point by hax0r_this · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Diskkeeper's contention seems to rely on the First Amendment to the Constitution, which is a higher law than the one you cite. It doesn't matter what state or federal law says if that law violates the employer's constitutional rights.

    Now whether the employer actually has a constitutional right to force his employees to take Scientology classes is up for debate, but you can't win that debate by citing any number of lower laws.

  11. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    There's one product I won't be buying anymore. Oh, and before you start, I worked for a company that tried to pull that indoctrination stuff on employees, until several people threatened them with the 'L' word and a few more quit nearly putting the company OOB. They stopped it fast.

    Linux?

  12. Been There, Forced To Do That by no1home · · Score: 5, Interesting

    About two years after high school, I started working for a local office supply business as a low-level manager. The owners, all of the upper staff, and most everyone else were Scientologists. They never SAID anything about the training manuals being Scientology, but that is exactly what they were, and, of course, we were forced to study them and pass the tests. They never actively tried to recruit me or make me go to one of their churches/meetings/whatever (though it was mentioned politely a couple times) and didn't discuss it too much, but the manuals were enough to make it clear: Scientology was the way to move up in the company. I played the game for a while and did well there while managing to not become brain-washed, but, eventually, I had to bail. I'm a patient, easy going guy, but I could only take so much of their pseudo-scientific, pseudo-psychological, pseudo-religious cult junk before blowing a fuse.

    What I want to know is, if Scientology was the key to success, why then did the business fail? That company no longer exists. :)

    --
    I hope this comment is well received... I could have moderated instead!

    Persecutors will be violated!
  13. Re:religious discrimination by Kha+Khan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mirror of lawsuit documents:
    http://www.xenu-directory.net/documents/200810-godelman-leshay-v-diskeeper.html

    Link to access official Los Angeles Superior Court Documents:
    http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org/civilCaseSummary/index.asp?CaseType=Civil

    Ex Scientologist Message Board Discussion:
    http://forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?t=9154

    Operation Clambake Discussion:
    http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?t=29787

    --
    Why We Protest
  14. My experience at Diskeeper job interview by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My own experience with Diskeeper.

    This was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I showed up for an interview at the L.A offices in 2002 or 2003. At the time I knew almost nothing of the COS. I did know that my current boss was from a family of hard-core COS followers. This was one of my last interviews of my "junior years". I'm un-ease, eager to please, eager to get a new job, dare I say, very impressionable.

    So here I am waiting in the lobby. Looking around I see a row of huge books (10-12 inches tall), from L. Ron Hubbard, known to me only as a sci-fi writer, and I love sci-fi. Each book had titles related to good management, personal growth and similar stuff. More books a bit further, too far to see the titles. A picture of LRH was hanging on a wall in the back. Something was strange.

    I meet the RH person, after a few nice words; the conversation turns on to Dianetics, how incredibly great it is, how it would help me like it helped others, and how we all owe it to the great LRH, and how incredible he was. I nod my head and am somewhat curious.
    After some small talk, I am asked to do a quick personality test. I heard before that many businesses do this, but it was the first time for me. The questions where a bit strange, not quite like the personality test from high-school. Once done I gave it back and the HR "corrects it" on the spot in front of me. I then receive strange comment about some strength, and others I will need to improve.

    I then get a quick tour of the place, where I am told that every new employee gets a free (and mandatory) "3 day seminar" on the week-end before they start working. After that the employees must stay at the office several evenings for a few hours for at least a month (less often after that) to receive evaluations and more "training". They really want to keep people educated to the latest technology was my thought.

    More small talk walking around. Back to the lobby, "We will call you soon for another meeting. Once home, curious about that test I hit Google with some of the questions I remembered from the test.

    I was in shock! I studied COS the entire week-end and felt violated in my intellectual integrity. Looking back at it, this was clearly some attempt to enrol me into COS. The test is a sham, not recognize by any real professional in any science. Many claim it's purposely design for failure, you need help and guess who will help you.

    Reading on I realized that almost every phrase I heard was to lure me into COS. The "free 3 day seminar" coukd only be the horrible COS spirit breaking seminar used to bring new sheep in. The following evenings of reviews were for COS audits.

    I started to be angry. I read that like many cults they use these seminars to manipulate people in despair looking for help. I quickly understood that depressed by a boring job I was in the right state of mind to be a victim. Now I was just mad.

    Worst part was, the more I read on scientology and "audits" treatment, the more I realized my current boss (from a family of COS) was using these tactics at work. Making you feel like crap, incompetent, never doing any good work, so when he asked anything we would all comply ASAP. At least it was a wake up call, I changed job, realized how good I really am, and hated the COS ever since ... and it's personal.

    1. Re:My experience at Diskeeper job interview by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I interviewed with them at their Glendale office in 1991 or so. they wanted me to take over complete support of their VMS product. Half the interview was being told about Scientology by their HR director. 5 minutes with the IT director. The rest with the guy I'd be replacing. He seemed desperate to find someone and they offered me a job on the spot. I turned them down, telling them Scientology was the reason. What surprised me most was the tour of the office. Back then, VMS was pretty much the bulk of their business. yet they only had a single tech person supporting it. But they had room after room of phone support, probably 100 people at desks with headsets during my visit. I really doubt they were doing VMS customer support.

  15. first amendment law by azakem · · Score: 5, Informative

    IANAL, but if I had to guess...

    Diskeeper is probably arguing from Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos. A gym open to the public but affiliated with the Church of Latter Day Saints fired a janitor who wasn't a Mormon. The janitor sued, arguing the exemption for religious organizations from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (prohibiting religious discrimination in employment) violated the establishment clause of the 1st amendment. IIRC, the Church argued that this exemption was a permissible accommodation of the Church's free exercise rights under the 1st amendment. The Supreme Court agreed with the Church.

    The problem is, Diskeeper isn't a religious organization, so they don't qualify for the statutory exemption in Title VII. While religious instruction in the workplace may or may not be lawful, making continued employment dependent on religious instruction in a particular faith almost certainly is unlawful.

    Hopefully Diskeeper goes down at the summary judgment stage, if not on a motion to dismiss.

  16. Re:Another Reason to Avoid Windows by deniable · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh, I can see it now: KB111666: Thetans cause random restarts.