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Scientology Charged With Slavery, Human Trafficking
eldavojohn writes "A formal complaint was filed in California (caged PDF) last week by John Lindstein naming David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology International as defendants. Lindstein claims that for sixteen years (from age 8) he was forced to work as a slave at Gold Base, a secret CoS site run by Golden Era Productions with 'razor wire, security guard patrols, surveillance posts, and three roll calls each day.' The pay was $50 a week. The allegations include 'Violations of wage and hour laws as well as unfair/illegal business practices actionable under California B&P 17200 Et. Seq.' and a complaint under the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, which abolished slavery. Members of the group Anonymous praised the summons."
Now if we can see a slashdot article saying that they were found guilty and someone went to prison for it... the fat lady ain't sang yet, boys.
Free Martian Whores!
Since they are classified as a religion (thanks to infiltration of CoS into the IRS) wouldn't his service be considered 'worship' and 'volunteering'. However it wouldn't surprise me if they actually were actually doing much worse than just killing people.
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Historically, American slaves were fed and clothed, and occasionally paid. A few saved up to buy their freedom (less of the agricultural variety, more of the city-dwellers who could collect tips.)
Silly fool, working for $50 a week. Lord Xenu pays *his* slaves $100 a week.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It isn't religion that is the problem, it is organization and trust. Take any group of trusted people and you will find that a minority want to use their trust for personal gain. In America, corporations, schools, etc. are all looked at pretty thoroughly for abuses, religion usually isn't.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Slavery actually connotes a position of involuntary servitude rather than one where payment is withheld. That is, it is the lack of freedom that is the main attribute of slavery, not the lack of compensation.
Scientology has become relevant to Slashdot and its readership ever since CoS removed content from Slashdot under DMCA. It's quote obviously News for Nerds now, and, noting the DMCA reference (and the fact that it's common CoS practice, not a single isolated case), definitely related to Your Rights Online. If it's still not clear, try posting OT-III materials in a /. comments and see how that goes.
Pay as meager as $50 is similar to the allowance given to indentured servants back in old times. He was also forced into labor, he couldn't leave. That $50 had to be spent on the compound at the canteen. It was slavery.
Hmm, how come every Scientology story must have some post diverting attention to Catholicism, trying to lend legitimacy to Scientology as a religion?
Let's stick to the topic at hand, shall we? And that topic is that Scientology apparently enslaved this person.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
I think you started a little late. The Muslim crusades. The Catholic crusades. The Inquisition. (What a show...) The common thread is people... A corrupt person has no problem using anything as an excuse from religion, to communism, to security, to social justice. No "idea" stays pure once people start to use it.
Religions, though, have the unpleasant architectural problem of (in the vast majority of cases) coupling social and organizational power with strongly implied, or even overt, assertions of trustworthiness.
Because they purport to deal in moral and divine matters, those who have power within the organization generally(either as an official point of doctrine, or in lay understanding) tend to be imbued with greater "goodness" or "holiness" or access to divine command, or whatever. Priests and CEOs are both potentially dangerous, and quite likely to cover for their buddies; but you don't generally tell children that CEOs are trusted authority figures who deserve their respect and obedience.
I'm not fan of scientology, or any cult really - but a mainstream organization with illegal work camps? I just never expected that, at all. You'd think the lid would have come off something that extreme some time ago. And what are they even having them do in these camps, build the theta monitors?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As a Californian I wonder how much interest this is going to garner in my home state regarding the abuses of Scientology. On the one hand, my state is populated with pipe dreamers, smoked out idealists, flower children, hippy nutjobs, and all sorts of other forms of extreme liberalism. On the other hand, we have very rich communities like Hollywood, the OC, and Roseville. We also, apparently, have enough orthodox, classic right wingers that we voted down legalizing gay marriage recently. We have farmers. We have students. We have programmers. We have ranchers. We have movie stars. We have one of the most diverse culture mixtures in the world I bet. That's part of why I love it here...
Of course, along with that diversity is an unfathomable tolerance for some particularly poignant cases of stupidity...like our state budget. There is no doubt that the strong and vocal religious groups here in California would raise exception and a helluva kerfuffle over their church being towed to court for slavery. But I wonder if any of those groups see a case regarding Scientology as a threat. After all sometimes the most belligerent opposition to one religion comes from another religion. I have seen folks in Fawkes masks walking around my local famer's market protesting Scientology. However, I have also had Scientologists try to recruit me both in my home town and when I wander the rest of the state. So this will certainly be an interesting case to watch. I hope it garners some attention and noise in this state and, perhaps, even in our country. Exposing Scientology for the cult and crime syndicate it is certainly is, in my opinion, a righteous cause....
Well if there's one thing we Californians know how to do, its garner attention and make some noise. I'm gonna go pop some popcorn...
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
> but you don't generally tell children that CEOs are trusted authority figures who deserve their respect and obedience.
Well, unless their name is Steve Jobs.
The war between Scientology vs. The Internet has been going on pretty much since there was an Internet.
The Co$ practically invented the Hipcrime sporgery attack technique that still plagues USENET to this day. It was directly responsible for taking down the world's first anonymous remailer (anon.penet.fi) in 1996, and compromised every user of that service. Its shill legislator got his name stamped onto the Mickey Mouse Protection Act in 1998.
It has been a consistent and implacable foe of the free exchange of information on the Internet for the better part of 20 years, and it will not stop until it - either the Cult or the Internet - ceases to exist in its current form. Anything that could deplete the cult's financial reserves is a priori a good thing for Your Rights Online, and anything that the cult wants is a priori a threat to Your Rights Online.
Asking "What does the Co$ have to do with YRO?" is like asking "What does NSA have to do with surveillance?" Both are threats to your ability to speak freely. NSA may break the law from time to time, but for all we bitch about it, at least it acknowledges the existence of legal restrictions on its ability to carry out its mission. Co$ doesn't even recognize the concept of law, except as a means of filing strategic lawsuits against public participation, or as a means to otherwise harass its critics.
I have it on good authority that the Amish are running a dog fighting ring.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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"If you want to control your child, simply break him into complete apathy and he'll be as obedient as any hypnotized half-wit. If you want to know how to control him, get a book on dog training, name the child Rex and teach him first to "fetch" and then to "sit up" and then to bark for his food. You can train a child that way. Sure you can. But it's your hard luck if he turns out to be a blood-letter. Only don't be half-hearted about it. Simply TRAIN him. "Speak, Roger!" "Lie down!" "Roll over!" Of course, you'll have a hard time of it. This - a slight oversight - is a human being. You'd better charge right in and do what you can to break him into apathy quickly. A club is best. Tying him in a closet without food for a few days is fairly successful. The best recommended tactic, however, is simply to use a straight jacket and muffs on him until he is docile and imbecilic. I'm warning you that it's going to be tough; it will be tough because Man became king of the beasts only because he couldn't as a species be licked. He doesn't easily go into an obedient apathy like dogs do. Men own dogs because men are self-determined and dogs aren't. --Official church documents
I got nothing better going on.
That's really hard, because the benefits of most religions are often highly subjective. The only defense I can think of is that they could be a lot worse (ie. Jonestown, Heaven's Gate), and they certainly aren't worse than the TV evangelist types who also rake in obscene amounts of money from the True Believers.
I remember one article I read on them stated that their biggest problem is their intense paranoia of the outside world. A lot of the reasons they've done some of the nasty things they've done (like infiltrating Ontario government offices in the 1970s) are ill-informed and misjudged attempts at security.
L. Ron Hubbard was most certainly a con artist, but he was also a bit of a paranoid type, not to mention the self-aggrandizing that he got out of a lot of the cloak-and-dagger bullshit. The problem for $cientologists after him is that I think a lot of them didn't get the joke. In short, their inheritors of L. Ron's madness, but in a more pure and fanatical form.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sticky subject that is likely to insult somebody, no matter how you approach it.
I can say that I have met some Jewish people with questionable business morals, but then again I've met people with NO religious beliefs that are far worse.
As far as slavery and forced labor goes, the long-running genocide in Darfur is essentially Muslim controlled militias attacking indigenous tribes-people, people that have been a source of slaves for Muslim slavers for hundreds of years.
The rallying cry for some of the Janjaweed (means "devil on horseback") militia forces has been "Kill the slaves, kill the slaves!"
But then again, the region where the Janjaweed are killing defenseless, unarmed villagers also happens to center around a government-held oil pipeline that sends 80% of the regions oil to China.
So maybe religion has nothing to do with it? Maybe some people are just assholes?
And to complicate matters, some people seem to feel compelled to put Scientology in the same group as Christianity and Islam when we ALL know Scientology is just a big SCAM. It is NOT a religion just because they say it is. It is a scam disguised as a religion.
Oranges and Apples, my friends...Don't give them the credit they so desire.
In the words of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, 'THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE!!'
As quoted from L. Ron Hubbard:
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".
His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.
When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.
One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.
In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.
One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.
One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.
Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck.
Slavery actually connotes a position of involuntary servitude rather than one where payment is withheld. That is, it is the lack of freedom that is the main attribute of slavery, not the lack of compensation.
Slavery actually connotes a position of involuntary servitude rather than one where payment is withheld. That is, it is the lack of freedom that is the main attribute of slavery, not the lack of compensation.
The barbed wire at Gold Base is on the inside of the fence not on the outside.
You don't count being held in a compound surrounded by razor wire and forced to work 16-24 hours a day at age 8 as "involuntary servitude"? Wow, you must have had a much rougher childhood than me.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I live near this facility (map/image) and it looks more like a gated-resort community than anything. I haven't seen any razor wire, but there are high fences and access is controlled through a gate, and there are cameras on the road and on the fence. For the interested, there is a wiki page that strikes me as being pretty accurate and NPOV.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
My parents forced me to go to church every week, then sunday school, and during the week I would be forced to work as an altar boy for no pay. All the time I was brainwashed with repetitive prayers and actions. A cult is a cult is a cult. It doesn't matter that here in North America we tend to be fond of a particular one.
You don't count being held in a compound surrounded by razor wire and forced to work 16-24 hours a day at age 8 as "involuntary servitude"?
No, obviously they do count that as involuntary, since the point was to contradict a post claiming this wasn't slavery due to him being paid. In other words, they are saying he was a slave.
This post has been brought to you by the Center For Explaining the Obvious to the Reading Comprehension Impaired, a tax-exempt religious charity organization that you can join and learn more about for the low low cost of $5000.
The enemies of Democracy are
Was this a surprise to anyone?
As the submitter, yeah I have to admit it kind of was. This is a really unique opportunity for a case against CoS because normally the cases come from outsiders.
Lindstein was eight years old and says he was forced to work for 16 years. He was removed from school at age 12. Now, if you were removed from school at age 12, you probably aren't very well suited for a high paying job. So you have someone who's lost much of their youth to Scientology and has the motivation to see this suit through to the end.
You see, when you sue or slander Scientology, you might not realize what you're getting yourself into. People end up doing jail for posting verbal attacks on Scientology online. To quote the late L. Ron Hubbard on his policy:
This is the correct procedure: Spot who is attacking us. Start investigating them promptly for felonies or worse using our own professionals, not outside agencies. Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them. Start feeding lurid, blood sex crime actual evidence on the attackers to the press. Don't ever tamely submit to an investigation of us. Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way. * "Attacks on Scientology" (25 February 1966)
That's what you're dealing with. That's what Lindstein has in his future. He probably knows it, his lawyer probably knows it. But he will soon be subjected to character assassination, harassment of just barely legal amounts, indirect threats and the same for any family he may have.
So yeah, I'm a pleasantly surprised that such an opportune individual has stepped forward to speak and let us know what Scientology is. Because in so many other cases, the individual has been silenced one way or another. And scientology has refined it's processes to force its members quiet and they have the resources and legal representation to make magic happen in the courts.
I hope Lindstein is telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I wish him the best of luck in the courtroom and for justice to be brought against those who forced him into labor and stripped him of his right to knowledge.
My work here is dung.
Look around for COS stories on the internet, and read the comments. You'll find some derivation of that exact comment over and over in every single one of them.
If you know anyone who is trapped -- physically or mentally -- inside a cult like the Church of Scientology, then please contact Rick Ross. The life of the victim may depend on your getting Ross' help as soon as possible.
Dude - there are (and were) cults out in the US today that do much, much worse.
Yes there are, but nothing on the scale of Scientology. The bigger the group the bigger the target, the harder to keep secrets.
That's what I mean by being surprised. A local compound in one city? Zero information coming out of that would surprise me. But again, for something as large and well known as scientology... it is odd to me that this has not come forward before and is being practiced at all. They don't need to do this after all, they are making money hand over fist as it is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I believe you have it backwards. I think the post you reference is trying to point out that there is really no reason not to treat catholicism with the same utter contempt that we treat scientology.
I personally think it should be taken one step further than that. All organized religion should be treated with utter contempt.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
"You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don'tcha call me 'cause I can't go,
I owe my soul to the company store."
That song reflected the reality of tens of thousands of people in Appalachia.
Forgot this:
Q: What is the difference between a religion and a cult?
A: Time.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
I wish Acts 17:11 would get preached more: "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Healthy skepticism is part of a noble character.
I don't think examining the Scriptures to see if something is true can be reasonably considered "healthy skepticism". This would more properly be described as an unhealthy skewing of the meaning of "skepticism". Someone with a healthy level of skepticism would not consider examining the scriptures as a means of verifying truth. At best it can uncover contradictions, but proving that what Paul said was consistent would in no way indicate whether what Paul said was true. The Bereans, it appears, suffered from some very unhealthy misconceptions
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I once had the opportunity to read part of the diary of a teenage girl who had been at a Scientology "Base" in Colorado. I don't recall the name of it, or even whether she mentioned it by name (this was 20 years ago). The disruptive, corruptive effects her involvement with this Base and the CoS had on her state of mind were obvious from what she wrote. While I don't recall whether she described any physical enslavement, the mental enslavement was apparent.
Why they're still getting away with it mystifies me; pretty much everyone now knows what they're doing and how they're doing it.
There needs to be sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was kidnapped, and not staying voluntarily.
Did you miss the point that he was eight years old at the time?
Well, if there's no evidence that he was forcibly detained, there will be no successful prosecution.
Yep. you missed the point that he was eight years old at the time!
Eight-year-olds do not have free will under California law. They have the legally recognized ability to tattle, and that's about it. On the other hand, there *are* strict child-labor laws in effect.
I have no sympathies for any particular religious group. I just hope the law is upheld and no prosecution based solely on unsupported claims is successful.
First is the question: are they actually a regligious group? See France's recent rulings for more information. There's certainly reasonable doubt on the question!
Second: The claims are very, VERY widely supported. Literally hundreds of people (and I mean literally, not figuratively) have come forth with their stories of harrassment, false imprisonment / kidnapping, extortion, and plenty more.
Just take a look for yourself...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Principia Discordia.
Disorganized religion. There you go. Read it now, thank me later fnord.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I personally think you took one step too far when you afforded the CoS the respect of referring to them as an organized religion. They're not, catholicism is, there's a huge difference.
Yep, about two thousand years and a few million followers.
Fraiser (to Niles): "Remember Niles, that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger."
Nile: "Yes, but what about the people that don't make it into that second group?"
Except that science only requires observation as a postulate and no other 'leaps of faith'. That is the difference between science and religion. Science doesn't expect you to believe in a bearded man on a cloud that watches your every move, or in angels or in eternal damnation. Observation and thought, that's it.
But as long as your religion doesn't condone those slaves in the basement, that's fine with me.
This sig is intentionally left blank
If your question is serious, the serious answer is about $500,000.
That's about how much you have to pay to get to that "level" of information.
Allow me to re-phrase that for you:
The problem wasn't the conditions in which slaves were kept; the problem is that human beings were indistinguishable from livestock in the minds of their owners.
You ought to learn about what the loss of liberty does to a human being before you trot out this useless tripe again.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Do you have a pop psychology book and a secret black box with some electrodes I could tape to my skin?
I'm normally not supposed to answer questions like this until you pay the initial $5000 fee, but the answers respectively are "no, psychology is a mole-men conspiracy" and "yes, but the electrodes don't go on your skin, and you need lube not tape".
The enemies of Democracy are
Its not like no-one knew about Scientology work camps - some german documentary team went out to go visit it and got stopped by a bunch of armed men (this was in the early 90's) - wish I could remember the title.
Missing in Happy Valley
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2742505831051424517
Monasteries typically don't have:
* Sniper nests
* Double bladed razor fences
* Motion sensors facing inside
* Armed security guard preventing people from leaving
* A full arsenal of guns
* People are allowed to leave
* Phone calls & mail are not monitored & prefiltered
* Phone calls from concerned relatives are not coached
* People inside are not punished when someone leaves
* Nunneries don't coerce females to have abortions to keep up productivity
* Emergency calls to the police actually go to the police & not internal security
* Don't make 'bad' monks clean septic tanks with their hands (no tools, JUST their hands).
* Don't throw members into a shit pond for not behaving by their standards.
* Get to see their family
* Are not physically beat, kicked or strangled by their leader David Miscavige.
* Are not asked by their leader David Miscavige to beat/attack other members who are not living up to the leader's standards.
* Are permitted time for personal hygiene when being punished for information leaks.
* Do not go into lock down when information leaks