The Leader

Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: Features/News

Around the world on Feb. 10, masked protesters gathered outside of Scientology establishments to engage in a "battle of ideas" against the church. Picket signs and Guy Fawkes masks abounded in equal proportions - the former an offensive maneuver, and the latter a defensive one. A disturbing theme was clear among the protestors: the majority of them didn't want to risk being identified.

Hiding their faces was as much a statement as a safety precaution. The Church of Scientology has been known to go after its critics legally, seen recently when it lobbied for the removal of the infamous Tom Cruise Scientology video from YouTube. What's more, stories are circulating the Internet that implicate more sinister forms of the church's harassment, including impersonation attempts, threatening phone calls and adherence to an unwritten "fair game policy" which states that enemies of the church are beyond ethical consideration.

The Church of Scientology has often been harshly scrutinized, particularly for its rejection of some forms of modern medicine and its tax-exempt status in the U.S. Controversies have broken out over scandals within the Church of Scientology, such as the death of scientologist Lisa McPherson while she was under the church's care. In the aftermath of McPherson's death, the church had two felony charges brought against it - abuse and/or neglect of a disabled adult and practicing medicine without a license - but the charges were dropped after the medical examiner changed the cause of her death to "accident."

It's no wonder, then, that the Feb. 10 protestors took a Halloween approach to their picketing. The demonstrations were fronted by an organization called "Anonymous," a technology-savvy group of Internet users who are just as hard to track down as they are widespread. Anonymous recently declared an ethical war upon the Church of Scientology in response to the church's demands to remove Tom Cruise's Scientology video from the intertubes - the straw that apparently broke the hacker's back.

Anonymous' fight against Scientology, called Project Chanology, is evident throughout the Internet. Some of its attacks against the church included blocking traffic to the Scientology website, faxing the church countless black pages and prank phone calls.

I stumbled upon what may have been an Anonymous attack while surfing Wikipedia for information; after typing "Scientology" into the search bar, a blank Wikipedia article appeared that contained only two words: "ur gullible." Refreshing the page or using a different computer would not alter the insult, so I moved on to more reliable sources. Upon returning to the Wikipedia entry a few minutes later, I found the normal Scientology article to be in place as if nothing had happened. Creepy.

Continued...

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