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Cult

What happens when you try to leave the Church of Scientology?


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The story of film director and screenwriter Paul Haggis's resignation


19 August 2009, Tommy Davis, the chief spokesperson for the Church of Scientology International, received a letter from the film director and screenwriter Paul Haggis. "For 10 months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego," Haggis wrote. Before the 2008 elections, a staff member at Scientology's San Diego church had signed its name to an online petition supporting Proposition 8, which asserted that the state of California should sanction marriage only "between a man and a woman". The proposition passed. As Haggis saw it, the San Diego church's "public sponsorship of Proposition 8, which succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California - rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state - is a stain on the integrity of our organisation and a stain on us personally. Our public association with that hate-filled legislation shames us." Haggis wrote, "Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent." He concluded, "I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology."

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Cult

Katie Might Be Able to Leave Tom - but Divorcing Scientology Won't Be Easy

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Ex-Scientologists say the church uses blackmail and threats to keep people in the fold. Even when you manage to get out, deprogramming your brain can take years.

Leaving a highly secretive and close-knit group like Scientology might not be as easy as checking the "irreconcilable differences" box.

Since news broke that Katie Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise, her husband of nearly six years, speculation has been rampant that she wants out of Scientology - and she wants to take daughter Suri with her.

Steve Hassan, an "exit counselor" whosays he's worked with "countless" people trying to leave the Church of Scientology, says the church has a history of blackmailing members into staying within the fold by threatening to divulge intimate details they've shared in "auditing sessions." These are counseling sessions in which one member coaches another to "clear," or rid himself, of any negative forces that interfere with devotion to the church. Hassan says people he's worked with have described the church as strong-arming "members to give up their children."

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Sheeple

Paranoia strikes deep - In David Cameron's Orwellian Britain They Now Snoop on Seaside Postcards

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© Unknown
A country crosses the Rubicon to a full blown totalitarian state when its agents decide to read the contents of seaside post cards.

In the future anyone sending the traditional vacation greeting 'wish you were here' to family and friends through the UK's Royal Mail will do so in the knowledge that faceless clerks working for the intelligence services will try to decipher exactly what 'having a lovely time' really means.

A lovely time making bombs perhaps? Is 'the sea is a bit cold for the time of the year' some kind of code to transmit concealed instructions to a cell of fiendish plotters?

God forbid that anyone should send love and kisses from anywhere east of Sussex and sign off 'Mohammed.' That will be quite sufficient to earn a 4 a.m. wake up call from Scotland Yard's finest.

Nor is it just about plain old postcards by any means. A new bill crawling through parliament conveys the power to read inscriptions written on the outside of envelopes.

There used to be a very famous message popular with service personnel posted around the empire, who were inclined to inscribe BURMA on the back of coming home letters addressed to wives and girl friends. Decoded, it read: Be Undressed and Ready My Angel.

Lord knows what the censors might make of that in these days of synthetic paranoia manufactured by the denizens of law and order and the security-obsessed guards of the state.

Stop

Google Bans Sales of Constitutionally Protected "Guns, Ammunition and Knives"?

In a letter hosted on Guns and Ammo, Google has informed some of their merchants they will no longer allow the sale of products associated with guns, ammunition, and knives.
Weapons

As highlighted on our new policy page , in order to comply with the Google Shopping policies you need to comply first with the AdWords policies.

We do not allow the promotion or sale of weapons and any related products such as ammunition's or accessory kits on Google Shopping.

In order to comply with our new policies, please remove any weapon-related products from your data feed and then re-submit your feed in the Merchant Center. For more information on this policy please visit here."
In the letter, Google lists four principles by which they govern Google Shopping.

1) Google Shopping should provide a positive experience to users.

- If someone can't find a product that is perfectly legal to purchase, how is this a positive experience? Clearly they do not want criminals purchasing weapons and ammunition for malicious reasons - as Guns and Ammo puts it, "But what about law-abiding, responsible gun owners?"

2) Google Shopping should be safe for all users.

- This point in Google's letter is referring to the virtual safety of its users. This point states "Scams, phishing, viruses, and other malicious activities on the Internet damage the value of the Internet for everyone." Nothing here implies they are worried about the physical safety of customers. Guns and Ammo points out "it's still OK to shop for kitchen knives, which work just the same on people as they do on veggies."

Blackbox

Department of Homeland Security 'Enforcement Training Center' Puts in Order for More Ammo

Over the last month we have reported on the numerous and increasingly alarming purchases of hollow point ammuntion by the Department of Homeland Security.

While many have claimed that it is completely normal for domestic government agencies to order over 750 million rounds of .40 caliber hollow point ammo, the fact remains that these purchases have been anything but normal and signal a full scale militarization of various government agencies that could one day take on the American people.

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Now, a new post on the infamous FBO.gov website by Homeland Security is once against raising eyebrows.

In the request, the Combined Synopsis/Solicitation shows that the following ammunition is set to be delivered in May.
Item No . Description Qty Unit

001 .22 long rifle, 36 grains hollow point (HP) 5 TH
002 .308 175 grains match boat tail hollow point (BTHP) 1000 EA
003 .45 ACP 230 grains jacketed hollow point (JHP) 500 EA
004 .45 Colt / Long Colt, 25 grains lead 100 EA
005 .300 AAC black out, 125 grains open tip match 250 EA
006 .44 mangnum, 240 grains jacketed soft point 100 EA
007 .44 special, 240 grains lead flat nose 100 EA
008 .22 magnum, 40 grains jacketed hollow point 400 EA
009 .30-30 winchester, 150 grains soft point 100 EA
010 12 GA, # 8 bird shot 400 EA
011 .30-06, 168 grains match 500 EA

MIB

Three Former NSA Employees Expose 'Mass Illegal Surveillance' in Court

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© Unknown
The National Security Agency (NSA), which has recently been protected from having to disclose their relationship with the search engine giant and data mining powerhouse Google, is back in court over the case Jewel v. NSA.

The case, which was reinstated by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in late 2011, is challenging the NSA's now well known massive warrantless surveillance program.

This case is more important than ever with the NSA pouring a whopping $2 billion into a heavily fortified data center which will almost certainly be used to monitor the communications of Americans.

The National Counterterrorism Center's new guidelines allowing extended data retention make matters even worse, if you can imagine such a thing.

Three former employees of the NSA, William E. Binney, Thomas A. Drake, and J. Kirk Wiebe, have come forward with evidence to back up a case being valiantly fought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Cookie

Canada will pay failed refugee claimants up to $2,000 to go home

Call it a parting gift, or maybe a bribe. Refugees claimants who failed in their claims for asylum in Canada are being given up to $2,000 and a one-way plane ticket home if they leave voluntarily, the Toronto Star reports. A pilot program being run in the Greater Toronto area is being greeted with some approval by lawyers who work with refugee claimants but some say the money is little more than bribe, and a puny one at that, to get claimants to forego further appeals.

The Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration pilot program, launched last week, is run jointly by the Canada Border Services Agency and the International Organization for Migration. "Currently, many failed refugee claimants do not respect their obligation to leave Canada, which leads to deportation, costly enforced removals by the CBSA and a permanent bar on returning to Canada," the agency says on its web site.

"Often this happens because people are unaware of the consequences of failing to comply with removal orders or simply do not have the means to leave or to support themselves when they return to their home countries." The CBSA says the program could achieve up to 6,955 voluntary returns, allowing its enforcement officers to focus on higher-priority cases, such as catching suspected war criminals and foreign crooks.

"It's a win-win situation," Peter Showler, a law professor at the University of Ottawa told the Star. Failed applicants retain their ability to reapply to come back to Canada and get some money to re-establish themselves, while the government gets prompt, trouble-free removal, he said.

Cult

Scientology's Shocking Treatment of Children Held in a Suburban Sydney Labor Camp


Shocking news this morning from journalist Bryan Seymour in Australia. In a story for the program TodayTonight that took him more than a year to put together, Seymour blows the lid off a re-education camp operated by Scientology in a suburb of Sydney, where children as young as eight years old have worked long hours for no pay. One of those kids, Shane Kelsey, now 21, finally left the camp last year, and Seymour was there to film Shane's reunion with his father, who now feels horrible guilt for leaving the boy in the camp to begin with. At only 8 years old, Shane signed a billion-year contract with Scientology's Sea Organization and was working 35 hours a week -- by the time he was 15, he was working 100 hours, for about $35 a week.

In a statement, Scientology made its standard claim that its "Rehabilitation Project Force" (which Shane experienced at 16) is a voluntary program, and is intended for Sea Org members who "commit serious breaches of ecclesiastical rules."

Let that sink in a minute. A prison-like camp for members who break ecclesiastical rules -- while only 16 years old.

Cult

BBC Panorama: The Secrets of Scientology

Reporter John Sweeney's previous investigation into the Church of Scientology resulted in an explosive confrontation with church officials. This time, in a Panorama Special, one of those officials has turned whistleblower to help him reveal the dark secrets of the church, which boasts Hollywood A-listers Tom Cruise and John Travolta among its devotees.


Comment: To understand the dark origins of this cult that is run like an intelligence agency, watch this:




Footprints

Tough sentences in Argentina stolen babies case

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© INCAATwo former Argentine dictators are handed heavy prison sentences for overseeing the systematic kidnapping of babies from leftist activists killed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.
Two former Argentine dictators were handed heavy prison sentences for overseeing the systematic kidnapping of babies from leftist activists killed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Jorge Videla, 86, was sentenced to 50 years in prison and Reynaldo Bignone, 84, was given a 15-year jail term, presiding judge Maria Roqueta said as she read the ruling before a packed courtroom in Buenos Aires.

Hundreds of people -- relatives of the victims, children reunited with their families and activists -- cheered the ruling, which they watched on a giant television screen set up outside the courthouse. Many were in tears.

Several other former military officers were handed sentences of up to 40 years for their roles in a "systematic plan" to kidnap the babies of activists, in a trial that started in February 2011. Two of 11 defendants were acquitted.