This seemed vaguely familiar, but I didn't have any luck finding mention or related posts in Google's ARS archive.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=6776

Once again, this type of behavior and paranoia on the part of Scientology IS factually true. I am a direct victim of their shotgun method of attacking critics via threat or lawsuit. All I did was repost a joke, a silly, dumb joke, but a joke nonetheless in a scientology newsgroup. The joke was virtually the same one that one Keith Henson (a founding member of the L5 Society, physicist) posted in a discussion with another person a couple years or so before. The joke was essentially "I have a Tom Cruise missile for sale for anyone who wishes to strike the HQ of Scientology". A Tom Cruise missile...get it? Yuck, yuck. Dumb as hell and ridiculous on its face but this joke got Scientology to go after Henson in court, get him labeled a "terrorist". They also threatened Henson about what would happen to him when he got to jail. Henson fled to Canada and sought political asylum. This all happened in California (naturally). At the time I read of all this I was nearing the end of my graduate work and spending long, boring nights in the lab. I was outraged by the obvious silliness of the lawsuit and threats and thought "only in California" and "screw Scientology, I'm NOT in California" so I went an posted virtually the same joke the alt.scientology newsgroup. At this time I was also lurking in an IRC channel in which Scientology protesters involving both former scientology members and other principled protesters. As soon as I posted the joke, they immediately began flooding me with pleas that I take it back, that I had done something really stupid, that the CofS would take action even for my silly joke.

I finally acquiesced and posted not a retraction message but a message explaining to the intellectually challenged in the newsgroup that there is no such thing as a Tom Cruise Missile and that it was a JOKE, etc. I then sat back for several days and went about my graduate business.

Three days after the posting, a bunch of university IT guys plus a few guys I didn't recognize came into the lab and started doing checks on the various lab computers, looking for something. They then asked if they could check the IP of my computer, which I allowed, and it turned out that this was the info they were looking for. The people I didn't recognize were campus cops. They asked me to go with them to have a chat. They explained to me that they had received a message from an FBI agent in the Virginia (?!) Joint Terror Task Force about a threat being made from a computer with my computer's IP address. I explained the situation, showed them a direct printout of the actual message, etc. They then told me that I had also violated campus policy in sending a threat (those deadly Tom Cruise Missiles that the US military has lost track of, you know, are no joking matter) and that I would likely lose my network privileges and other action was possible. They also told me I would likely be visited by the FBI for an interview at some near-future date. My own thesis advisor, with whom I'd had something of a personal falling out, had told me that he thought he wouldn't be able to support me getting my PhD, blah, blah.

I sat around with all this in my head for 2 days before I decided to put an end to the suspense - I went to the local FBI field office and asked to speak to an officer. Turns out, they had never heard of the incident in question, did not know anything about the "FBI agent" who had contacted the university police with the claim of a threat being made, and that they'd look into it. I did my own digging. I found rather quickly that the "FBI agent" was, in fact, very likely a private investigator known to do some work for the CofS from time to time and that he had several complaints filed against him by other intimidation victims.

I informed the campus cop of this information and asked him for details as to what was said. This private investigator had, apparently, impersonated an FBI agent (or misrepresented himself as such) to the campus police and, as a result, they gave him a bunch of my protected personal information (such as my SSN, home address, etc) which is, by university (and some federal laws) protected information. Oh good! I immediately contacted the FBI field agent and passed the information to him and had him contact the campus police.

In the end, the campus police apologized to me profusely for the whole incident. The FBI checked into the possible impersonation of an FBI agent by the PI, and I forced my thesis advisor to go ahead, as he had enthusiastically agreed to only a couple weeks before, and OK my thesis defense. It also helped that all my other thesis committee members didn't much like my PI either (and he had been denied tenure as well by them) and they were all onboard with supporting my defense. I won, the Scientologist lost, but I had a very harrowing week.

They're frickin' wackos and if you read their very own documents leaked and published into various court records, you will find that attempts to destroy critics by ANY means necessary is SOP.

Posted by: Praedor Atrebates on July 22, 2005 at 10:03 AM | PERMALINK

=== I wouldn't mind reading a more detailed account. There seems to be a few pieces missing. Like "I won, the Scientologist lost". Who is the Scientologist, the thesis advisor, that he'd had a personal falling out with?

-- Ron of that ilk. Hmm, now what was I originally looking for when I bumped into this...

From: "Android Cat" <androidcat98@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: CoS PI impersonated an FBI agent (cont)
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 22:20:42 -0500
Organization: Sandor Arbitration Intelligence at the Zoo
Message-ID: <70a94$436c2518$cf700e8d$12407@PRIMUS.CA>

Android Cat wrote: > This seemed vaguely familiar, but I didn't have any luck finding
> mention or related posts in Google's ARS archive.
>
> http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=6776

I missed the additional bit later on down:

> Praedor, you have my sympathy for the ordeal you went through. I did some
> research on Keith Henson: he got convicted of a hate crime for making a
> pun? That's fricking ridiculous.

Oh, there was another small part of this that came up. I did not know Keith Henson in any way, shape, or form before my few late nites browsing in the lab. I read of him, thought his plight outrageous, and repeated his newsgroup posting. I then found that Henson was a regular, and quite reasonable, poster to the very alt.scientology newsgroup, and an ocassional member of the IRC channel I discovered. AFTER my posting, he and I exchanged a couple emails, then a couple more after the FBI incident. That was entirely it (and I kept all the messages in this entire debacle). The private investigator impersonating an FBI agent on a JTTC (from Virginia, no less, I was in the Western US at the time) also told the campus police that I was a "good friend to a fugitive from justice, a terrorist, Keith Henson". HAH! Never met the dude and my entire personal knowledge of him was from the writeups on the internet about his plight. THEN I exchanged, literally, 3 emails with him. The entire extent of my "relationship" with him. This fake FBI agent tried to paint me as the close personal friend of a terrorist.

The important thing was that I WON and THEY LOST. BITE ME SCIENTOLOGISTS! (that will drive any loco scientologist lurkers batshit, hehe). I also ended getting the PI put on notice that the FBI was looking at him for impersonation. The campus cops swear up and down he claimed to be an FBI Agent while the criminal PI claims he never did. Nonetheless, he has the eye of the FBI on him, the shitbag.

Posted by: Praedor Atrebates on July 22, 2005 at 11:28 AM | PERMALINK

-- Ron of that ilk.

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