Transcribed by Xenubat (Sue M.)
http://members.cox.net/batchild1/transcript/mike1.htm

MIKE McCLAUGHRY: In the case of this spy that I had in the anti-cult movement, um, we were predicting attacks all over the country with that person. Um, I think maybe I was the only one who had successfully infiltrated the anti-cult movement because of what my seniors at USGO were saying. They were always calling me going, "Who's getting deprogrammed next?" and I was "Well, isn't there anybody else out there working besides me? Don't you have any other spies out there (laughs) to tell you?" Because they wanted to know what was happening in New York and Florida and everywhere else, right? And asking me. And I was up in San Francisco. We predicted deprogrammings in other, uh, considered cults-- Moonie deprogrammings, you name it, you know. We predicted those as well and prevented a lot of them from happening. We considered them allies, you know, and so if a Moonie was gonna be deprogrammed, um, we would predict that and we would, uh, let them know and they would go hide the person or whatever they had to do, you know, to stop that from happening. That happened because of our spies. Um, mostly, I mean our primary interest, of course, was Scientologists. We predicted those and prevented those from happening.

I did read one of the policies where it said we weren't supposed to do anything illegal. Um, I became aware in the course of my training that, um, things were being done that were illegal. Uh, I went to the Deputy Guardian for Intelligence US-- um, by the way, we didn't call it the Information Bureau, we called it Intelligence, what it was. Calling it the Information Bureau was the, the only time we referred to it that way was when we were talking to somebody who wasn't in the GO. And that was kind of our cover, you know, that we were Information; we never told them we were Intelligence. But amongst ourselves, we didn't call ourselves Information; we were Intelligence. Um, so anyway, I read, you know, "Don't do anything illegal". Um, I went to the Deputy Guardian at Intelligence US who was Terry Milner. I said, uh, "Some people aren't following this policy. They're doing things that are illegal." And, uh, he knew about it; that's what I found out. He says, "Yeah, I know about that." (laughs) And I says, "Well, they're violating policy", you know, "What's the story here?", you know, "Do we break the law?" And, uh (laughs)-- and he says, "Well, we don't actually break the law, we just bend it a little bit!" (laughs) And he says, you know-- he drew a line on his desk-- this guy was kind of a crazy guy, anyway, and, uh, (laughs).

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: He was crazy.

MIKE McCLAUGHRY: And he says, "There's the law," you know, and he says, "We kind of cross over that line and then we, for a little bit, and then we scurry back and try to get back and stay within the law." And so, well, the conclusion I came to was: 1) he knew about it; 2) he was condoning it. And I, out of fear, did not take it any higher than that; I just dropped it. Because I figured if he knew about it, then Worldwide knew about it and I figured Mary Sue knew about it, and I couldn't imagine her withholding anything from Ron; I figured he must know about it, too. So if I make any waves uplines about it to try to, um, get that activity stopped, uh, you know, then I would be dog meat, you know, so I just dropped it. (laughs)

As far as Intelligence Bureau's handling of people, there's an issue-- um, I don't think it has a title, uh, nobody signed it, it's not any kind of a formal issue; it's just typing on a piece of paper. Um, my impression was that LRH had written it because I can't imagine anybody else in the organization writing this and getting away with it; they would have been pounded, you know, to dirt for having written it! (laughter) And, you know, unless it was him. That's the way I looked at it, plus the way it was written and just like "Intel: Its Role", it seemed to me that was his writing style. But he-- you know, basically, what this issue said was the way that the Intelligence Bureau handles things, um, was that you perform something that I'll say, what I call 'em is a Black Intelligence operation, and I'm not the only one who called 'em that; they're called Black Ops.

MIKE McCLAUGHRY: One of the datums that we were taught is that anybody that attacks Scientology has crimes. Um, you know, that doesn't just mean crimes against Scientology; it means crimes in general in the normal society definition and idea of what a crime is. Uh, we were supposed to investigate the background of anybody who attacked and find out what their crimes were. Um, and then prosecute them for it; that was the basic idea. Um, if we couldn't-- and the first thing that would have happened with anybody who attacked us-- there's two types of data collection; one is called "overt data collection", which we call ODC. Uh, the other type of data collection to be done was "covert data collection" which was called CDC. Um, we did both on any given attacker. We always did ODCs on them and we always did CDCs on them. Um, the overt data collection was just stuff that was publicly available through public records-- telephone books, library information, court documents, traffic tickets, you name it, you know. We checked every possible source-- voter registration records, you know, just everything you could think of, um, and gathered as much information about that person's background as we could obtain. Um, then we had a general picture of the person. We knew who his relatives were and who he was connected to, where he worked, all that kind of stuff. That came from overt data collection. Then we go into covert data collection, which was essentially, um, you know, probably getting a spy in on the person and trying to find out what kind of, um, misdeeds the guy was up to, you know. Um, what are this guy's crimes? You know, what is doing? Is he cheating on his wife? Is he, uh, you know, taking drugs? Is he doing anything else that broke any kind of a law whatsoever? You know, that's what we were looking for in our covert data collection. Um, if we found crimes, we tried to get the person prosecuted and put in jail. That was the product that we wanted, that was the ideal scene, get this guy behind bars, you know, for criticizing Scientology (laughs), basically. Um, (laughs) that's where you wanted 'em; you wanted 'em in jail. That was the, uh, ideal product to be obtained. Now, a lot of times we could not find, uh, this person committing crimes to put 'em in jail for, maybe because he didn't have any and maybe because we just couldn't find them; either way. Um, and I believe in a lot of case it was just because the guy didn't really have any; the datum wasn't true, that just because they attacked, they had crimes. I didn't find that to be a one-for-one situation anyway. So now, what do you do, you can't find any actual crimes, so that's what this particular hatting thing was about was you perform Black Operations on the person. Um, the first, uh, type of Black Operation would be to, uh,-- okay, if the guy doesn't have any actual crimes, well, let's make him guilty of some crime then! (laughs)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: You manufacture some.

MIKE McCLAUGHRY: You manufacture some crimes, right? Set 'em up, sting operation type stuff. Um, oh, I know some that were actually done, I don't have to give examples. Um, there was a guy in Sacramento named Jim Esterbrook, um, I got one of my agents to go get some, um, drugs, you know, purchase some illegal drugs, marijuana or whatever it was, plant 'em in the guy's car and then call the cops on him and try to get him arrested for possession of illegal drugs. Um, geez, just let your imagine run wild because, uh, we were allowed to do that, you know. It's like anything you could think of was basically okay.

MIKE McCLAUGHRY: Fair Game was a policy letter written by LRH, I guess in the mid '60, I think. Um, and it was a fundamental GO policy. Um, Fair Game meant that a Scientologist could do anything to an enemy of Scientology, um, didn't matter what it was. You could actually physically harm the person. You could lie to them, ch-- sue 'em to poverty, uh, you know, uh, destroy the person's reputation or physical-- destroy them physically if you wanted to, with no repercussion on the Scientologist for having done it. That's what Fair Game means. Um, yeah, I mean, that's what-- that's what we were doing; that was our daily job, was to apply that policy. That was our total job, if you ask me. You're attacking Scientology, you're Fair Game, you know, whatever we do to you doesn't really matter, okay? As far as Scientology was concerned, you were no trouble.

I don't know the details on it, but, uh, it was causing a public relations flap when people were labeled Fair Game. So the issue came out that said, "Stop labeling people Fair Game." Which was done-- okay, we stopped calling people Fair Game. But the action of treating 'em like Fair Game never stopped, okay? We, they could-- that policy was still in effect. I mean, my God, it was the very heart and soul of what we were doing, okay? We would have been out of a job if we stopped doing Fair Game! (laughter)

MIKE McCLAUGHRY: Another type of Black Operation was to get the guy fired from his job. The theory on that was, is that people use their job, their position, uh, what they have to have at work is a kind of a position to attack Scientology from. Um, in a lot of cases that was true; maybe the guy was a government official, he was using his, uh, job as a government official to attack Scientology. So the idea was, let's cost him his job, get him the heck out of there and then he won't have that position to attack Scientology from any more. Short of that, it didn't have to be that he was using his job to attack Scientology from; but in all cases it was at least his support, right? And if you cost him his job, he doesn't have money and he's got a major problem to deal with in his life in not having any work and income to support himself. So costing the guy his job was always a good thing to do.

That was also a standard thing to do, was we would always try to cost the guy his job. We would always try to get him in jail and we would always try to cost him his job. Lots of people's businesses have been destroyed because of this. Um--

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: How did you do it?

MIKE McCLAUGHRY: Huh?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: How did you destroy their business?

MIKE McCLAUGHRY: Oh, gosh, you know, there's lots of ways, um, you know, this is not a real example, but let's say that a guy is emplo-- has his own, um, work, right? He has his own company. He of course has clients, right? That buy from him and that kind of a thing. Uh, let's say that the guy is, um, he makes-- he's an artist and he paints pictures and he's got certain art studios that normally buy his pictures and sell 'em for him. They would go to those art studios and, um, just badmouth the guy in any kind of a way, and make the people who buy from him normally decide that they don't, for whatever reason they have, they don't like him and they're not gonna buy from him any more, and he ends up with no business, you know, he goes broke. That would be an example.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Uh-huh.