The
Barnes Letters
Presented
by Stacy Brooks, President of the LMT
As
many of you may already know, Greg and Debra Barnes were recently
declared Suppressive by the Church of Scientology. RTC apparently
views it as a high crime for someone on OT 7 to object to being
security checked every six months, even though these
"six-month checks" (as they are fondly referred to by
the 7s) violate an LRH technical bulletin. Could it be that the
$20,000 or more that each OT is required to pay every six months
for their sec check is more important to RTC than technical
purity?
After they were declared, the Barnes wrote a letter to the IAS,
which is the International Association of Scientologists, asking
for their money back. They had both paid for lifetime memberships,
a total of more than $40,000.
For those of you who are not familiar with the history of the IAS,
let me fill you in. Back in the late 1970s, Mary Sue Hubbard,
Henning Heldt, Duke Snider, and several other high-level
Guardian's Office execs were indicted for stealing government
documents and a list of other dirty tricks. To raise money
for their defense, the Guardian's Office created a new
organization called the Safe Environment Fund, or SEF. Everyone
was told that the purpose of SEF was to create a War Chest to
fight Scientology's enemies.
There were big SEF briefings and all the public Scientologists had
to donate tremendous amounts of money to defend the GO execs. At
that time the people in charge of the global conspiracy to destroy
Scientology were not Bob Minton, the German government and the
LMT. Back then the U.S. government -- particularly the FBI -- was
in charge of it. (That was before the IRS rolled over and gave
Scientology its tax exemption and the U.S. government became
Scientology's most ardent defender.)
The money collected by SEF was used to cover the costs of all the
dirty tricks Scientology carried out to try (unsuccessfully) to
derail the criminal case against Mary Sue et al. A private
investigator named Dick Bast, for example, was hired to set up the
judge in the case, Judge Ritchey, with a prostitute to destroy his
career. The set-up worked beautifully, and Judge Ritchey had to
remove himself from the case. An article ran in one of
Scientology's internal publications proclaiming what a big win
this was for Scientology's expansion on the planet.
When DM took over Scientology in 1982 he changed the name of the
Guardian's Office to the Office of Special Affairs, and he changed
the name of the Safe Environment Fund to the International
Association of Scientologists. Today, it is the IAS, not SEF, that
collects millions of dollars in donations from Scientologists all
over the world. The money is still used for the same purpose -- to
protect Scientology from its enemies. Only now its enemies are Bob
Minton, Ursula Caberta, the LMT, etc. It is IAS monies that are
being used to harass and try to destroy these "enemies."
So Scientology does not want a spotlight on IAS, because IAS is
the Achilles heel of their precious U.S. tax exemption. This is
undoubtedly why the Barnes' request to IAS for a refund received
such prompt attention.
First Greg and Debra wrote a simple refund request without any
elaboration.
This
is the letter they received in response:
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26
May 2000
Greg and Debra Barnes
Clearwater,
FL 33756
Dear
Mr. & Mrs. Barnes:
We
are in receipt of your request of a return of your donations to
the IAS.
The
rules of the IAS clearly state that contributions are not
refundable. This rule is set forth on the IAS membership and
donation forms. You acknowledged your understanding of this policy
when you signed these forms.
Please
advise if you have further information
regarding this matter you would like me to consider.
Sincerely,
Lise
Cohee
Legal
Affairs Director
IAS
Administrations
on behalf of the IAS
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