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:
|
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
Next Letter
|