Talk:Office of Special Affairs/Archive 2

History

 * This article needs a new subsection, "History", and then expansion from reputable secondary sourced citations. I have found over 10 more citations from reputable sources to be used, and will get to this when I get a chance...  Smee 10:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

problems
1. The very first paragraph of the article contains an "According to the Church..." quote but it isn't attributed. 2. From there, it immediately glides right into the ever-convenient "Some observers have characterized..." weaselspeak, in which the OSA is compared to the KGB. 3. The next sentence, "The department has drawn criticism for its involvement in targeting critics of the Church for dead agent operations", is unsourced, and 4. the very next sentence, although sourced, is "OSA has mounted character assassination operations against many critics of the Church", which brings the percentage of mostnegativepossible info crammed into the intro at about 65 percent. And that's just the introduction! 5.The vast majority of the article is taken up by the undue-weight "Methods" section, which is entirely negative, and which is sourced mostly by ex-members whose views are therefore obviously biased. Regardless, the "Methods" section's structure is literally this:


 * Ex-Scientologist Gerry Scarff said the OSA is bad.
 * Graham Berry, subpoenaed by the CoS, said the OSA is bad.
 * Ex-Scientologist Tory Christman said the OSA is bad.
 * Ex-Scientologist Bonnie Woods said the OSA is bad.
 * A couple of unreliable freezoner sites said the OSA is bad.

This is unacceptable. Even if all these claims are perfectly true, the point can be conveyed without making the article seem written by some crackpot with an agenda who's overeager to hammer as much negative PR spin as possible, drooling with excitement at how he's really "exposing" that evilwickedbad OSA. wikipediatrix 19:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You're trivializing an awful lot. Bonnie Woods didn't just "say OSA is bad"; she sued them and got a settlement for costs and damages and an apology. (This short note added so that you won't come back in a month, and use the lack of response for justification to gut the article.) AndroidCat 15:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You miss the point. My comment was on the structure of the section, not its contents, other than to denote those contents are negative. The section is supposed to be about "Methods" and all it consists of is five biased people airing their grievances. I'm not saying they're wrong to be mad at the CoS, mind you, I'm just sayin' this is poor encyclopedic writing. wikipediatrix 16:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I think it requires a total rewrite. -- ChrisO 22:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikileaks Airs Scientology Black Ops

 * Will list more sources here as they appear, relevant to this new development. Cirt (talk) 03:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Will list more sources here as they appear, relevant to this new development. Cirt (talk) 03:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Will list more sources here as they appear, relevant to this new development. Cirt (talk) 03:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Surveillance in a New Religious Movement: Scientology as a Case Study
Topics covered include:
 * Auditing (Scientology)
 * E-meter
 * Scientology Security Check
 * Ethics (Scientology)
 * Entheta
 * Suppressive Person
 * Operation Snow White
 * Sea Org
 * Rehabilitation Project Force
 * Lisa McPherson
 * Scieno Sitter

Cirt (talk) 14:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The Masonic Program needs to be in included
Nancy Many confirmed the existence of this upper level loyalty program in her recent television interview. The existence of this program also indicates, due to it's extremely bizzare nature, that the Fishman Affidavit OT8 WAS most likely the original version of OT8, as it clearly is complemented by the Masonic program, intended as a test to see which scientologists were ready to receive the final OT level, which apparently at the time taught that, in Many words, "L. Ron Hubbard was on level with Jesus Christ and Buddha". Colliric (talk) 08:09, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Removed text without reliable sources
I've removed the following paragraph:

Attorney Graham Berry was repeatedly the target of OSA "fair game" operations. In one case on May 14, 1994, OSA employed private investigator Eugene Ingram to solicit false statements from Robert Cipriano in order to bring phony criminal charges against Berry. The criminal scheme backfired when Cipriano realized that he was bribed by the Church of Scientology and recanted the charges against Berry.

The sources are letters and an anti-Scientology website, and I can't find any other discussion of this matter, so I think it's rather POV to leave it in. --Slashme (talk) 22:21, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Trimmed external links
I'm cleaning up the link section somewhat here, and I've removed the following:


 * Documentation of harassment of former members by private investigators hired by OSA This is just someone's homepage - see the archived version. Good information for someone like Clambake, but not appropriate for Wikipedia.
 * Garry Scarff court deposition on conspiracy to murder critic. Already used as a ref inline in the text.
 * http://smokyhole.org/rvy/51.htm - proof that the OSA is the old GO, but we don't need this any more, because we have a book source inline in the text already.
 * http://www.apologeticsindex.org/o02.html - OK content, but a source of generally doubtful quality and very polemic in nature.
 * http://www.xenu.net/archive/go/osahist.htm listed twice; removed one.
 * http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/pl-dept-govt-affairs.html - Marginal relevance; appears polemic to link this.

We should maintain a focused set of external links, not a directory of everything possibly relevant. --Slashme (talk) 23:06, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090107112517/http://radarmagazine.com/from-the-magazine/2008/03/scientology_anonymous_protests_tom_cruise_01.php to http://radarmagazine.com/from-the-magazine/2008/03/scientology_anonymous_protests_tom_cruise_01.php

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