Thanks T.J. I am familiar with all Fed & State Statues in the USA. I’m out of date by a couple of years with the EU Regs as they have come fast & furious.

US Fed regs to be followed by private industry are pretty non-existent in the area of concern first broached in this thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_information please read up on the subject of PII laws, then we will all be on the same page in terms of knowledge in this area. (not specifically directed at Mr. Wynski, this is a general advice to all, thanks).

That being said, it begs another question. I am an avid reader. Most fiction I have read are in the vein of Clancy, Forsyth, Patterson, Cornwell..etc. So my question is: ” Who was the Scn mole ?”

OhioBuckeye, in 1993 after Scientology had waged a campaign of intense pressure and even harassment against the IRS, they got back their tax exempt status, which they had lost in 1967 due to Hubbard’s personal profiteering (inurement) from the organization. The 1993 agreement included a unique provision allowing that ‘quid pro quo’ of fixed donations for services. The Supreme Court has ruled against this very type of arrangement, and in another case a court ruled that the law does not really provide for granting a group that type of exemption. But but until the IRS decides to revisit the agreement (which Scientology has probably broken) or is challenged about it from the outside, the exceptional arrangement stands.

The problem in challenging something like the IRS agreement, is that anyone (including the IRS itself) going up against Scientology has to be prepared to deal with being subject to “fair game”. I would imagine that lawyers have thought through all the possibilities, but I still wonder if there isn’t a case to be made that given Scientology’s long history of abuse of the legal process, the other parties in court cases should be granted a restraining order against harassment including the use of private investigators. This would be similar to the standard injunctions granted in domestic violence and divorce cases due to the known likelihood of threats and harassment in those types of situations.

And addressing a previous comment by Aquamarine and a subsequent one from OhioBuckeye, I’m glad if I provided some clarification about the issue of church buildings being largely empty. While there are some general guidelines involved, Scientology is an exceptional case both because of the organization’s complexity, and also because their aggressiveness that seems to have left the IRS hesitant to challenge possible violations. The real question is perhaps, how empty would Scientology’s orgs and other facilities have to get before the IRS was willing to declare a violation of non-profit requirements?

Mike – the mention of ‘ quid pro quo’ got my attention. In considering the difference between a freewill donation and a charge for services from a tax perspective, why wouldn’t CoS get around the tax issue by offering auditing and training services “for a recommended love offering of $××××××× ? I know you aren’t a tax lawyer, but it just strikes me as odd that they can issue an invoice and still be exempt.

Thank you for all that you do. I’m a ‘never in’, but human rights abuses and child endangerment, such as this organization commits, are everbody’s business.

L Yash, I think the “freeloader bill” is a point on which Scientology is really out of line, and that they are particularly vulnerable on now that there is widespread publicity about human trafficking and how debt bondage is one of the types of control used by traffickers. Such bills aren’t legally unforceable, but they still give Scientology power both because those who sign the contracts may not understand that they’re not legal, and because Scientology can enforce them through extra-legal means like making people subject to SP declares and disconnection for non-payment.

I also think that this is one of the areas where it might be easiest to get some legislation passed, to address a flagrant abuse with remedies that don’t really threaten to restrict the ways that legitimate churches operate. Just as churches accept some restrictions such as on political activity in exchange for tax-exempt status, I think that they should be held to a higher standard in employee contracting such as not being able to have any sort of punitive or gag clauses for departing employees (which arguable preserves the employees’ rights to free exercise of religion and speech).

As for empty buildings, see my recent comments, and one more that I will make in a while.

For anyone curious about the subject, I would also recommend reading at least one general book about undue influence and high control groups, maybe something by Steve Hassan. From what I’ve heard it sounds like Hassan’s latest book may be particularly interesting for some relevance to current social and political issues as well, but unfortunately I haven’t kept up to date on reading in this area.

Chee, respectfully, the Catholic Church is 2 thousand years old. It has had plenty of experiences and time sort to thru what it was doing right that was workable and what it was doing wrong that was not. Plenty of time to mellow out and the WISDOM to actually change. Because If it hadn’t mellowed out, if it hadn’t toned down the extremism, it wouldn’t be around today. Don’t get me wrong! Today its great. I can’t say enough good things about them. But its obivious, to me at least, that the Catholic Church got smart. Lest we forget, it was only 4 hundred years ago that Galileo was being imprisoned and tortured by the Church of Rome because he proved the world was round and refused to back down and they didn’t like this for some reason. Before that there was the Inquisition and before that the Crusades. I could go on. The point is, they got smart, cut out the extremist, judgemental , punishing and torturing nonsense and began focusing on what a church, a religion is supposed to do, which is help, nurture, protect and value people. End of rant.

It means a delusional person is attempting to sound smart and philosophical.

It’s like saying,”I have a bunch of infinities in my pocket.”

Step right up ladies and gentlemen. We got fresh infinities at a dollar a pop. Getem while they’re still available!