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Scientology Reacts To Web Offensive

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By JIM UZZANGHERA, Los Angeles Times

Published: February 6, 2008

LOS ANGELES - A long-simmering dispute over digital copyrights between the Church of Scientology and its critics has boiled over in recent weeks after video clips turned up on the Internet from a 2004 interview by the church's most famous member, actor Tom Cruise.

When Scientology officials complained the clips were copyrighted and requested their removal from YouTube and other Web sites, a shadowy organization of online troublemakers sprang into action.

The group known as "Anonymous" posted an eerie video featuring a computer-generated voice announcing a campaign to destroy the church and calling for worldwide protests on Sunday.

It was all for laughs, said a member who spoke on the condition of anonymity, but things are getting serious. A series of cyber attacks the group claimed responsibility for slowed access to church Web sites and apparently shut down the main one, www.scientology.org, one day last month.

Last week, suspicious white powder was mailed to 23 church locations in Southern California, forcing 60 people to be cleared from buildings in Tustin and causing police to close part of busy Brand Boulevard in Glendale for two hours. Preliminary tests by the Los Angeles Police Department determined the powder was cornstarch and wheat germ.

The FBI is investigating whether the mailings were connected to the hacking. Shortly after the mailings were disclosed by authorities, a caller who identified himself as a spokesman for the group Anonymous told a Los Angeles Times reporter that the group was not to blame.

The incidents have drawn new attention to Scientology.

Critics of the religion are flocking to Anonymous postings on YouTube, the popular video-sharing site. Their campaign has sparked a debate among longtime opponents of Scientology, who wonder whether the aggressive rhetoric and tactics, including illegal denial-of-service attacks on the church's Web sites, help the cause by raising awareness of the religion's controversial beliefs, or hurt it by using the same type of heavy-handed methods they accuse Scientology officials of employing against critics.

"I don't know if anybody in Anonymous did this but Anonymous set themselves up to be targeted in this way," said Mark Bunker, who runs one of the leading Web sites criticizing the church, www.xenutv.com and posted a video last week warning Anonymous to tone down its campaign.

"I hope it doesn't hurt the larger critic community who have been speaking out for years about Scientology's abuse."

A Scientology spokeswoman said the church wasn't trying to suppress the video, which it says can be watched at any of its facilities around the world, but it was made for "the Scientology congregation" and "never intended for replay on television or the Internet," spokeswoman Karin Pouw said in a written response to questions.

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