The Village Voice‘s Tony Ortega reveals the extent to which the “church” of Scientology will go to try to protect its (not too solid) reputation:
Yesterday, we reported that former Scientology executive Marty Rathbun had revealed at his blog that in 2006, Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs — the church’s intelligence and covert operations wing — was actively investigating creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone by looking for vulnerabilities among their close friends.
- Screen shot of the South Park “scientology” episode, “Trapped in the Closet” (2005)
Today, we have more leaked OSA documents which give some idea of the extent of the spying operation on the offices and the people who worked there.
They suggest that after traditional approaches with private investigators had stalled, OSA turned to film consultant Eric Sherman, a Scientologist, to help them find a young filmmaker who would make an effective mole at the South Park offices.
For decades, Scientology has earned a reputation for severe retaliation against perceived enemies and carrying on “noisy investigations” that involve private investigators and intimidation squads. We’ve been documenting many examples of that this year as Scientology goes through perhaps its most difficult period.
The defection of former high ranking officials Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder has been a nightmare for the church. As Scientology expends enormous resources to surveill and harass each of them, Rathbun continues to leak formerly secret OSA documents at his blog.
Not on his blog, however, is a document which he supplied to Marc Headley, a man we have written about frequently here at the , and who was subject to his own retaliation and spying operations by the church…
[continues in the Village Voice]
