Lies Debunked: Operation Snow White - Portugal

Scientology's doublecross

Scientology's® Claims

From: Public Relations (publicrelations@scientology.org)
Subject: Snow White - Portugal
Date: 1998/09/15

RE: SNOW WHITE PROGRAM - PORTUGAL

The Church has campaigned for freedom of speech and freedom of information throughout its history.

Having experienced serious human rights violations as a result of false reports from government agencies, the Church has took action to support and promote the Freedom of Information Act. Through FOIA, the Church was able to isolate false reports and, working with local authorities, was able to fully handle them.

Here is an example of Snow White at work in Portugal:

In October 1974, in Funchal, Portugal, a motor vessel owned by the Church of Scientology was attacked by a mob throwing rocks and shouting "CIA ship." Local police and army units stood by and watched, doing nothing to restrain the crowd. As a result, the rioters injured some Church staff and damaged and destroyed property. Cars and motorcycles belonging to the Church and Church staff were pushed off the dock and into the bay. The ship's crew had to fight off the attackers with fire hoses, while the ship made an emergency departure to prevent further violence.

Documents later obtained through the U. S. Freedom of Information Act as part of the Snow White program revealed that in April 1972, a department of the U. S. government had telexed various European countries falsely alleging, among other things, that the motor vessel owned by the Church of Scientology was a "CIA ship."

A lawsuit was filed in Lisbon against the government of Portugal, seeking restitution for damages caused by the mob violence. In June 1985, the Administrative Court of Lisbon awarded damages to the Scientologists, finding that the 1974 riot had been caused by the CIA ship rumor, and that this rumor was false. These damages were sustained by an appellate court in 1987. Following this, in April 1988, the Minister of Justice in Portugal officially authorized the registration of the Church of Scientology in Portugal.

Public Relations
Church of Scientology International
http://www.REMOVEscientology.org

And now for the truth

These outrageous fibs are astounding. The Scientology organization did in fact campaign for the passage of the Fredom of Information Act -- and when it passed, I'm sure they promptly regretted it. Scientology hates freedom of speech and that fact is reflected in the fact that the organization:

Tried to remove Internet newsgroups which discuss Scientology's criminal activities. alt.religion.scientology was apparently the first newsgroup they tried to silence.

Make followers sign "non disclosure agreements" when they sign up for some "positions" to try to keep the people who they victimize from going to the police and the media.

Maintain a mailing list filled with message postings containing the usual outrageous claims where only followers are allowed to post and which is kept out of the hands of non-followers.

Force their followers to use an Internet filter to keep them from reading about Scientology's criminal basis for existance, their criminal history, and th basics of Scientology such as the Galactic Lord Xenu, inbvisible murdered space alien fragments called "Body Thetans" that infest humans, and everything else in the bunko bait-and-switch fraud that Scientology engages in.

When victims sue the criminal enterprise, it's routine for the organization to try to get their victims to settle their lawsuits with a "gag order" wherein the victim agrees not to go to the media, the police, and the general public to discuss the truth about Scientology.

The Scientology crime syndicate engages in racketeering acts and stalking of human rights and freedom of speech rights picketers and protesters who protest Scientology's homicides and abuses of fellow Scientologists.

Scientology also punishes followers for thinking, imposing what they call "sec checks" to try to find out which of their followers are talking to the press, law enforcement, other government agencies, the media, other Scientologists, human rights activists, and freedom of speech activists. Horribly, Scientology also punishes followers for talking with family members who speak truthfully about Scientology, imposing the punishment called "disconnection" where followers are not allowed to talk with their loved ones any more. Punishment may also include threats of being ejected from the criminal enterprise and imprisonment in the syndicate's "RPF" -- their "Rehabilitation Project Force" prison compound.

Scientology tried to stop the publication of a large number of books covering their criminal history and te history of L. Ron Hubbard. Bare Faced Messiah was one such book, and another was Paulette Cooper's "The Scandal of Scientology." Indeed, Scientology hates freedom of speech so much that they successfully framed Paulettet Cooper for making bomb threats against Scientology. When Federal agents raided the crime syndicate they uncovered documents covering something Scientology was calling "Operation Freakout PC" which showed that Scientology had stollen some of Mr. Cooper's stationary, acquired her finger prints and placed them on the paper, then forged the bomb threat. Ms. Cooper was released and yet no additional indictments against the criminals was filed for this frame up. I suspect, however, that civil charges were filed by Ms. Cooper and that she acquired some kind of settlement -- unless she felt she had enough fighting organized crime and simply dropped it.
Scientology aggressively attacks anyone who publishes details about Scientology's core beliefs involving Xenu, Body Thetans, Hubbard's visit to Venus et al. These once-secret facts about what Scientology actually sells to their victims are now widely known yet the criminal organization continues to attack people who discuss them.

The organization hates freedom of speech. One of the reasons why they campagned to get the Freedom of Information Act passed was so that they could acquire the Navy records of their mad messiah L. Ron Hubbard. The organization thought that Hubbard's megalomaniac claims about being a war hero were all true, apparently, yet they had no evidence that Hubbard's amusing claims were true.

So they campaigned for the passage of the Freedom of Information Act to try to get Hubbard's records. With the eventual passage of the Act, they requested and received the Navy records and found that Hubbard had been lying to them and that he was a disgraced "sad sack" of the most pathetic kind.

Many other people requested Hubbard's Navy records using the FOIA -- to the grand embarrassment of Scientology, I'm sure. One such person was researcher Chris Owens who wrote a detailed examination of Hubbard's Navy career called "Ron the War Hero." This coverage contains all the factual information about Hubbard in an exciting and organized format and also includes photocopies of much of what is in Hubbard's record. (Also see War Hero for further background.)

Scientology and their "Volunteer Ministers" know about the facts of Hubbard's lies and yet the organization still persists in perpetuating them. You can find their debunked lies being repeated all over the organization's web pages on the Internet, in fact, even though the organization knows they're nonsense. How does the syndicate manage to explain their dishonest behavior? Easy: After seeing that their mad messiah's Navy records show their messiah was a pathological liar, Scientology immediately branded the record "forgeries" and refused to accept them.

I can't blame them one bit, actually. Scientology's whole fraud is based upon Hubbard's claims that his "technology" some how managed to "cure" him of being blinded and crippled when seeing battle in World War 2. The facts are that Hubbard fled from battle and was never injured leave alone near death. The facts are that Hubbard was a total nut case who contrived an elaborate fraud known as "Scientology" based in part upon his obvious lies of doing research on the human mind which gave rise to some amazing "technology."

We'll take a look at "Operation Snow White" in some detail because this was one of the organization's most embarrassing criminal activities ever. It's amusing that the Scientology organization is trying to justify their criminal acts in the first place yet it's even more amusing to see them try to claim that they used the FOIA to run their "Operation Snow White."

"Operation Snow White" was a program that L. Ron Hubbard dreamed up, carried out by the organization's "Guardian Office" also-known-as "Office of Special Affairs." Within the crime syndicate the organization is also-known-as "Department 20." The program called for Scientology criminals to break into government offices to steal documents embarrassing to Scientology, insert fake documents into their records, and to alter documents to give their criminal organization a better light. The operation also called for spies to be installed in law enforcement agencies, tax collection and enforcement agencies, and other government agencies which could be subverted.

When federal agents in the United States conducted massive raids against the organized crime syndicate, they seized a mountain of physical evidence, among them being copies of secret documents stollen from the files of government agencies. When Federal agents were done, they found they had blown open the United States largest and most widespread case of domestic espionage and subversion of the government in America's history bar none.

The indictments eventually netted 11 ringleaders, among them being L. Ron Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard. The document which covers the prison sentences is known as the "Stipulation of Evidence" and it's widely available elsewhere on the Internet. Some coverage of the events are found in a highly detailed and well written document by Stephen A. Kent and Theresa Krebs, When Scholars Know Sin and I'd encourage you to dump that document to paper for review.

Many of the ringleaders are still running the Scientology operation today. Among them is one Kendrick Moxon who was named as one of the many "Unindicted Co-conspirators" in the Stipulation of Evidence. It seems likely that many of the individuals who were indicted, questioned, or otherwise caught in these felonies copped pleas to avoid prison, ratting out their fellow ringleaders.

What's also important to point out is that L. Ron Hubbard was hiding out on the lam from Federal prosecutors and he allowed his latest throw-away wife to take the fall. Hubbard eventually died on a ranch in California, still hiding from the cops.

Now why did Scientology "forget" to mention any of those facts? To be sure the Freedom of Information Act was probably also used as part of their "Operation Snow White" program yet for some not-so-mysterious reason Scientology "forgot" to mention their massive criminal activities.

Again, I don't blame them one bit for lying. Who would fall for their scams, frauds, and "Volunteer Ministers" knowing all about "Operation Snow White?"

The "CIA ship" in Portugal incident actually did happen however it didn't hapen the way the Scientology organization wants you to believe. The book Bare Faced Messiah covers the incident quite well and that book was one of the many books covering Scientology that the organization tried to silence.

It turns out that Hubbard and his filthy, rusty ship Apollo came in to Portugal and made the idiotic mistake of trying to dock at their Navy base at El Firol. The lies -- called "shore stories" the criminals told the authorities was that the ship was owned by a wealthy consultant. Hubbard was actually in those waters hiding out from the government authorities of other nations who were looking at the possibility of extradicting him on numerous felonies. The "Shore Story" was absurd given the fact that there was dirty laundry strung all over the ship, children were seen running around the decks, and the ship was a wreck, dirt and rust stained.

The people in Portugal knew that whatever Hubbard and his cronies were telling them was obviously nonsense yet they didn't know the fact that they were the American criminal organization called Scientology. The organization's vague claims that "the United States Government" started circulating rumors that it was a CIA owned ship are nonsense; there's nothing in any court record which support's Scientology's claim. If Scientology has FOIA-obtained documents which show that someone in the United States claimed Hubbard's floating hide out was a CIA ship, the organization has strangly refused to share them with the rest of the world.

And incidentally, if Scientology would like to share those dcuments with me, I would be happy to include them in this report to set the record straight on that point. For some reason, however, I doubt that the organization will get back to me with that information.

Finally, as to the lawsuit that the crime syndicate filed for the destruction of property caused by the rumors of their Apollo being a CIA-owned ship, I've never seen any documentation showing the existance of such a lawsuit yet it seems reasonable enough. The fact that the mob of outraged citizens cut the ship's lines loose and dumped the organization's vehicles into the water are true enough. Damage was done and rightfully financial restitution was required. However the claim about Hubbard's floating hideout being a CIA-owned ship was the cause of the lawsuit. If the criminals had evidence that someone in the United States' government started the rumor, doubtlessly the syndicate would have sued that person instead.

For many years after the Federal raids against the crime syndicate for its "Operation Snow White" felonies, the organization denied that Scientology's management -- including Hubbard -- had anything to do with it, claiming that "rogue Scientologists" had taken upon them the project. Here we see that the organization has been forced to admit that Hubbard launched the criminal project due, I suspect, to the fact that the Internet makes the continued denials rather silly. The claims that "Operation Snow White" used the Freedom of Information Act with no mention of the felonies is, well, rather amusing.

For a copy of the "Stipulation of Evidence" which put a number of the syndicate's ringleaders into prison for their "Operation Snow White", review StipOfEv.HTM which I've reformatted from the public domain document and made available for this exposure.

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