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The
Barnes Letters
Presented
by Stacy Brooks
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As
many of you may already know, Greg and Debra Barnes
were recently declared Suppressive by the Church of
Scientology. RTC apparently views it as a high crime
for someone on OT 7 to object to being security checked
every six months, even though these "six-month
checks" (as they are fondly referred to by the
7s) violate an LRH technical bulletin. Could it be that
the $20,000 or more that each OT is required to pay
every six months for their sec check is more important
to RTC than technical purity?
After they were declared, the Barnes wrote a letter
to the IAS, which is the International Association of
Scientologists, asking for their money back. They had
both paid for lifetime memberships, a total of more
than $40,000.
For those of you who are not familiar with the history
of the IAS, let me fill you in. Back in the late 1970s,
Mary Sue Hubbard, Henning Heldt, Duke Snider, and several
other high-level Guardian's Office execs were indicted
for stealing government documents and a list of other
dirty tricks. To raise money for their defense,
the Guardian's Office created a new organization called
the Safe Environment Fund, or SEF. Everyone was told
that the purpose of SEF was to create a War Chest to
fight Scientology's enemies.
There were big SEF briefings and all the public Scientologists
had to donate tremendous amounts of money to defend
the GO execs. At that time the people in charge of the
global conspiracy to destroy Scientology were not Bob
Minton, the German government and the LMT. Back then
the U.S. government -- particularly the FBI -- was in
charge of it. (That was before the IRS rolled over and
gave Scientology its tax exemption and the U.S. government
became Scientology's most ardent defender.)
The money collected by SEF was used to cover the costs
of all the dirty tricks Scientology carried out to try
(unsuccessfully) to derail the criminal case against
Mary Sue et al. A private investigator named Dick Bast,
for example, was hired to set up the judge in the case,
Judge Ritchey, with a prostitute to destroy his career.
The set-up worked beautifully, and Judge Ritchey had
to remove himself from the case. An article ran in one
of Scientology's internal publications proclaiming what
a big win this was for Scientology's expansion on the
planet.
When DM took over Scientology in 1982 he changed the
name of the Guardian's Office to the Office of Special
Affairs, and he changed the name of the Safe Environment
Fund to the International Association of Scientologists.
Today, it is the IAS, not SEF, that collects millions
of dollars in donations from Scientologists all over
the world. The money is still used for the same purpose
-- to protect Scientology from its enemies. Only now
its enemies are Bob Minton, Ursula Caberta, the LMT,
etc. It is IAS monies that are being used to harass
and try to destroy these "enemies."
So Scientology does not want a spotlight on IAS, because
IAS is the Achilles heel of their precious U.S. tax
exemption. This is undoubtedly why the Barnes' request
to IAS for a refund received such prompt attention.
First Greg and Debra wrote a simple refund request without
any elaboration. |
This
is the letter they received in response:
Greg and
Debra Barnes
Clearwater,
FL 33756
Dear
Mr. & Mrs. Barnes:
We
are in receipt of your request of a return of your donations
to the IAS.
The
rules of the IAS clearly state that contributions are not
refundable. This rule is set forth on the IAS membership and
donation forms. You acknowledged your understanding of this
policy when you signed these forms.
Please
advise if you have further informationregarding
this matter you would like me to consider.
Sincerely,
Lise
Cohee
Legal
Affairs Director
IAS
Administrations on behalf of the IAS
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