The Barnes Letters

Presented by Stacy Brooks

 

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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