Scientology Site Bomb Scare

ST. PETERSBURG — A Tampa Police Department bomb squad detonated a suitcase containing a Bible, clothing and personal items behind a Church of Scientology building.

The Church of Scientology reported a suspicious package behind its building at 336 1st Ave. N. in St. Petersburg, police say.

Third and Fourth Streets are partially blocked and nearby buildings have been evacuated, police say.
Police summoned the Tampa Police Department bomb squad, said St. Petersburg Police Department spokesman Bill Proffitt.

The squad blew up the package just after 5 p.m. Proffit said it contained a Bible, clothing and personal items.

Bomb Scare? Deja Vu for Scientology

Lying is a Scientology sacrament, codified by its charlatan founder, L. Ron Hubbard

Here is the story — verified by the FBI — of how the cult tried to frame one of its critics:

Acting on an inside tip, the FBI had raided three Scientology offices and seized internal memos and “dirty trick” papers. […] And when I finally reviewed the documents, as I later told Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes: “Scientology turned out to be worse than anything I ever said or even imagined.”      The seized papers contained hundreds of dirty tricks, plots and details of infiltration, wiretapping and pretexting by Scientologists against government agencies (FBI, IRS, and so on) who had angered them.      There were also details of attacks against general critics (including Clearwater, Florida, mayor Gabriel Cazares, who had dared to speak out); the press (The St. Petersburg Times especially) and of course me, since I was the most outspoken critic of Scientology in America.      The most bizarre documents referred to “Operation Freakout.” Its goal, they wrote, was to “get P.C., [me] incarcerated in a mental institution or jail or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks.” It appeared that after the first frameup had failed to silence me or land me in prison, they plotted again to make it look like I was making bomb threats against Scientology and others.      – Looking over my shoulder, The Inside Account of the Story That Almost Killed Me, by Paulette Cooper

The report of the suspicious package came this afternoon at about the same time Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird denied an injunction the church sought to stop the Internet-based group Anonymous from protesting outside Scientology’s headquarters in Clearwater this weekend.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Linda R. Allan denied a similar request Thursday.

In the case Allan ruled on, the church was using a process usually used by women who are in fear of their abusive husbands or boyfriends. The church wanted all protestors to remain at least 500 feet away from church structures and officials.

Allan noted that the Church of Scientology is a corporation, not a person, and that the process the church’s attorneys were seeking to stop the protesters is by law reserved for a “person who is the victim of repeat violence,” according to a copy of her ruling.

The church’s tact with Judge Baird was slightly different.

The bulk of the second petition was the same as the one Allan reviewed — alluding to threatening anonymous YouTube videos, for instance. But this time Scientology attorneys said the protestors, by standing at the entrances of church buildings, would “chill” church events and services, causing Scientologists not to attend. This, the church said, constituted a violation of church members’ Constitutional rights.

Baird noted there was no evidence the 26 individuals named as members of Anonymous in the church’s petition were responsible for any threats or wrongful acts against the church. And they hadn’t been informed properly of the injunction the church was seeking.

“Under these circumstances, when threats from unknown individuals are received, or when incidents such as the various YouTube or MySpace postings are interpreted as threatening, the matter is more properly one for local law enforcement rather than the constitutionally extreme remedy sought by injunction without notice against these individuals,” his ruling said.

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Religion News Blog posted this on Friday March 14, 2008.
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