Project Chanology

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The Internet group known as 'Anonymous' held protests outside Scientology centers in cities around the world in February 2008.
The Internet group known as 'Anonymous' held protests outside Scientology centers in cities around the world in February 2008. [1]

Project Chanology, also called Operation Chanology, is a protest against the Church of Scientology by the Internet-based group Anonymous. Project Chanology also refers to a website of the same name, used by the group to chronicle ongoing and planned actions by Anonymous, who state they are "everyone and everywhere", with "no leaders". The project was started in response to the Church of Scientology's attempts to remove material from an exclusive promotional interview with Scientologist Tom Cruise from the Internet in January 2008.

The project was publicly launched in the form of a video posted to YouTube, "Message to Scientology", on January 21, 2008. The video states that Anonymous views Scientology's actions as internet censorship, and stated the group's intent to "expel the church from the internet". This was followed by distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attacks), and soon after, black faxes, prank calls, and other measures intended to disrupt the Church of Scientology's operations.

In February 2008, the focus of the protest shifted to legal methods, including nonviolent protests, and an attempt to get the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the Church of Scientology's tax exempt status in the United States.

Reactions from the Church of Scientology regarding the group's actions have varied. One spokesperson stated that members of the group "have got some wrong information" about Scientology.[2] Another referred to the group as a "pathetic" group of "computer geeks".[3] Some detractors of Scientology have criticized the actions of Project Chanology, asserting that they merely provide the Church of Scientology with the opportunity to "play the religious persecution card".[4] Other critics of Project Chanology's actions questioned the legality of their methods.[5]

Contents

Background

Tom Cruise video

Main article: Scientology and the Internet
Removal of the Tom Cruise Scientology video from YouTube prompted calls of censorship of available information by the group.
Removal of the Tom Cruise Scientology video from YouTube prompted calls of censorship of available information by the group.

On January 16, 2008, a video produced by the Church of Scientology featuring an interview with Tom Cruise was leaked to the Internet and uploaded to YouTube. In the video, music from Cruise's Mission Impossible films plays in the background, and Cruise makes various statements, including saying that Scientologists are the only people who can help after a car accident, and that Scientologists are the authority on getting addicts off drugs.[6][7] According to The Times, Cruise can be seen in the video "extolling the virtues of Scientology".[8] The Daily Telegraph characterizes Cruise as "manic-looking" during the interview, "gush[ing] about his love for Scientology".[9]

The Church of Scientology asserted that the video material that had been leaked to YouTube and other websites was "pirated and edited" and taken from a three-hour video produced for members of Scientology.[7][10] YouTube removed the Cruise video from their site under threat of litigation.[11] As of January 29, 2008, the web site Gawker.com was still hosting a copy of the Tom Cruise video, and other sites have posted the entire video.[12][11] Lawyers for the Church of Scientology sent a letter to Gawker.com demanding that they remove the video, but Nick Denton of Gawker.com stated: "It's newsworthy, and we will not be removing it."[13]

Formation

Users of the English speaking imageboards 711chan.org and 4chan, the associated partyvan.info wiki, and several Internet Relay Chat channels (collectively known as Anonymous) formulated "Project Chanology" on January 16, 2008, after the Church of Scientology issued a copyright violation claim against YouTube for hosting material from the Cruise video.[14][15][16][17] The effort against Scientology has also been referred to by group members as "Operation Chanology".[12] The "Project Chanology" website is set up in the form of a collaborative Wikipedia-esque article and chronicles planned, ongoing and completed actions of the project's participants.[18][19][15] The website includes a list of suggested guerrilla tactics to use against the Church of Scientology.[18] Project Chanology members also use other websites to coordinate their actions, including the social networking site Facebook, where two groups related to the movement had 3,500 members as of February 4, 2008.[20] A member of Anonymous told the Los Angeles Times that as of February 4, 2008, the group consisted of "a loose confederation of about 9,000 people" who post anonymously on the Internet.[21] A security analyst told The Age that the number of individuals participating anonymously in Project Chanology could number in the thousands: "You can't pin it on a person or a group of people. You've thousands of people engaged to do anything they can against Scientology."[22]

Calling the action by the Church of Scientology a form of Internet censorship, members of Project Chanology organized a series of denial-of-service attacks against Scientology websites, prank calls, and black faxes to Scientology centers. They state that their main goal is "to enlighten the Church of Scientology (CoS) by any means necessary".[23] Their website states: "This will be a game of mental warfare. It will require our talkers, not our hackers. It will require our dedicated Anon across the world to do their part."[24] One of the stated goals of Project Chanology is the complete removal of the Church of Scientology's presence on the Internet, and another is to "save people from Scientology by reversing the brainwashing".[25][26] Project Chanology participants plan to join the Church of Scientology posing as interested members in order to infiltrate the organization.[5]

The Church of Scientology has a history of conflict with groups on the Internet. In 1995, attorneys for the Church of Scientology attempted to get the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.) removed from Usenet.[26] This attempt backfired and generated a significant amount of press for a.r.s. The conflict with a.r.s led the hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow to declare war on the Church of Scientology.[26] The Church of Scientology mounted a 10-year legal campaign against Dutch writer Karin Spaink and several internet service providers after Spaink and others posted documents alleged to be secretive teachings of the organization. The Church of Scientology's efforts ended in a legal defeat in a Netherlands court in 2005.[20] This series of events is often referred to as "Scientology versus the Internet".[26]

Andrea Seabrook of National Public Radio's All Things Considered said that Anonymous was previously known for "technologically sophisticated pranks" such as spamming chat rooms online, and "ordering dozens of pizzas for people they don't like".[27] Ryan Singel of Wired appeared on a January 27, 2008 edition of the program, and told Seabrook that members of Anonymous were motivated not by the "controversial nature of Scientology itself," but rather by "the tactics the Church of Scientology uses to control information about itself".[27] Anonymous has also been described as "a disparate collection of hackers and activists" by The Times and "a group of vigilantes" by CNET news.[8][11]

Project Chanology activities

Internet actions

Error message shown by Prolexic Technologies during denial-of-service attack on Scientology.org site on January 25, 2008.
Error message shown by Prolexic Technologies during denial-of-service attack on Scientology.org site on January 25, 2008.

The group was successful in taking down a Scientology website on January 18, 2008.[8] Local Church of Scientology chapter sites were also affected.[11] The group had early success rendering major Scientology websites inaccessible and leaking documents stolen from Scientology computers which resulted in a large amount of coverage on Social bookmarking websites.[3][23] Speaking to Sky News, the chief executive of Internet security firm 7safe.com said that it was possible that the group used a denial-of-service attack in order to take down the Scientology website.[2]

According to Jose Nazario, security engineer with the company Arbor Networks, the denial-of-service attacks on Scientology.org flooded the site with 220 megabits of traffic, falling into what he considered to be a mid-range attack. The attacks each lasted an average of thirty minutes and used 168 megabits of bandwidth. Arbor Networks has recorded data on attacks to other sites in the last year which were 200 times this amount.[4] Nazario stated that there were 448 denial-of-service events on January 19, 2008, prior to the Church of Scientology's move to Prolexic Technologies.[28] These attacks averaged 15,000 packets per second.[29] Nazario described this as "common, garden-variety DDoS attacks".[28] Speaking with SCMagazineUS.com, a security strategist for Top Layer Networks, Ken Pappas said that he thought that botnets were involved in the Anonymous operation: "There are circles out there where you could take ownership of the bot machines that are already owned and launch a simultaneous attack against [something] like the church from 50,000 PCs, all at the same time".[29]

On January 21, 2008 Anonymous announced its goals and intentions via a video posted to YouTube entitled "Message to Scientology", and a press release declaring a "War on Scientology" against both the Church of Scientology and the Religious Technology Center.[17][3][30] In the press release, the group states that the attacks against the Church of Scientology will continue in order to protect the right to freedom of speech, and end what they believe to be the financial exploitation of church members.[18]

The Tom Cruise video is specifically named at the beginning of the Anonymous YouTube posting, and is referred to as a "propaganda video".[31][6] The video utilizes a synthesized voice and shows cloud images with a time lapse method, while the speaker addresses the leaders of Scientology directly: "We acknowledge you as a serious opponent, and we are prepared for a long, long campaign. You will not prevail forever against the angry masses of the body politic. Your methods, hypocrisy, and the artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell. You cannot hide; we are everywhere."[32] The video goes on to state "We shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the church of Scientology in its present form ... We are anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."[30] By January 25, 2008 only four days after its release, the video had been viewed 800,000 times, and by February 8, 2008 had been viewed over 2 million times.[5][33][3][20] Author Warren Ellis called the video "creepy in and of itself" and a "manifesto, declaration of war, sharp political film".[34]

In response to the attacks, the Church of Scientology moved its domain to a more protected location. On January 21, 2008 Scientology.org was moved to a company which specializes in protecting other web sites from denial-of-service attacks, called Prolexic Technologies.[28] A Prolexic spokesman confirmed to PC World that the Church of Scientology was one of its clients, but did not explain further, and the Church of Scientology did not return a phone call or e-mail from PC World.[4] Attacks against the site increased, and CNET News reported that "a major assault" took place at 6 p.m. EST on January 24, 2008.[28] Anonymous escalated their attacks against Scientology on January 25, 2008.[19] As of January 25, 2008, the Church of Scientology's official website was still inaccessible.[29]

A flier asking passersby to research the death of Lisa McPherson, which appeared during Project Chanology at Litchfield Towers, University of Pittsburgh, January 29, 2008.
A flier asking passersby to research the death of Lisa McPherson, which appeared during Project Chanology at Litchfield Towers, University of Pittsburgh, January 29, 2008.

In a different video posted to YouTube, Anonymous speaks to the news organizations covering the conflict, and criticizes the media's reporting of the incident.[19] In the video, Anonymous criticizes the media for not mentioning objections the group had raised to certain controversial aspects of the history of the Church of Scientology, and cited past incidents including the death of Lisa McPherson: "We find it interesting that you did not mention the other objections in your news reporting. The stifling and punishment of dissent within the totalitarian organization of Scientology. The numerous, alleged human rights violations. Such as the treatment and events that led to the deaths of victims of the cult such as Lisa McPherson."[19] Lisa McPherson was a Scientologist who died in 1995 under controversial circumstances and the Church of Scientology was initially held responsible and faced felony charges.[19] These charges were later dropped, and a civil suit brought by McPherson's family was settled in 2004.[19] This second video was taken down on January 25, 2008, with YouTube citing a "terms of use violation".[4] Organizers of February 10, 2008 protests against the Church of Scientology by members of Project Chanology told the St. Petersburg Times that the event is well-timed because it will take place on the birthday of Lisa McPherson.[33]

Guy Fawkes-masked protesters swarmed the Scientology center in Times Square on February 10, 2008.
Guy Fawkes-masked protesters swarmed the Scientology center in Times Square on February 10, 2008.

In a February 4, 2008 article, Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw told the Los Angeles Times that the Church of Scientology's websites "have been and are online".[21] Danny McPherson, chief research officer at Arbor Networks, stated that 500 denial-of-service attacks had been observed on the Scientology site in the week prior to February 4 some of which were strong enough to take down the website.[21] Calling Anonymous a "motley crew of internet troublemakers", a Wired blogger said that, while attempting to bypass the Church of Scientology's Prolexic servers, users of a misconfigured DDoS tool inadvertently and briefly struck Etty Hillesum Lyceum, a Dutch secondary school in Deventer.[35][36] Another hacking group related to the project, the "g00ns", erroneously targeted a 59-year-old man from Stockton, California. They had posted his home phone number, address and his wife's Social Security Number online in order for people to target them. They believed that he was behind the counter-attacks against Project Chanology-related websites by the Regime, a counter-hack group who had hacked one of the planning facilities of the Project Chanology attack. The group was attempting to gain personal information of the people involved in Project Chanology and turn that information over to the Church of Scientology. After discovering that they had falsely targeted the couple, one of the members called and apologized.[37][38]

The 'dangerous cult' Google bomb.
The 'dangerous cult' Google bomb.

In addition to the DDoS attacks against Church of Scientology websites, Anonymous also organized a campaign on one of their websites to "begin bumping Digg," referring to an attempt to drive up Scientology-related links on the website Digg.com.[39] On January 25, 2008, eight of the top ten stories on Digg.com were related to either Scientology related controversies or Anonymous and the attempt to expose Scientology.[4] Digg CEO Jay Adelson told PC World that Anonymous had in fact not manipulated the site's algorithm system, but instead stated "They must have done a very good job of bringing in a diverse set of interests ... It just happened to hit a nerve that the Digg community was interested in."[39] Adelson stated that two other instances which similarly dominated the main page of Digg in the past have included the Virginia Tech Massacre during the aftermath of the incident, and the 2005 London bombings. Adelson commented on the popularity of Scientology to the Digg community: "In the history of Digg, there's no question that the topic of Scientology has been of great interest to the community ... I can't explain why."[39]

On January 29, 2008, Jason Lee Miller of WebProNews reported that a Google bomb technique had been used to make the Scientology.org main website the first result in a Google search for "dangerous cult".[40] Miller wrote that Anonymous was behind the Google bomb, and that they had also attempted to make Scientology the first result in Google searches for "brainwashing cult", and make the website Xenu.net the first result in a search for "scientology".[41] Rob Garner of MediaPost Publications wrote that "The Church of Scientology continues to be the target of a group called Anonymous, which is using Google bombs and YouTube as its tools of choice."[42]

Real-world protests

Planning

A new video "Call to Action" appeared on YouTube on January 28, 2008, calling for protests outside Church of Scientology centers on February 10, 2008.[43][44] As with the previous videos, the two-minute video utilizes a computer synthesized voice and stock footage of the sky.[44] The video is accompanied by a transcribed text version in British English spelling. This video attempts to debunk the idea that the group is composed of "super hackers," stating "Contrary to the assumptions of the media, Anonymous is not 'a group of super hackers.' ... Anonymous is everyone and everywhere. We have no leaders, no single entity directing us."[44][43] The video states that Project Chanology participants include "individuals from all walks of life ... united by an awareness that someone must do the right thing".[43] Specific controversies involving the Church of Scientology are cited in the video as an explanation for the actions of Anonymous.[43]

In an email to CNET News, Anonymous stated that activities were planned for February 10, 2008 in New York City, Montreal, Canada, Houston, Texas, London, Melbourne, Australia, and Los Angeles, California.[44] Other cities where protests were planned for February 10, 2008 included Clearwater, Florida, Edinburgh, Scotland, Berlin, Germany, Paris, France, Stockholm, Sweden, Vancouver and Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia.[33][45][22][46][47] Anonymous hope to use the "real world" protests to spur public opinion to their cause.[48] According to the Associated Press, the protests are meant to draw attention to what the group refers to as a "vast moneymaking scheme under the guise of 'religion'".[38] As of January 30, 2008, 170 protests were planned outside Church of Scientology centers worldwide.[49]

According to NBC11, a woman from Anonymous contacted them and stated that monthly protests are planned against Scientology each month through May 2008; and that a large protest is planned for two days after Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's birthday, on March 15, 2008.[50] A video posted to YouTube called "Code of Conduct" outlined twenty-two rules to follow when protesting, and urged protestors to be peaceful.[51]

Protests

Project Chanology members protesting outside Church of Scientology in Orlando, Florida on February 2, 2008.
Project Chanology members protesting outside Church of Scientology in Orlando, Florida on February 2, 2008.

On February 2, 2008, one hundred and fifty people gathered outside of a Church of Scientology center in Orlando, Florida to protest the organization's practices.[5][20][52][53] Small protests were also held in Santa Barbara, California (during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival),[54] and Manchester, England.[55][20] Protesters in Orlando carried signs with messages "Knowledge is Free" and "Honk if you hate Scientology".[53] According to WKMG-TV, the protesters called the Church of Scientology a "dangerous cult" and said the organization is responsible for crimes and deaths.[52] The Orlando Sentinel reported that the protest was "part of a worldwide campaign by a group that calls itself Anonymous," and an unnamed organizer who spoke to the paper stated that the group was protesting "a gross violation of the right to see free church material," referring to the Tom Cruise video that was pulled from YouTube.[53] Another protest was held on the same day in Santa Barbara, California, during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.[54] Protesters at the demonstration wore masks, and stated they were attempting to inform the public about what they believed to be "restrictions of free speech and profiteering through pyramid schemes" by the Church of Scientology.[54] They stated they were not protesting the doctrine of Scientology, but rather alleged actions of individual members.[54] One protester stated that he had created a Facebook group to organize the protest, explaining "It started online with a group called Anonymous ... They got upset with Scientology because the church hides important documents that are supposed to be released to the public."[54]

Project Chanology members protesting at the Church of Scientology building in Sydney, Australia on February 10, 2008.
Project Chanology members protesting at the Church of Scientology building in Sydney, Australia on February 10, 2008.

On February 10, 2008 about 7,000 people protested in more than 93 cities worldwide.[56][57] Within 24 hours of the first protest, a search for "Scientology" and "protest" on Google Blog Search returned over 4,000 results and more than 2,000 pictures on the image-sharing site Flickr.[57] Cities with turnouts of one hundred or more protesters included Dublin, Ireland, Dallas and Austin, Texas, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, Toronto, Canada, Clearwater, Florida, New York City and London, England.[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67]

One hundred and fifty people protested at the Church of Scientology building in Sydney, Australia, carrying signs and wearing costumes.[63] Participants were masked to maintain their anonymity and avoid possible retaliation from the Church of Scientology. Protesters chanted "Church on the left, cult on the right" (in reference to the Church that was beside the Church of Scientology building), "Religion is free" and "We want Xenu".[63] Scientology staff locked down the building and set up a camera to record the event.[63] After the protest in Sydney, a surge in online internet traffic due to individuals attempting to view pictures from the protest crashed hundreds of websites when a server was overloaded.[57] The Sydney protest was one of the first worldwide, and after the first images of the protest went online a surge in traffic drove the hosting company's bandwidth usage up by 900 per cent.[57] The hosting company Digitalis temporarily prevented access to hundreds of its clients' sites, and customer support representative Denis Kukic said the surge was unexpected: "We had no advance notice that there was going to be a sudden surge of traffic or that there would be more than 100 times the average traffic that this customer's website normally consumes."[57]

Masked protesters in Seattle, United States congregated in front of the Church of Scientology of Washington State.[68] Protesters were quoted as saying, "We believe in total freedom of belief. We have nothing against the people of Scientology, however the Church of Scientology has committed crimes. They're vehemently anti-opposition. Anyone who opposes them, must go down."[68] Protesters turned out in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania despite unusally cold weather. The masked crowd consisted mainly of college students, including some who had travelled from as far as Penn State University.[69] Anonymous has stated the next protest will be on March 15.[70][56]

Campaign against Scientology's tax-exempt status

A woman who stated she was a member of Anonymous told NBC11 that the group has shifted strategy to activities which fight Scientology but are not deemed illegal by the United States government, including an attempt to get the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the Church of Scientology's 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.[50] Another woman from Anonymous told Newsweek that the group plans to accomplish this through a lobbying campaign.[5] United States tax authorities removed the Church of Scientology's tax-exemption status in 1967, stating that the organization's auditing techniques served as a for-profit operation for L. Ron Hubbard.[5] In 1984, the United States Tax Court ruled that the Church of Scientology was guilty of "manufacturing and falsifying records to present to the IRS, burglarizing IRS offices and stealing government documents, and subverting government processes for unlawful purposes."[5] The Church of Scientology's tax-exempt status in the United States was reinstated in 1993.[5] A member of Anonymous calling herself "Envie" told Today Tonight that the group has longer term plans against the Church of Scientology: "We are incredibly determined ... There are those of us who have been talking about plans for the next 12 to 18 months."[119]

Church of Scientology's response

In a January 25, 2008 statement made to News.com.au, a spokesman for the Church of Scientology said, "These types of people have got some wrong information about us."[2] A Toronto, Canada spokesperson for the Church of Scientology said she didn't "give a damn" if the group Anonymous was responsible for disrupting access to the Scientology site.[3] Church spokeswoman Yvette Shank told Sun Media that she thought the Anonymous members were a "pathetic" group of "computer geeks".[3] On January 26, 2008, CNET News reported that Karin Pouw, public affairs director for the Church of Scientology, did not address their specific request for a comment about the denial-of-service attacks but instead only responded to the appearance of the Tom Cruise video on YouTube. Pouw stated that the video consisted of "pirated and edited" excerpts of Cruise from a 2004 Scientology event, and that after the video appeared, there was increased traffic to Scientology sites as shown by top lists compiled by search engines.[120] Pouw went on to state "Those wishing to find out the Church of Scientology's views and to gain context of the video have the right to search official Church Web sites if they so desire."[120]

On January 28, 2008, Radar Online reported that the Church of Scientology asked the U.S. Attorney General's office in Los Angeles, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Los Angeles Police Department to start a criminal investigation of possible criminal activity related to the DDoS attacks. An unnamed source told Radar that the Church of Scientology argued to law enforcement that the Internet attacks are a form of "illegal interference with business." Radar also reported that in statements to law enforcement the Church of Scientology emphasized its status as a religious organization in the United States; in order to assert that the DDoS attacks can be classed as hate crimes.[121] The day after the Church of Scientology complained to law enforcement about the DDoS attacks, one of the main Project Chanology sites was down, and a message on the site said that their site crashed due to attacks from Scientologists.[122] In a statement issued to Wikinews, a Church of Scientology employee confirmed that actions of Anonymous had been reported to law enforcement: "Activities of Anonymous have been reported to the Authorities and actions are being taken. Their activities are illegal and we do not approve of them. At the same time, our main work is to improve the environment, make people more able and spiritually aware. ... yes, we are taking action."[123]

The Church of Scientology issued a statement explaining the website move to Prolexic Technologies: "The attacks have defaced and rendered inoperable a number of CoS web sites. But as a very wealthy institution, the Church has fought back with technological answers. On January 21, the Church of Scientology moved its domain to Prolexic Technologies, a group that specializes in protecting Web sites from [denial of service] attacks by creating a safe tunnel by filtering all incoming mail and then allowing only clean messages through."[124]

Lee Sheldon of the Church of Scientology of Orlando and Lee Holzinger of the Church of Scientology of Santa Barbara issued similar statements regarding the February 2, 2008 protests in Florida and California, respectively.[52][54] Sheldon stated "we recognize the right to legal protest," and Holzinger said ""People have the right to express themselves ... The Church of Scientology has always defended the right of freedom of expression."[52][54] Both representatives also expressed concerns regarding the spread of "hate speech".[52][54]

The Church of Scientology released a statement regarding the February 10, 2008 worldwide protests, which was published February 7, 2008 in the St. Petersburg Times.[125] In the statement, the Church of Scientology called the organizers of the protests "cyberterrorists", and stated: "We take this seriously because of the nature of the threats this group has made publicly. We will take every step necessary to protect our parishioners and staff as well as members of the community, in coordination with the local authorities."[125] The statement also referred to the actions of members of Project Chanology as "hate crimes" and "religious bigotry".[125] Pat Harney, spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, Florida told the St. Petersburg Times: "We are dealing with a worldwide threat ... This is not a light matter."[33] In preparation for the February 10, 2008 protests outside Scientology's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, the Church of Scientology spent USD$4,500 to hire ten off-duty police officers for security.[33] Clearwater Police Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Daly-Watts stated that the off-duty police officers will make sure that protestors do not trespass on Scientology property or violate the law, but will report to police supervisors and not representatives of the Church of Scientology.[33]

Reaction

Andreas Heldal-Lund, founder of Operation Clambake.
Andreas Heldal-Lund, founder of Operation Clambake.

Andreas Heldal-Lund, founder of the Scientology-critical website and non-profit organization Operation Clambake, released a statement criticizing the digital assault against Scientology.[14] Heldal-Lund commented, "People should be able to have easy access to both sides and make up their own opinions. Freedom of speech means we need to allow all to speak - including those we strongly disagree with. I am of the opinion that the Church of Scientology is a criminal organisation and a cult which is designed by its delusional founder to abuse people. I am still committed to fight for their right to speak their opinion."[126] He also stated that "Attacking Scientology like that will just make them play the religious persecution card ... They will use it to defend their own counter actions when they try to shatter criticism and crush critics without mercy."[4]

Mark Bunker, a Scientology critic who runs the website XenuTV.com, posted a video to YouTube and asked Anonymous to change tactics in their campaign against the Church of Scientology, avoiding illegal action.[21] According to NPR's Morning Edition, Bunker has "become a revered voice to many members of Anonymous," and they refer to him as "Wise Beard Man".[127] Bunker told Newsweek that he was concerned for the safety of participants in Project Chanology: "I know the way Scientology works: they're going to get these people in trouble ... I'm very concerned about their safety, and I'm concerned about the Scientologists' safety, too."[5] Bunker stated that he has received 6,000 emails from individuals who say they are part of Anonymous.[5]

Tory Christman, a critic of Scientology and former Scientologist from 1969 to 2000, stated she disapproved of illegal tactics but felt encouraged by the new influx of critics of Scientology.[127] Christman told Morning Edition: "It feels like we've been out in this desert, fighting this group one-on-one by ourselves, and all of a sudden this huge army came up with not only tons of people, thousands of people, but better tools..."[127] Scientology critic Arnaldo Lerma told the St. Petersburg Times he was impressed by a video of a protest against Scientology which took place in Orlando, Florida: "I've never seen anything like that before. This is incredible. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it on a Web cam."[33]

In a February 4, 2008 appearance on the G4 television program Attack of the Show!, Mark Ebner, journalist and author of the book Hollywood, Interrupted, and Nick Douglas of Gawker.com commented on Project Chanology.[128] Ebner stated that "Hacking their site is not really the best way to go about taking them [the Church of Scientology] down. Most critics you talk to want the Scientology site to be up there so that people who are interested can see the stupidity they have on the web and at the same time they can go - they are a few keystrokes from getting a thousand other opinions."[128] Nick Douglas explained that the group decided to shift their strategy away from the attacks to Scientology websites: "Anonymous even decided that they were going to stop that attack, that it was a bad idea. It's the usual thing they used to do when they really hadn't had a thought out plan, and here they're realizing they actually have to figure out some real plan against a real enemy."[128]

University of Alberta professor Stephen A. Kent weighed in on the issue, and said "I think these disruptions probably are illegal. At the very least, they’re forms of harassment ... We now have three parties involved. Anonymous, Scientology and law enforcement." Kent stated that "The hacker community has been angry at Scientology for (their) attempts to block free speech on the Internet."[3] Reaction to the denial of service attack on the Church of Scientology websites was mixed in message board forums for PC World.[129] Some readers praised the actions of Anonymous, while others commented that the DDoS attacks bring more attention to Scientology.[129] The Economist likened the DDoS attacks used by Project Chanology to "cyberwarfare techniques normally associated with extortionists, spies and terrorists," and referred to Anonymous as "internet activists".[48]

Dan Schultz of PBS's MediaShift Idea Lab commented that the movement "...is a really fascinating case study of how current technologies and information dissemination via digital media can snowball into something that actually results in real world action."[130]

See also

References

  1. ^ L.A. takes part in Scientology protests, Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2008.
  2. ^ a b c Schliebs, Mark. "Internet group declares war on Scientology", news.com.au, News Limited, January 25, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-01-25. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Thomas, Nicki. "Scientology and the internet: Internet hackers attack the church", Edmonton Sun, Sun Media, January 25, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-01-25. 
  4. ^ a b c d e f McMillan, Robert; IDG News Service. "Hackers Hit Scientology With Online Attack: Hacker group claims to have knocked the Church of Scientology's Web site offline with a distributed denial-of-service attack.", PC World, IDG, January 25, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-01-25. 
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Braiker, Brian. "The Passion of ‘Anonymous’: A shadowy, loose-knit consortium of activists and hackers called 'Anonymous' is just the latest thorn in Scientology's side.", Newsweek, Newsweek, Inc., February 8, 2008, pp. Technology: Newsweek Web Exclusive. Retrieved on 2008-02-09. 
  6. ^ a b Warne, Dan. ""Anonymous" threatens to "dismantle" Church of Scientology via internet", APC Magazine, National Nine News, January 24, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-01-25. 
  7. ^ a b KNBC Staff. "Hacker Group Declares War On Scientology: Group Upset Over Church's Handling Of Tom Cruise Video", KNBC, January 24, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-01-25. 
  8. ^ a b c Richards, Johnathan (The Times). "Hackers Declare War on Scientology: A shadowy Internet group has succeeded in taking down a Scientology Web site after effectively declaring war on the church and calling for it to be destroyed.", FOX News, FOX News Network, LLC., January 25, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-01-25. 
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