Fair Game: How Scientology Suppresses Freedom of Speech

If you protest or publicly speak out against Scientology, you could face a lengthy legal battle; your neighborhood could be flooded with flyers announcing your dirty secrets, or horrible lies about you; your friends and family could be targeted; you could be harassed to within an inch of your sanity; you could even lose your life. Scientology's Fair Game policy enables the organization to attack those who publicly criticize them.

The Fair Game policy was first announced by L. Ron Hubbard in a policy letter on October 18th, 1967. In the letter, Hubbard outlined the penalties for lower conditions, or crimes against the organization - liability, treason, doubt, and enemies. Anyone who speaks out against or leaves Scientology is an enemy of the Church, and is both declared a Suppressive Person (issued an official SP order) and subject to the Fair Game policy, in which they "May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."

On paper, the policy only lasted a year. On October 21st, 1968, Hubbard issued a letter canceling Fair Game. Not because it was wrong or unethical - no, the policy was canceled because it caused bad public relations. However, the practice was never canceled, only the use of the term "fair game," people were not declared Fair Game and it was not to appear on an ethics order; however the practiced continued, and it is still continued today, and Scientology has a whole course devoted to educating members on how to "Confront and Shatter Suppression."

Some examples of Fair Game in action are:

Operation Freakout: Almost a decade after the Fair Game policy was "canceled," the Church of Scientology launched a covert plan to have journalist and author Paulette Cooper either imprisoned or committed to a mental institution. Her "crime" was exposing the organization through her writings, first in a magazine article, and then in a full length book entitled The Scandal of Scientology.

Gerry Armstrong: Gerry left the Church of Scientology and became an active critic of its practices. In response, he was harassed, threatened, driven to bankruptcy, and eventually sued for theft of church documents.

Lawrence Wollersheim: Another former Scientologist, Lawrence sued Scientology for emotional injury and for the damage to his business, which the Church nearly destroyed with its Fair Game measures.

Gregg Housh: Gregg was involved with the Boston chapter of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous. His name was on the permits for the protests in front of the Boston Org, making him the first member the Church could identify by name. He was involved in a lengthy legal battle in which Scientology filed numerous charges against him, including one that had not been enforced since 1806. After several months, Housh was ordered to stay away from the Org for one year.

Shawn Lonsdale: Shawn's experiences with Scientology began when he got into an argument with a Scientologist at a City Council meeting, and was followed home after the meeting. The next day, Shawn saw a van waiting outside his home for two hours. He then researched Scientology, and established a website where he exposed information about the organization. He soon became a prominent critic. Lonsdale would videotape members going in and out of the org in Clearwater, Florida, and the edited footage was aired on a local cable station. In response to Shawn's critique, the Church of Scientology hired a private investigator, found and publicized Shawn's criminal record, and called both his employer and landlord, telling them he was a religious bigot. In 2007, Shawn began to neglect his website, and in early 2008 he was found dead in his apartment from apparent suicide.

Wollersheim and Armstrong both won their cases, and Cooper was eventually compensated out of court. Unfortunately, not everyone was so lucky. The Fair Game policy has come up in numerous court cases, where Scientology has argued that it was a core practice of the religion and therefore protected by the First Amendment. It's odd to think of a policy which limits free speech as having such protections.