The San Francisco-based Anonymous demonstrators who have waged a protest against the city's Church of Scientology for three years may have won over their first potential defector -- a person who posted on the group's message board this week as a "cult member in hiding" to let them know their protests have proved "something is really wrong" with the Church.


Meanwhile, the San Francisco church's president, Jeff Quiros, is brushing this off as just a troll -- internet-speak for someone trying to start trouble online. "I'm sure it's not legitimate," he says.


One Anonymous protester chalked it up as a victory. "This is the first time someone has publicly come out and said 'I want to defect.' It's really heart-warming to see him so grateful" for the Anonymous protests.


Here is the text of the first post that went up Tuesday on a San Francisco message board of whyweprotest.net. The writer says, "I hope one day to join you."

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There's more intrigue surrounding the debate over who won the latest battle in the three-year war between San Francisco's Church of Scientology and Anonymous - the Internet-born movement of masked protesters outside the Columbus Street church who warn people it's a money-hungry cult.

Anonymous has been toasting "ethicstrouble," a purported Scientologist who wrote on a local Anonymous message board that the group's protests convinced him or her that "something is really wrong" with the church, and that he or she now wants to leave. Meanwhile, Jeff Quiros, the president of the San Francisco church, said in our story yesterday he believes Anonymous itself is behind the defector.

Wait, it gets better. Quiros' theory continues: Anonymous was shamed by a graph (in the picture above) that a Scientologist showed the protesters last week indicating the number of visitors coming in off the street was skyrocketing. So, he says, Anonymous had to fight back by creating an apostate.

Obviously, there's no verifying the amount of people the church claims are coming in its door. There's also no verifying that the defector isn't just an Anonymous member. So we're left with a spin war highlighting the hilarious culture clash between oh-so-serious Scientologists and irreverent Anons. It's sort of the equivalent of righteous Christ Boy taking on the video gamer playing Magic in your lunchroom.

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A couple weeks ago, the masked Anonymous protesters who've been organizing protests outside San Francisco's Church of Scientology for the last three years received a jolt of affirmation. A self-proclaimed Scientologist logged onto the group's local message board with the handle "ethicstrouble," thanking Anonymous for its protests and writing "I hope one day to join you."

The San Francisco church's president, Jeff Quiros, told SF Weekly he thought the apostate was a fraud, created by Anonymous themselves. But SF Weekly has since talked at length with ethicstrouble on the phone, and they sent us a bevy of graphs that they said they smuggled out of the trash at the org.

After reviewing the graphs, Quiros claimed they are fake. "They are not legit," he wrote in an e-mail. "Someone is going to great lengths ... I wish SF Weekly would not continue to give legs to this nonsense game."

Download the graphs ethicstrouble sent SF Weekly in these PDF files.

[firstsetofgraphs][secondsetofgraphs]

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Follow-up article.............

Scientology vs. Anonymous: Spin War Over a Potential Defector
SF Weekly blogs. 9th Sept 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/201 ... s_spin.php

Yesterday, we posted documents purportedly smuggled out of a trash bin of San Francisco's Church of Scientology by ethicstrouble, a self-proclaimed church member who has decided Scientology is a money-sucking farce and wants out. Two prominent ex-Scientologists agreed the statistics looked legit, even though the San Francisco church's president claims they aren't.

There's no denying that ethicstrouble can speak frankly and intimately about life inside the San Francisco org, to a degree that would make this an incredible hoax if they were making this up. (We refer to ethicstrouble as a genderless "they.")

We've made minor edits to ethicstrouble's answers for clarity and brevity.

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Earlier this month, Anonymous claimed their first potential defector from within San Francisco's Church of Scientology. Meanwhile, the church's president, Jeff Quiros, told SF Weekly the masked protesters' presence has only buoyed the public's interest in the org.

This week, we've posted the statistics that ethicstrouble claims to have smuggled out of the org, and we've talked with this inside source about daily life at the church. Today, we post our conversation with ethicstrouble about Anonymous.

Disclaimer: We have no confirmation that Ethicstrouble is, indeed, a San Francisco Scientologist. But two ex-Scientologists have said the graphs the source sent us look legit. Now, ethicstrouble says the leadership of the org is changing protocols to make sure such a leak doesn't happen again. "Right now, it's much greater security -- shredding them as soon as the executives see them. There's a shredder in the ED's [executive director's] office, so [the papers] will probably go straight in there."

[...read on, in the article link, for the continued interview...]

For our final post -- for now -- from the self-proclaimed Scientologist apostate inside the San Francisco Church of Scientology, we talk to ethicstrouble about the path to deciding that Scientology was a hoax. "The reason I'm talking to you is I want this thing to fall apart," ethicstrouble told us. "I think it abuses people's faith, promises things it can't deliver, and I think it's awful."

If you'd like to catch up with our previous conversations, here are our posts to date:
Ethicstrouble releases San Francisco churches statistics
Life in the Org
Anonymous' Effect On Scientology

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Scientology Apostate Part IV: Deciding the Church Was a Fraud
San Francisco Weekly. 29th Sept 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/201 ... t_iv_d.php


If you haven't read this series the please do. It's a must!

Lauren Smiley has been publishing a terrific series this week at our sister paper, SF Weekly.

Smiley first reported on September 8 that the very active Anonymous chapter there, Chanology SF, had received e-mails from someone inside Scientology's "org" who went by the handle "ethicstrouble."

Ethicstrouble claims to be a disillusioned Scientologist with inside information about the SF church (including charts and graphs). The org's president, Jeff Quiros, tells Smiley that ethicstrouble is a hoax.

While Smiley has been unable to confirm that ethicstrouble is who he or she claims, she published this week a fascinating three-part interview with the supposed insider in which ethicstrouble describes losing confidence in Scientology, in part because of the constant presence of Anonymous protesters.

We asked one of the most well-known recent defectors from Scientology, Amy Scobee, to read ethicstrouble's interview and comment on it.

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I find those graphs [posted on the Snitch] to be entirely plausible, if only because they're all very consistent with each other ["Scientology Apostate Part I: San Francisco Church Stats," Lauren Smiley, the Snitch, 9/26]. Making up numbers is easy, but making them up in such a way that dozens of different weeks all balance when scrutinized individually? That would take a ton of work. They're also consistent with observation. Watch the org entrance, look in their windows. It's pretty empty. [S.F. church President] Jeff Quiros's denials [that the graphs are real] ring as hollow as the claims of there being 10 million Scientologists.

This reporting on Ethicstrouble [the series interviewee] is great ["Scientology Apostate Part II: Life in the Org," Lauren Smiley, the Snitch, 9/27]. I thought Scientology was some harmless Hollywood cult until I read Lauren Smiley's SF Weekly cover story a few years back ["Scientology's Antagonists," feature, 8/13/08]. Since then I have kept my eye out. I read Lawrence Wright's New Yorker article on Paul Haggis, and read Janet Reitman's book after SF Weekly wrote about her ["Janet Reitman Goes Where No One Else Wants To: Inside Scientology," Alan Scherstuhl, the Exhibitionist, 9/12]. After reading about Ethicstrouble, it struck me: Scientology doesn't look much like a church. "Bodies In Shop" — appears more like a high-pressure business. And now today with Ethicstrouble talking about getting punished for browsing the Internet? It's like some Communist regime from the 1950s time-warped to S.F.

Those protesters from Anonymous are hilarious. I live in North Beach. When I drive by they are dancing, tourists stop to have their pictures taken with them, and they get a lot of horn love. Ethicstrouble needs to stay strong. Looking forward to more reports.

This feedback is so important; Ethicstrouble is letting protesters like myself know that we are making a difference, and in doing so is helping to free many more Scientologists ["Scientology Apostate Part III: Anonymous' Effect on the Org," Lauren Smiley, the Snitch, 9/28]. We [protestors] won't give up until the abuse and deception end.

Hi all,

Well, you have not heard of me for a while because I have been contemplating what to do next and from here on out. For example, because of the nay Sayers on the boards I was tempted to challenge Jeff Quiros, with the threat I would give to Lauren [Lauren Smiley, San Fancisco Weekly] all the rest of the graphs (or maybe some more recent ones) with all names intact, you see, I had only given her about half of the them. I have chosen not to out of respect for my fellow brainwashed staff.

To everyone fighting this fight,WWP, ESMB, Clambake, Lauren, Bunker, moarxenu, Skeptic2girl and all the other wonderful SF protesters, Tony Ortega, my PM friends at WWP, Magoo, Gadfly, HH, Toady, Sponge, Adhocrat, Moog, anna asks, sprtt, chipshotz, jacky blue note, Mark C, Smurf, grebe, Robocat, there are just too many to name all, but you know who you are. If you contributed, you helped. THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING A PART OF ME SEEING THE LIGHT!

Thank you for protesting my org, the caek and the Reese's Pieces cookies.

Now a message to my fellow staff and public at SFO who I hope will at some point do a search to find out what all the ET ruckus is/was all about.

I did this because I saw no other way to get to you. To get you thinking, looking, questioning. Its time for us to see we made a mistake. We trusted and believed. We got wins, we stayed and went through all the bullshit because we thought clear, OT and a world without war were within our grasp. If wins were all that were promised!!! Alas we were promised eternity and believed with all our heart.

For me this has been the ultimate betrayal. You should know the truth, but because of the indoctrination you are forced not to look. I hope this was a push to do so.

And now a message to SFOD and SFOF management,

This has played out better than I postulated. It’s so perfect, I love it. I have proven your inability to just find one mole. You trust me like you trust that most of the staff is not Ethics Trouble. I want you to know that ET is standing right in front of you and you will never never question me, but you damn well better start thinking how the hell something like this can happen. You better realize that all the promises not kept are waking people up. You better realize that not one of COB’s promises have come true. When was the last time an org went St. Hill Size? How well off really are all the "Ideal" Orgs? Look beyond the stat push!!! You better realize he is stealing your public, that you will never get the universe corps, you will not get that new building, you are impotent against a bunch of kids protesting, that it’s not the next level that will handle it. You have lost the war because you have done wrong in the name of the greatest good for the greatest number. We had become totally arrogant in thinking we were the only hope for mankind. You and I have lied, manipulated, nattered, invalidated, wrongly accused, looked the other way, made excuses and corrupted how many times. Those acts are weighing on us now and will bring us down. Thank god.
I have realized all this and am just biding my time. I have to make right what I have done wrong. I must let free some of the people I have trapped. Only then will I be at peace with myself. You have not heard the last of me by a long shot. See ya later.

ML,

ET