Fair game (Scientology)

The term Fair Game is used to describe various aggressive policies and practices carried out by the Church of Scientology towards people and groups it perceives as its enemies.

Fair Game Law

In 1965, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, formulated the "Fair Game Law", which states how to deal with people who interfere with Scientology's activities. These problematic people, called suppressive persons, could be considered "fair game" for retaliation:

A Suppressive Person or Group becomes fair game. By FAIR GAME is meant, may not be further protected by the codes and disciplines or the rights of a Scientologist.

Later in December of that year, Hubbard reissued the Fair Game policy with additional clarifications to define the scope of Fair Game. He made it clear that the policy applied to non-Scientologists as well. He declared:

The homes, property, places and abodes of persons who have been active in attempting to: suppress Scientology or Scientologists are all beyond any protection of Scientology Ethics, unless absolved by later Ethics or an amnesty ... this Policy Letter extends to suppressive non-Scientology wives and husbands and parents, or other family members or hostile groups or even close friends.

Hubbard made it clear elsewhere in his writings that the policy would be applied to external organizations, including governments, that were guilty of having interfered with Scientology's activities. He told Scientologists:

If the Internal Revenue Service (off-policy in refusing the FCDC [Founding Church of Scientology, Washington DC] non-profit status though it qualifies) continues to act up or if the FDA does sue we can of course Comm Ev [Committee of Evidence] them and if found guilty, label and publish them as a Suppressive Group and fair game ... [N]one is fair game until he or she declares against us.

The policy was further extended in an October 1967 Policy Letter (HCOPL 18 Oct 67 Issue IV, Penalties for Lower Conditions), where Hubbard defined the "penalties" for an individual deemed to be in a "Condition of Enemy":

ENEMY — SP Order. Fair game. 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.

When a man named Peter Goodwin in Hampshire, England purchased a high-level Scientology course for £250 and resold it to friends for £50, Hubbard personally issued an Ethics order which "withdrew any future help from Goodwin and his associates, (presumably for eternity), and threatened the most dire retaliations."

Cancellation

In July 1968, Hubbard cancelled HCOPL 18 Oct 67 Issue IV, Penalties for Lower Conditions, replacing it with HCOPL 21 July 68, Penalties for Lower Conditions. This redefined the condition of Enemy as follows:

"Suppressive Person order. May not be communicated with by anyone except an Ethics Officer, Master at Arms, a Hearing Officer or a Board or Committee. May be restrained or imprisoned. May not be protected by any rules or laws of the group he sought to injure as he sought to destroy or bar fair practices for others. May not be trained or processed or admitted to any org."

In addition, in October that year, Hubbard issued HCOPL 21 Oct 68 Cancellation of Fair Game, which said:

"The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations. This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP."

Critics argue that this letter cancels only the use of the term "fair game" for its "bad PR" effect, and not the policy on the treatment of "suppressive persons" in question. For example, Lord Justice Stephenson, in the judgement in Church of Scientology of California v. Department of Health and Social Security [1979], declined to order discovery in favour of the Church of Scientology on the grounds that there was a real risk of harassment of the persons named in the documents.

I have carefully considered the documents to which we have been referred and some to which we have not. I am satisfied by my consideration of the documents that there is a real risk that all three categories of documents may be misused, ie not for legitimate purposes of the action but for harassment of individual patients, informants and renegades named in them, not only by proceedings for defamation against them but by threats and blackmail, and that they may be distributed to those in other parts of this worldwide organisation who may misuse them in the same way. I am thinking chiefly of the 'fair game law' against suppressive persons expounded in the HCO policy letter of 1 March 1965 and referred to in the particulars, and the policy letter of 21 October 1968 cancelling publication of the policy in the interests of public relations, but not the policy itself.

In 1976, Hubbard later said in an affidavit that "Fair Game" was never intended to authorize harassment:

There was never any attempt or intent on my part by the writing of these policies (or any others for that fact), to authorise illegal or harassment type acts against anyone.

As soon as it became apparent to me that the concept of 'Fair Game' as described above was being misinterpreted by the uninformed, to mean the granting of a license to Scientologists for acts in violation of the law and/or other standards of decency, these policies were cancelled.

Ongoing aggressive policy

Critics such as Jon Atack have expressed concern that this means the practice has been cancelled in name only.

However, the Church has retained an aggressive policy towards those it perceives as its enemies, and argued – unsuccessfully – as late as 1985 that retributive action against "enemies of Scientology" should be considered a Constitutionally-protected "core practice" of Scientology. Apart from critics, several judges and juries have through their decisions or comments asserted that the tactics continued beyond Hubbard's order canceling use of the term Fair Game in 1968.

Recent events

In recent years, a number of ex-Scientologists who formerly held senior management positions in the Church have alleged that while working for the Church they saw "Fair Game" tactics continuing to be used. In 1994, Vicki Aznaran, who had been the Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center (the Church's central management body), claimed in an affidavit that

Because of my position and the reports which regularly crossed my desk, I know that during my entire presidency of RTC "fair game" actions against enemies were daily routine. Apart from the legal tactics described below, the "fair game" activities included break-ins, libel, upsetting the companies of the enemy, espionage, harassment, misuse of confidential communications in the folders of community members and so forth.

The BBC Panorama investigation into Scientology indicated that similar practices continued into 2007:

On May 12, 2007 Journalist John Sweeney of BBC News made comments highly critical of Scientology and its teachings, and further reported that since beginning an extensive investigation he had been harassed, surveilled, and investigated by strangers. Sweeney wrote, "I have been shouted at, spied on, had my hotel invaded at midnight, denounced as a "bigot" by star Scientologists, brain-washed...and chased round the streets of Los Angeles by sinister strangers. Back in Britain strangers have called on my neighbours, my mother-in-law's house and someone spied on my wedding and fled the moment he was challenged." In another passage, "He (Scientology representative Tom Davis) harangued me for talking to...heretics. I told him that Scientology had been spying on the BBC and that was creepy." And in another passage, "In LA, the moment our hire car left the airport we realised we were being followed by two cars. In our hotel a weird stranger spent every breakfast listening to us."

See also

• Game (Scientology)
• Dead Agenting
• Ethics (Scientology)
• Scientology Justice
• Keeping Scientology Working

External links

• Q. What does the term “fair game” refer to? -- from the Church of Scientology's FAQ pages.
• Eric J. Ascalon: "Dangerous Science: The Church of Scientology's Holy War against Critics", American Jurist, November 1995, Vol. 9 No. 2
• Robert Vaughn Young "Affidavit regarding Fair Game", declaration in the case Church of Scientology International v. Steven Fishman and Uwe Geertz, 1994.
• Stephen A. Kent, University of Alberta, Statement on Fair Game for the Dennis Erlich case, February 1999
• Clare Dyer, Scientologists pay for libel, The Guardian, 9 June, 1999
• Fair Gamed Web Site, Some victims of Scientology's Fair Game Policy