Fair Game Policy

The "fair game" policy is a policy within the Church of Scientology under which Scientologists are given free reign to do what they can to attack and suppress anyone critical of the Church. Critics are often called Suppressive Persons, or SPs, which Scientology considers to be people who are ultimately evil, since in their view, only evil people would attack a good thing.

Under the official policy, enemies "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." This is a tall order for a supposedly just group of religiously-minded people. But what it means to be good holds an entirely different meaning within Scientology.

"Scientology, if they can get people's photographs, if they can get people's license plates, they will chase them, they will do what they can do"
- Tory Christman, ex-Scientologist

The Church of Scientology operates this policy primarily through its Office of Special Affairs, or OSA, which consists of top Scientology operatives who look out for the Church's interests in public relations. To retain PR and public status, they will seek out to destroy their critics by any means necessary. While the Church will say that this policy has been cancelled, it has been cancelled only in name. They quickly found that using the term "fair game" in the public arena actually generates bad PR, so an order was issued to cease its use. But while the term was simply cancelled, the mechanism of the policy itself remains in effect, with Scientology misleading people with the cancellation order into thinking that the whole policy was dismissed.

Fair game is still in effect today.

In order to gain the upper hand when it comes to public relations, Scientology will opt to hiring Private Investigators (PIs) to find and identify individuals that speak out against them. PIs dig up information on a person's life and may use it to blackmail them, defame them to their family and friends, display their picture and information like criminal wanted posters around businesses and neighborhoods, stalk, harass, threaten, intimidate, sue, lie to, slander and do everything in their power to destroy the person's life. Mentally, emotionally, financially, even physically. In many cases, the sheer level of harassment knows no bounds.

"Anyone who attacks Scientology is a criminal; all you have to do is dig up their crimes to silence them and if you can't dig up any crimes, manufacture them."
- L.Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology

For decades, journalists and news reporters have seen these very tactics used against them when critical reports were made about the Church of Scientology. Reporters are often attacked on a personal level, with Scientology making claims against their ability as a journalist citing bias and religious discrimination. Not only are they demonized on a professional level, but they covertly stalk and photograph reporters. But the most favored tactic is to go so far as to sue for slander and religious bigotry, as recommended by their founder, L.Ron Hubbard: "The purpose of the [lawsuit] is to harass and discourage rather than win."

To handle critical reviews, L.Ron gives pointed directions to members of Scientology to quickly and efficiently suppress the opposition.

In "The Manual of Justice," Hubbard gave point-by-point instructions on how to deal with a "bad magazine article." First, he wrote, "Tell them by letter to retract at once in the next issue." The second step, he said, is to "hire a private detective of a national-type firm to investigate the writer, not the magazine, and get any criminal or Communist background the man has." The third step is to have lawyers write the magazine threatening suit, and then use the information gleaned from the investigator to make the writer "shudder into silence."

On March 15th, 2008, a group called Anonymous held a worldwide protest against the Church of Scientology. These protestors understand the need for anonymity when it comes to confronting this organization that will do what is in their power to dismantle their critics. Interestingly, Scientologists took advantage of the protest to conduct their own fair gaming tactics against protestors on the streets and online. Scientologists were recorded holding signs of "anonymous" people they unmasked with their name, personal information and an arrow pointing at them for the duration of the protest. Other reports filed in from protestors that were followed or stalked back to their cars and houses. Several members were issued warnings of lawsuits against them for "criminal activity." And online, names and locations were released in the form of YouTube videos of anonymous protestors in different parts of the country.

It is unfortunate that Scientology will go to such great lengths to stop critics from speaking out against them. These are not the actions of a religion.