This discussion about Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs occurred on Mike Rinder’s blog yesterday:

Alanzo says

October 31, 2015 at 12:01 pm

Well done on 20/20 last night, Mike! Talking to you is like SLEEPING WITH SATAN! LOL!! It’s great that all you Int Base Escapees have created a safety net for people like Leah and Ron Sr and others to land on after Scientology. You’ve provided supportive information and resources to get things done like write globally best selling books, and to appear on global media outlets, and to be trained and available to do supportive interviews and media appearances. Perhaps I haven’t been as consistently effusive about this area as I should have been. I keep wanting to see more about how all the OSA and RTC dirty-tricks sausage-making was done – especially the criminal bits – and maybe I have not appreciated this media handling enough. I am continuing to look forward to the exposure of as much criminal activity as possible which led to deaths and other serious destruction of peoples’ lives, and to the exposure of ALL dirty tricks and fair game programs on past critics and squirrels by OSA and RTC. So once again, thank you for all that you do. Alanzo

Mike Rinder says

October 31, 2015 at 2:12 pm

Thank you Alanzo. Appreciate your kind words. For you and others who have commented at various times about how much information there is that I have not been forthcoming about, I am sorry to disappoint. Realize that because I was the head of OSA (or WDC OSA) for many years doesn’t mean I knew about everything that happened in detail. In fact, because I was a SPOKESPERSON I was NOT privy to a lot of things. The ones that I did know about, like following John Sweeney I have talked about. The information about the activities against Tory and Chuck Beatty I have made known. But I cannot talk about what I don’t have specifics about. Those who strive for information about Intell actions are going to have to wait for Warren McShane, Linda Hamel, Neil O’Riley, Doug Jacobsen, Ben Shaw, Charlie Earle and a few others to speak up. There is enormous compartmentalization in scientology, and especially in the intelligence activities. I have testified plenty of times about the general policies and practices that are followed. I have made all the secret OSA policies and documents known many times. Just cannot do everything people wish I could do. I also extensively debriefed to the FBI and gave them thousands of documents. Everything I could provide and every detail I could possibly recall. I do what I can do and devote a lot of time and effort to it. I am not half hearted about it and have talked about everything I can think to talk about and keep doing so. AS you posted such a nice comment, I wanted to take a few minutes to respond from my perspective as I know this is something that sits out there in the minds of some.

Alanzo says

October 31, 2015 at 2:46 pm

Excellent, Mike. Especially this part: “Those who strive for information about Intell actions are going to have to wait for Warren McShane, Linda Hamel, Neil O’Riley, Doug Jacobsen, Ben Shaw, Charlie Earle and a few others to speak up. There is enormous compartmentalization in scientology, and especially in the intelligence activities.” I’ve heard how compartmentalized you were, but listing those names out like that is a really great way to keep helping in this area – in addition to all you already have done, and continue to do. I think that sometimes you can forget that even if you do not directly know what the specific criminal activity was, you can still help others to find out. Just listing those names above, and telling us your understanding of the general orgs and activities those people were involved in, helps other people to put the pieces together. For instance, which specific critics and squirrels would have been targeted by those people? Who were the “enemies” they were tasked with handling? Also, what specific situations would they have been tasked to handle? You may not know everything they did – but can you at least give an educated guess on some of the programs they would have run, and the individuals they would have targeted? Alanzo

Mike Rinder says

October 31, 2015 at 3:59 pm

Sure, and it changed as time went by. Early on it was the Flynn plaintiffs. Then it moved into the “squirrels” David Mayo and Robin Scott and others. Then the “internet attackers” — Dennis Erlich, Keith Henson, Arnie Lerma and others. Fishman. And Graham Berry and Vaughn and Stacy, morphing into Bob Minton and those associated with him. Along with them Dave Touretsky, Ursula Caberta, Margaret Singer, Bruce Hines, Tory, Chuck etc. And each of them had programs similar to the ones for Tory and Chuck. Whatever their “buttons” were determined to be, and “3 channels” designed to threaten what they held dear and their jobs. That is what “the tech” says as contained in Intelligence Principles, Counter-Attack Tactics and other references that are now available all over the internet.

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Here is Tory Christman’s OSA Program, which has been edited per an agreement at the time between Marty and Tory

Here is Chuck Beatty’s OSA Program released on Mark Rathbun’s blog 2 months later.

I’m going to list some facts for context:

1. Mike Rinder left the Church of Scientology 8 years ago.

2. Tory Christman’s and Chuck Beatty’s OSA programs are the only ones that have been released so far.

3. Marty Rathbun filed an affidavit in Texas court which details his and Mike Rinder’s daily schedule with regard to OSA and its operations. Here is a relevant portion of that affidavit:

17. “The Office of Special Affairs (OSA) is the legal, public relations, and intelligence network of CSI. One or more network representatives are employed by every Scientology organization across the world. Each of them is operated and managed by OSA International (OSA INT) which is housed within CSI. Although OSA is formally answerable to CSI’s management, from OSA’s inception in the early 1980s, until my departure in December 2004, the formal management structure was a sham. OSA was carefully micromanaged by David Miscavige. he exercised his control through me, Inspector General of RTC, and Mike Rinder, Commanding Officer of OSA International. 18. “Between 1982 and 2004, it was my job to act as a go-between for Miscavige and OSA. The manner in which we shielded Miscavige was elaborate. Much of Miscavige’s control of OSA was done “off the record.” Every evening I would receive an intelligence briefing in writing from OSA. The briefing was usually several pages summarizing reports from private investigators and Scientologists serving as undercover spies watching and interacting with Scientology critics. The written briefing, contrary to established corporate policy, had no routing information on it. That is, the daily briefing had no indication who wrote the report or who it was directed to. If a report ever got out of the Church, it could not, on its face, be used to incriminate any of its author or recipients. 19. “After I read the report each day, I was instructed by Miscavige to put it into a fresh envelope with no routing information on it. I then personally carried the envelope into Miscavige’s office and set it on his desk. I was the only person in Scientology, aside from his wife and secretary, ever authorized such access to his desk. When Mr. Miscavige read the reports, he would enter my office with the report in hand. He would say ‘beat it’ to my secretary or anyone else who happened to be in my office. Once any visitors had left, Mr. Miscavige would discuss the contents of the report. Often, he would instruct me to order OSA to direct an operative or private investigator to find out something to do concerning the target of infiltration or investigation. On other occasions, Mr. Miscavige would joke about what was reported about a particular target, or rant about the target’s activity. When Miscavige was done discussing the daily OSA briefing with me, he would throw the report on my desk. That was my cue to pick it up and shred it after he left the office and before anyone was permitted to return to my office. 20. “For 22 years, my schedule was to wake up at least an hour before David Miscavige’s scheduled wake up time so that I could collect all important information on any matter of concern to him being handled by the OSA network. Every morning, I was required to brief Miscavige verbally on any major developments on matters handled by the OSA network around the world or matters concerning security. My briefing to him would begin with major problems which he insisted he know about. My briefing included reports about handling the media stories, investigations, legal cases, security breaches, and potential security situations. That briefing would last anywhere from a few minutes on a quiet day with no major developments, to all day when something was afoot that riveted Miscavige’s attention. Miscavige would issue orders to OSA that I had to accurately note on paper. 21. “After the conference with Miscavige, there were a number of options available for issuing his orders, depending on their scope and the level of security required. Most often, I would call Mike Rinder, into my office and I would brief him verbally on Miscavige’s directives. Mr. Rinder would then return to his own office and type up the orders as written directives to OSA. Those directives would be worded as if the orders were originated by him, with no reference to me or RTC, and especially not to Mr. Miscavige. On many occasions, Mr. Miscavige would require Mr. Rinder’s presence during briefings in which he wanted more detail than usual, or wanted to issue more detailed orders than usual. In such cases, it would be my responsibility to follow up to verify that Mr. Rinder relayed Mr. Miscavige’s orders to OSA as Rinder’s own orders. 22. “Mr. Rinder and I were ordered by Mr. Miscavige to keep secret virtually all of our communications, and to specifically keep them secret from any other managers or staff with CSI and RTC. All other CSI managers had little to no knowledge of any matters affecting Scientology from the world outside of the Church. Except for OSA staff, Sea Org members have little contact with the media or the world outside of their corporate duties.

I have been criticized by some of the original “Indies” who came out of the Church at around the time of Marty and Mike, and by some of my fellow critics of Scientology as well, for “hounding” Mike Rinder and Mark Rathbun to give more details about the specific operations of Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs, and its efforts to destroy specific critics and squirrels.

I have been told by Indies that Marty and Mike are “upstat” and deserve ethics protection for all they have done, and I have been told by my fellow critics that I have not given Mike and Marty a “fair go”.

All I can say in my defense is that:

People who have been harmed by Scientology deserve justice.

And they deserve closure.

My hope is that Mike Rinder and Mark Rathbun both continue to trickle out specific information about what they know about the harm that has been committed on specific individuals by the Church of Scientology.