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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:54 / 03.05.08
The Register's on the case with the YouTube thing. It's a nice summary which explains things better than my hit-and-run "OMG!" posts could ever do.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:16 / 09.05.08
So who's on for tomorrow then?
 
 
grant
15:06 / 09.05.08
Heh - I might wind up in the right place by accident... planning a trip to Miami anyway.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
18:39 / 09.05.08
Raidchan is go, but will likely just be music for the next four hours or so.

That said, I did just hear THE most fucked-up rendition of Hit Me Baby One More Time on there. It was oddly reminiscent of 23 Skidoo's cover of Hawaii 5-0...

Weather's looking nice tomorrow, so I think I'll have to forego the suit. Therefore I've just been out and bought some bandages to hide my tattoos.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
19:30 / 09.05.08
Apparently complaints from the $cilons have led to the City police asking us not to use the word "cult" on placards... even though it's not against the law, if people get nicked by rozzers who aren't clued up and then released without charge, it's still gonna be remembered that Anons got v& for hate crimes, so best not to take the chance even if we know we're in the right.

The Met haven't said anything, though, so I am now working on a second placard for Blackfriars- THIS SIGN BREAKS NO LAWS on one side, WHAT ARE YOUR CRIMES? on the other. Then back to FAIL CULT IS FAIL/CO$ CAKE IS A LIE for Tottenham Court Road. Where the geeks go to shop and will get the cake joke.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:55 / 10.05.08
Was gonna go to this one but BCN is fail, apparently.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:45 / 10.05.08
London was good, despite the "oh noes! don't say CULT!" thing which saw one guy getting nicked. (Which could be good, once it turns out he wasn't breaking any laws- then we have a fucking precedent).

Actually, today was awesome. Think we had about the same amount as in April, but it was more of a win both in terms of talking to the public AND in terms of having lulz for ourselves. (I had a great time trying to film some $cilon dude who was trying to film ME, which ended up with me filming him getting chased down the road by ANOTHER guy, also with camera, asking him "are you affiliated with the Church of Scientology in any way?" I'll put my footage up, but I want to see the other guy's first- he's assured me it'll be YouTubed within not much time, and I REALLY want to hear the bits of the conversation I missed this afternoon!)

Ended up down the pub (!) chatting to a guy who was brought up in Co$, but whose parents had the good sense to GTFO when he was like 9 or something, as well as talking to a lady whose parents had disconnected her many, many years ago. Good reminders of why the fuck we were there in both cases. And a lot of the public asking questions, and getting good answers.

And of course there were Rickrolls and delicious caek and mudkipz and Battletoads AND SOME FUCKING BRILLIANT WEATHER.

(And the swastiget which we'd feared some of the dumber *channers were gonna pull never happened... which was good not only for the obvious reasons, but because I'd pledged that I'd stop such a thing by any means necessary, and, well, if you've ever met me you'll know that NOT having to do that comes as quite a relief).

Awesome day.
 
 
grant
18:31 / 12.05.08
Jason Beghe turned up in San Francisco.

And he apparently swore on request, motherfucker.
 
 
grant
16:31 / 18.05.08
And, on the other side, Will Smith just opened a Scientology/Applied Scholastics elementary school.

Oh, dear.
 
 
jamesPD
09:50 / 20.05.08
A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word "cult" to describe the Church of Scientology. The unnamed youth was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion.
Officers confiscated a placard with the word "cult" on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.
...
The teenager refused to back down, quoting a 1984 high court ruling from Mr Justice Latey, in which he described the Church of Scientology as a "cult" which was "corrupt, sinister and dangerous". After the exchange, a policewoman handed him a court summons and removed his sign.
...
The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology. The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening of its headquarters in 2006. Last year a video praising Scientology emerged featuring Ken Stewart, another of the City of London's chief superintendents, although he is not a member of the group.


WTF?!?
 
 
grant
14:34 / 20.05.08
I wonder how much coverage that case could get.

I'd like to see lots.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:59 / 20.05.08
According to one of the guys on Enturb who had a "keep London a cult-free zone" sign, the cops he spoke to were actually looking for reasons NOT to arrest him- "well, you're not saying they're a cult, are you? You're just implying it". The guy who DID get summonsed didn't actually get nicked, either, afaik- the cops seemed to realise how stupid the ruling was.

As I say, there's nothing they can get to stick, which means that all being well the C word will be back in the next couple of months. (I was tempted to take a sign saying CU*T to the last one after the news got out that we weren't allowed to say CULT. If questioned I was going to say I objected to the "curt" way in which they respond to criticism).

Hmm, Liberty are weighing in at last! This could be good... and a bit of a slap in the face for the CCHR!

Of course, it sucks for the kid, because he's no longer Anonymous.
 
 
jamesPD
15:10 / 20.05.08
I can't imagine that the case would get very far at all (although I agree that hopefully it will get plenty of press coverage.)

There was a recent request by the British Muslim Council for the UK to introduce religious hatred laws in addition to the existing race hate laws. The request was criticised by lots of comedians and writers because it could make parodying, criticising or satirising religions or religious practices an offense, and fortunately the request was overturned.

So surely it's simply an issue of free speech, or am I missing something?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:44 / 20.05.08
Basically, as far as I can tell we ARE covered by a clause about freedom of expression. I can't remember the number, but various people had it on their signs at Battletoad Earth (I went with the simpler THIS SIGN BREAKS NO LAWS).

Strangely, because we hadn't been asked beforehand not to SAY the word "cult", we were totally fine chanting it at them, even though we couldn't have it written down... my favourite chant being "You're a cult- a judge says you are" (to the tune of Go West, obviously).

And it occurs to me that the guy probably won't even be named as he's a minor...

Another footbullet for the $cilons, methinks... and another epic win for Anonymous. Ah, the sweet sweet smell of lulz.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
12:04 / 21.05.08
Hooboy, this is big! The Telegraph, the Mail, the Guardian, the BBC website, The Register...


There's also apparently discussion on a police bulletin board. The great bit being that someone hotlinked to one of the *chans which goatses hotlinkers... Anonymous has inadvertently caused the police to goatse themselves! Which is over 9000 flavours of awesome.

The difficult thing now is to not make enemies of the cops. They've been doing a damn good job so far, and have been our most important ally.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
12:29 / 21.05.08
The Metro, the Mirror... this is fucking HUEG LIEK XBOX!!!
 
 
Eek! A Freek!
12:55 / 21.05.08
Would British law allow a poster like:
Tulc, Luct, Clut: No matter how you spell it, you are what you are.
(I secretly want to be a slogan writer when I grow up)
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:17 / 21.05.08
I'm pretty sure it will turn out that British law allows CULT as well!

I thought I was gonna have to miss the next one (working nights the night before and after) but now? No fucking way. I'll be there, probably with my FAIL CULT IS FAIL sign again.
 
 
Seth
13:38 / 21.05.08
The difficult thing now is to not make enemies of the cops. They've been doing a damn good job so far, and have been our most important ally.

I would say that the best way to proceed is as you have been doing. Contact the police. Speak to them. Tell them that you want to make sure you have the best possible protests while remaining within the law, and make the debate about what constitutes legal activities in the CO$ protests AS PUBLIC AS POSSIBLE. Make sure that in all public debates you encourage people to be as understanding of the police's role as they can, appreciating the conflicting demands on their time and resources and the difficulty of intepreting the law for different situations.

In short, stay friendly and respectful, seek to enter reasoned debate whenever you get the chance, and use it to drum up as much publicity as possible without crossing the line into being seen as opportunists who seek to frame it as a conflict for column inches.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:59 / 21.05.08
The guy who's been our liaison with the cops seems to have a pretty good handle on things. He's also very keen that we shouldn't antagonise them.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
16:01 / 21.05.08
Ooh, and a second article in the Telegraph!
 
 
Char Aina
16:01 / 21.05.08
Someone made what sounded like a good point over on Metafilter.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
18:18 / 21.05.08
On the news! On the news! They even say EPIC NOSE GUY!
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
18:28 / 21.05.08
ZOMG! The Guardian got Goatsed as well!

WARNING- contains Goatse.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
11:40 / 23.05.08
Epic Nose Guy is NOT being prosecuted... we can now call them a cult!

Ooh, I'd love to see the stats for the London org this week...
 
 
grant
14:32 / 23.05.08
Common sense! Whoda thunk it?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:11 / 24.05.08
Now, Marina Hyde has long been critical of Co$, since back when she was working for the Guardian Diary column.

I was thoroughly disappointed when she became the person who writes about celebs, because she's damn funny, and it's stuff I don't normally read, so her writing about stuff I had no interest in seemed a shame from a personal point of view. (Kind of like if Charlie Brooker suddenly devoted his career to writing about golf).

This is the second good piece she's written on Co$ in a couple of months. And now she gets to write decent-sized pieces instead of two-sentence Diary things, so... this is EPIC WIN.

I'm hoping that, as seems the case, she's symptomatic of the press finally getting the chance to SAY shit they've wanted to in a while.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:51 / 25.05.08
And Caitlin Moran. Second piece down.

It's moar about denial of freedom of speech than Co$, but that's a link that's being made over and over again in the press right now, which I'm pretty sure works out at something approaching EPIC FUCKING WIN.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:00 / 25.05.08
Good remix of one of the Co$ PSAs here, highlighting LRH and Davey's racism.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:06 / 26.05.08
And an absolutely fucking awesome Sea Arrrgh promo.
 
 
grant
15:40 / 26.05.08
What links are the police forging with the Jedi community? Because that's the fourth biggest religion in the land, according to the same census.

YES.

Just the right kind of coverage. Wind is changing.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:50 / 26.05.08
On a darker note, not sure whether this has been out there for ages, but here are some internal $cilon notes from the night of Lisa McPherson's death.

Very interesting, and a very good motivator to try to prevent that shit ever happening again, but not the easiest of reads, for obvious reasons.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:49 / 29.05.08
Minor win at my local newsagent's.
 
 
grant
21:00 / 29.05.08
I think this kind of thing is where the whole Anon business is going to be strongest. Just *talking* to people.

"Did you know that...?" are powerful words when dealing with this organization.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:28 / 29.05.08
That's true. That's why I think the more fun and interesting the raids are, the more successful they'll be. Because when we're obviously having fun, people fucking THROW themselves at us to be "just talked to".

Which is why I have high hopes for Sea Arrrgh. Bunch of guys in masks dressed as pirates? Anyone with half a brain is gonna HAVE to go up and ask them what they're doing... and then comes the conversation!

But just on a minor level- among my circle of friends, in February it was just me, doing it largely for the lulz. Now there are more and more people I know keeping an eye out for this shit (and a good five or six who now wear the mask, and are now with me for the SRS BSNS). That whole "knowledge is free, $cientology isn't" slogan works on MANY levels. Knowledge is getting out and becoming unconfined, and that's what the cult can't handle. Showed a mate of mine the Sweeney documentary today; first time I'd watched it in a couple of months, and it REALLY illustrates that very well.
 
  

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