In response to post #32 above: "The mormon church uses tactics like scientology if you go high enough. Romney is high enough. There is an incesterous relationship among all the higher ups of the Mormon church. Same families and same money mangers."
Re-post from a few months ago:
THIS is the single picture that scares me the most in the 2012 Presidential campaign.
This article should explain sufficiently, and prove my point above.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/10/mark_chauppetta.php
Mark Chauppetta, Private Eye Who Worked for Scientology at the time of the South Park Investigation: "I'm a Fucking Mercenary"
By Tony Ortega Fri., Oct. 28 2011*
Just got off the phone with Mark Chauppetta, a private investigator who has done work for the Church of Scientology,
sifting through the trash of the church's perceived enemies.
Chauppetta worked for Scientology for several years, including the time the church was investigating South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, in 2006. (Chauppetta says he wasn't personally involved in the South Park operation, but added that he wouldn't confirm it even if that was the case.)
I told Chauppetta that our readers have been fascinated with leaked internal documents which suggest that Scientology paid private investigators to case the South Park offices, sift through Parker and Stone's trash, and also to pull the trash of their friends, such as actors John Stamos and Rebecca Romijn.
After the jump, Chauppetta explains what it was investigators were looking for in the trash of Scientology's enemies.
"I do a lot of trash-pulling for a lot of different clients," he says. "You're looking for a Post-it, an envelope, anything that would give you a name, anything. You look for anything but a bloody tampon and a banana peel," Chauppetta told me by phone from the Boston area, where he operates.
I asked him for an example of a specific item he found in a person's trash that had an impact on a case he was involved in.
"There are people who have left bank statements and things like that in the trash that has led to certain decisions in probate and family court. When it comes to them writing things on their financial disclosures that are inaccurate," he explained.
"I pull trash for everyone. I recommend it to a lot of different clients," Chauppetta says.
In the days since the Patriot Act, some kinds of document searches are tougher for private eyes, Chauppetta tells me. He says searching through a target's trash has become a more useful and reliable tool.
About ten years ago, he tells me, Scientology seemed to be blindsided by the Internet and what was being said about the church online. For several years -- including 2006, when the South Park operation was going on -- Chauppetta says he was a highly thought of operative for the church.
"They handed me a copy of Dianetics when I first started doing work for them, and I just threw it in the trash. It didn't catch my attention," he says. "As long as they paid me in a timely fashion, I wasn't going to judge. I'm a fucking mercenary.
"I give the Church of Scientology props. It's funny, I had a potential client call me who wanted some background done on certain people. You could call these people a borderline religious organization, a borderline cult. I told them they could take an example from Scientology, because they seem to do it right when it comes to gathering data."
I asked him if he could characterize the kind of work the church asked him to do. "Most of the cases I worked on were doing background information on ex-members who were saying things about them that weren't pleasant," he answered.
"As far as the church goes, I just turned over what I found to them, and I didn't know what they did with it. I was just a grunt for them," he added. "I was just a soldier. As long as it was legal and ethical I didn't have a problem."
We're learning that 2006 seemed to be a particularly busy year for Scientology investigations, with seemingly dozens of different perceived enemies around the country being looked at. Today, however, with Scientology's numbers dwindling, only a few key targets seem to be getting the full-force private investigator routine (Marty Rathbun in Texas, Mike Rinder and Robert Almblad in Florida, Jason Beghe in California, and Marc Headley in Colorado are the chief ones that come immediately to mind.)
When I mentioned that Scientology's fortunes seem to have declined, and with it the church's resources for investigating, Chauppetta said that jibed with his own experience.
"I haven't done anything for them in a few years. I don't know if it's the recession or because they don't have something in the Boston area. I know it's not because of my work. I was highly recognized for what I do," he says.
In May, we wrote that Chauppetta had given an interview to Howard Stern, who asked him (in less detail) about working for Scientology. Chauppetta said he didn't get quite the boost in business from that interview that he was hoping for.
He did wonder, however, if Scientology might have been irked. "After the Stern interview, I thought, they're probably pulling my trash now," he says.
In that case, when one suspects that the church is snooping into one's affairs, what should one do?
"Shred everything," he answered.
"They can pull my trash if they want to. They might find some dirty tissues when I'm rubbing one out in the office, but that's about it."
Some of the comments below the article:
"Holy .... has Romney's rivals gotten ahold of this picture?
Hey, Mitt, just one question: Did Scientology refer you? ok, 2 questions: whose trash?"
offer. It came from 253-382-9937
