– Scientology threatened to sue ASIO over “harassment”
– Scientology tells ASIO not to exchange information with CIA
– UPDATE – Scientology unsuccessfully sued ASIO
by Sasha Uzunov
Decades before Hollywood action hero and Scientologist Tom Cruise was chasing imaginary bad guys and spies during the filming of his smash hit movie Mission Impossible 2 on Australian soil, his coreligionists were waging a real life legal stoush with Australia’s Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), declassified secret files from the late 1970s reveal.
The ASIO files from 1979, lodged with the National Archives of Australia, reveal the Church of Scientology threatened to take legal action if ASIO didn’t stop allegedly persecuting it and publicly distributing “smear materials and false documents “about the Church. ASIO denied both charges.
ASIO informed the then Federal Attorney General Senator P.D. Durack QC of the Scientologist’s complaints. In a letter to ASIO, the Attorney General blamed the now defunct and infamous New South Wales State Police Special Branch for the leaking of genuine ASIO documents about Scientology, which have not yet been declassified.
The Church of Scientology engaged an Australian law form, Minter, Simpson & Co, which sent a letter to our domestic spooks, and also warned them not to share any information with the United States of America’s external spy service, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
UPDATE – Australia’s premier investigate reporter and former official with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Phillip Dorling has kindly informed us that the Church of Scientology unsuccessfully sued ASIO in the High Court of Australia in 1980. The full court decision can be read at the link below:
Church of Scientology v Woodward – High Court decision 1980
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TIMOR TOUR OF DUTY…now available on DVD….RATED M…
Timor Tour Of Duty, which looks at the Indonesian military’s secret war against Australian and New Zealand troops and international peacekeepers in East Timor in 2001, received a special commendation Platinum Reel Award from the 2009 Nevada Film Festival.
The film made its US and international screen debut at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in October 2009.
THE DVD includes 4 extra minutes of two scenes cut from the original film festival screening.
Official film website: order your copy