Anonymous Letters Containing White Powder Sent To Church of Scientology

The Church of Scientology has received prank envelopes in the mail containing a mysterious white powder at at least 19 of their locations in Los Angeles and Orange County. According to an AP report "The letters began showing up Wednesday. Glendale police shut down a street for two hours and Tustin authorities evacuated 60 people from buildings as hazardous materials teams were called in.” Further testing revealed the power was harmless. A spokesman for the Glendale police department, talking to a Los Angeles Times reporter, said, "We determined it was corn starch."

There's no word yet as to whether this hoax was the work of hacker group Anonymous, who began a campaign they call Project Chanology against The Church of Scientology in response to its aggressive efforts to suppress various leaked videos featuring Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise. In a video released via YouTube, Anonymous claims the church is "nothing but a psychotically driven pyramid scheme." The group clogged church phone lines, sent blank faxes, and crippled the Scientology.org website using denial of service software as part of their efforts to "destroy" the organization.

In their second video, entitled "Dear News Organizations," Anonymous stated that "the church has been declared fair game." This is most likely a reference to the Scientology Fair Game Law. According to Wikipedia, this states that Suppressive Persons (SPs), a term that is often applied to those whom the Church of Scientology perceives as its enemies, "May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist.” Furthermore it says SPs “may be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” Anonymous may therefore consider that pranks, such as these bogus anthrax packages, fit into their rules of engagement in this new holy war.