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> and it's a bit low to go after the other side's private emails. I think that calling them "private" is a bit misleading here. As far as I can see, they all s
by fjh 14y ago
> and it's a bit low to go after the other side's private emails.
I think that calling them "private" is a bit misleading here. As far as I can see, they all seem to be about Scientology business / logistics. That by itself obviously does not excuse leaking them, but (again, as far as I can see) the emails do not contain much personal information.
> It'd be much easier to fight/debate against their public image, which is easy enough, without having to resort to intrusive attacks.
I would probably agree with you if this was about any other organisation, but the CoS has a long, long history of suppressing information about them by any means, both legally and illegally. People who leave the church are routinely harassed and threatened to prevent them from talking about it. Judging from the past, they also do a lot of dirty business that, in my opinion, needs be be widely known.
Considering this, I think this might be a good thing. At the very least, I find it hard to blame the person leaking this.
> We have the warrant system in the states for a reason, and if this were to happen in court the evidence would just get tossed right out.
Even though US law probably doesn't apply here, you're almost certainly right about the legality of this. But, honestly, I'm not sure why we should care, we're not the part of the Austrian judicial system. I'm still somewhat ambivalent about the ethical status of this, but I think we should not conflate legality and morality here.
- crntaylor 14y ago> I think that calling them "private" is a bit misleading here. As far as I can see, they all seem to be about Scientology business / logistics. That doesn't make them not-private. My email is private no matter what the subject is. More to the point - you seem to be saying that it's okay to read someone's email, and then just release the parts that don't contain much personal information. That is clearly shady. Maybe you can make the case that the CoS is so evil that the normal rules for what you should/shouldn't do with someone's email account don't apply here. But you certainly can't pretend that this is anything other than leaking private information.
- fjh 14y agoCalling them private is certainly technically correct (the best kind of correct), but the term is sufficiently overloaded that I thought it would be worth pointing out that they don't seem to contain personal information (e.g. people talking about their children or their marriage trouble). I don't think that this is the result of someone reading all their emails and releasing the ones without personal information (which I don't think would be okay, I'm not sure how you got that impression), but a result of everyone using @scientology.co.at email addresses. As I said above, I do not think that the lack of personal information by itself makes releasing them okay, but I do think that the combination of the CoS being secretive and "evil" gives this particular hack some (moral, not legal) legitimacy, because it is difficult to get this information using less dodgy methods.