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Stolen Archives



The following is a short post from a newsgroup followed by my comments:

>On Tue, 2 Oct 2001 05:51:42 -0500 (CDT), in >alt.religion.scientology
>boobookittyone@webtv.net (Tigger) wrote:

>On Sept. 26, 2001, information from a credible source >was e mailed to me which stated:

>Quote:

>"I called Margaret and she verified that 22-27 boxes >of her materials were stolen from her garage 2 weeks >ago...she said someone disenabled the alarm system >and stole boxes that were marked "Singer/Ofshy" and
>"SCN"."  End of quote.
><snip>[signed]

Margaret Singer is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley.  I find this theft shocking and discouraging on two fronts: (1) that the "Church" of Scientology would go so far as to steal documents from a researcher's garage; and (2) that the reason these documents were in Ms Singer's garage was probably that she could not find an archives with enough courage to accept and guard them from the harassment and lawsuits that sometimes greet archivists, just as the archives I now curate was treated when it received tobacco industry secret documents sent by a whistleblower.

This is a terrible loss, since Dr. Singer made an extensive study of this organization.  Yes, I am assuming that these boxes were taken by CoS operatives, given their well-known record of taking from libraries books and documents that they did not want accessed by outsiders, and the worthlessness of these papers to anyone else.  I am also assuming, since I have no personal knowledge of the matter, that Dr. Singer has been unable or (knowing how things are) has not tried to donate her collection to an archives.  I dare not even mention the names of the archives, both academic and private, where such documents are kept, for fear of inviting Office of Special Affairs (Scientology's terrorist wing) attention.

I believe that this new theft is a terrorist act perpetrated by an organization that makes its millions partly by intimidation (Time-Warner just today saw the end of its 10-year-old litigation over such terms as "classically terrorist," which are now legitimized in application to the "Church").  I can only hope that not all archivists and the organizations for which they work will be intimidated but will now accept papers from researchers and collectors of litigation documents, "secret" documents (posted widely on the World Wide Web by ex-members and colleagues of ex-members and thus arguably in the public domain), and other records and research pertaining to the history and operations of this organization.  Such documents are clearly endangered and must be preserved as records of our time.

(Of course these are only my opinions, and I give my professional affiliation here for informational purposes only.)

Arel Lucas
Project Archivist
Tobacco Control Archives
UCSF

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