Office of Special Affairs
| Formation | 1966 |
|---|---|
| Type | Department of Scientologists |
| Legal status | Non-profit |
| Purpose | Legal affairs and public relations |
| Headquarters | Hemet, California, United States |
|
Chairman of Religious Technology Center
|
David Miscavige |
| Website | Scientology.org |
The Office of Special Affairs or OSA (formerly the Guardian's Office) is a department of the Church of Scientology International. According to the Church, the OSA is responsible for directing legal affairs, public relations, pursuing investigations, publicizing the Church's "social betterment works," and "oversee[ing its] social reform programs". Some observers outside the Church have characterized the department as an intelligence agency, comparing it variously to the CIA or the KGB. The department has drawn criticism for its involvement in targeting critics of the Church for dead agent operations. OSA has mounted character assassination operations against many critics of the Church.
OSA is the successor to the now-defunct Guardian's Office, which was responsible for Operation Snow White and Operation Freakout; both are in Department 20 in the Scientology organizational chart. The most recent head of OSA International was Mike Rinder, who has since departed from the organization.
At local Scientology organizations, directors (Special Affairs, Legal, Public Affairs) are OSA staff members. Local Directors of Special Affairs are known as DSAs. Members of the Office of Special Affairs are drawn from the Sea Org.
In addition to regular staff, some church members also act as volunteer collaborators for the office, which cuts down on private investigation and legal research expenses. Some volunteers participate under the notion that they receive special "ethics protection". In one case a volunteer who read critical information about Scientology on the internet was led to believe that he would be unable to continue receiving services unless he performed a series of investigations for OSA.
The Guardian's Office was established in 1966, and its initial mission was to protect the interests of the Church of Scientology, and gather information on agencies and individuals deemed enemies of the organization. The Guardian's Office was also charged with internal monitoring of current Scientologists, in particular heretics and notable defectors.L. Ron Hubbard put his wife Mary Sue Hubbard in charge of the Guardian's Office, and it was initially headquartered at Saint Hill Manor, in England. The Guardian's Office functioned effectively as an Intelligence Bureau of the Church of Scientology, and planted members in key positions within federal government agencies, in order to obtain confidential material. Most branches of the Church of Scientology soon had at least one member from the Guardian's Office on its staff, and the Guardian's Office itself had its own secret Intelligence Bureau at the top of its organizational structure. The Guardian's Office was disbanded in 1983, and the bulk of its previous functions were then assigned to the Office of Special Affairs.
...
Wikipedia