It’s a happy headline at the San Francisco Chronicle: “Jehovah’s Witness who posted criticisms on Reddit can remain anonymous, judge rules.” But dig into the story and you find that the result is actually almost opposite of that headline, and it also reflects a judge who truly doesn’t understand who she’s dealing with.
Last month we brought up the legal case of an anonymous Jehovah’s Witness who calls him or herself “Darkspilver,” who is not a resident of the US, but who is being hunted down by the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization, known as Watchtower, because of some criticisms they posted at Reddit.
As we’ve said before, these were very minor criticisms, essentially embarrassing Watchtower with some of its own published items. But Watchtower has taken the extraordinary step of using the federal courts in an attempt to get Darkspilver’s identity.
According to the Chronicle, Federal Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim ruled that Darkspilver can criticize Watchtower while remaining anonymous.
A victory, right? Um, no. Kim made an exception, allowing the Watchtower’s attorneys to know Darkspilver’s identity, trusting them not to inform their own clients with that information.
The breathtaking stupidity of this ruling is so stunning, we turned to Lloyd Evans for some help.
The Bunker: Lloyd, despite the happy headline of this Chronicle story, this ruling actually sucks, doesn’t it?
Lloyd Evans: Yes, I haven’t yet had chance to go over all the papers but I’m personally unconvinced that the judge fully understands the dark forces at play here. By allowing Darkspilver’s details to be released to Watchtower attorney’s only, she is taking Polidoro at his word that he can act independently of Watchtower, despite being a Watchtower staff member who operates from the Watchtower Educational Center at Patterson, NY. This is like giving Smithers information, and ordering him not to pass it on to Mr Burns.
The Bunker: Or we were thinking more about giving information to Kendrick Moxon and expecting him not to give it to David Miscavige, but yes, same principle. Has Darkspilver said anything to you about it?
Lloyd Evans: No, he’s gone completely off the radar, and who could blame him? He’s being hunted down mercilessly by a cult bent on retribution. And all because he committed the gross “crime” of posting an inconsequential GDPR compliance document, and a page of a magazine that Jehovah’s Witnesses were already freely distributing.
The Bunker: It’s stunning. Thank you, Lloyd.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 18, 2019 at 12:20
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Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He’s written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology’s harassment of Paulette Cooper titled ‘The Unbreakable Miss Lovely,’ and more recently a compilation of his stories, ‘Battlefield Scientology.’ He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world, as well as other subjects such as Jehovah’s Witnesses. You can reach him by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you’d like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.)
