Operation Clambake

Operation Clambake (xenu.net) is the title of a website that has become known as the single most important site with critical information about Scientology. It is run by Andreas Heldal-Lund, a critic who views the organization as a cult. Image File history File links Operationclambake. ... Image File history File links Operationclambake. ... The front page of the English Wikipedia Website. ... A Scientology Center on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. ... Andreas Heldal-Lund. ... In religion and sociology, a cult is a cohesive group of people (often a relatively small and new religious movement) devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be far outside the mainstream. ...

Openly anti-Scientology, the site provides considerable insight into the workings of Scientology, and includes links to Scientology's "secret" documents as well as other information the organization has tried to suppress, such as personal stories from former church insiders including Gerry Armstrong and Tory Christman. Tory Christman Tory Christman (former married name Tory Bezazian; online name Magoo) born 1947, is a former member of the Church of Scientology who left the organization in 2000, after being a member about three decades. ...

The site is one of the focus points of the war between Scientology and the Internet. Scientology had made numerous legal threats to various Internet service providers that host the site, demanding it be removed from the Internet for hosting information copyrighted by the Church of Scientology. In various incidents documented in such publications as The New York Times, Slashdot and Wired Online, Scientology has also used the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force notable Web sites (including the Google search engine) to remove the Operation Clambake homepage, and several leaflets containing copyrighted information, from their indexes. This did not affect all pages on the site. Scientology versus the Internet is the colloquial term for a long-running online dispute between the Church of Scientology and a number of the Churchs online critics. ... An Internet service provider (ISP, also called Internet access provider) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ... The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. ... Slashdot (often abbreviated to /.) is a popular technology-related website, updated many times daily with articles that are short summaries of stories on other websites with links to the stories, and provisions for readers to comment on each story. ... Wired can refer to: Wired magazine, a monthly technology magazine. ... The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law. ... Google, Inc. ...

While Google quickly returned the Operation Clambake home page to its index, many of its pages containing quotations from Scientology materials are still not listed in the search engine. Some anti-DMCA webmasters still link the word Scientology to http://www.xenu.net/ in order to improve Operation Clambake's ranking in a Google search.

Heldal-Lund has been investigated by Scientology, as have many of its critics, but he has not yet been sued.

The term "clambake" comes from a meal made by heating clams over hot stones or open furnaces. The term "clam" as an insulting slang word for Scientologists is derived from a passage in L. Ron Hubbard's A History of Man. In this passage, Hubbard asserts humans evolved from clams, and certain human psychological problems descend from difficulties these clams experienced. Some Scientologists criticize the use of this word, seeing it as hate speech. Maxima clam (Tridacna maxima) Clams are shelled marine or freshwater molluscs belonging to the class Bivalvia. ... An official Church of Scientology portrait of L. Ron Hubbard, circa 1970 Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was a prolific American author and the controversial founder of Dianetics and Scientology. ... A History of Man is a Scientology book written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1952. ... Hate speech is a controversial term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against someone based on his/her race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. ...

See also

• Xenu

In Scientology doctrine, Xenu (also Xemu) is a galactic ruler who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. ...

External links

• Operation Clambake
• Operation Clambake (mirror site)
• Scientology forces Google to remove links to Operation Clambake
• Legal threats against the Web service hosting Operation Clambake
• Legal threat to Andreas' employer (alt.religion.scientology posting)
• Critical article about Scientology's attempt to force Google to remove Operation Clambake from their index