You Can Check Out Anytime You Like, But You Can Never Leave

Joe Childs and Thomas Tobin have an article in the St. Petersburg Times about Scientology:

For years, the Church of Scientology chased down and brought back staff members who tried to leave. Ex-staffers describe being pursued by their church and detained, cut off from family and friends, and subjected to months of interrogation, humiliation, and manual labor.
One said he was locked in a room and guarded around the clock. Some who did leave said the church spied on them for years. Others said that, as a condition for leaving, the church cowed them into signing embellished affidavits that could be used to discredit them if they ever spoke out.
The St. Petersburg Times has interviewed former high-ranking Scientology officials who coordinated the intelligence gathering and supervised the retrieval of staff who left, or "blew". They say the church, led by David Miscavige, wanted to contain the threat that those who left might reveal secrets of life inside Scientology.
Marty Rathbun, a former church official and confidant of Miscavige, said the leader especially targeted those he had edged aside during his rise to the top or anyone he feared might threaten his position or the church if left alone on the outside.
When the church founder L. Ron Hubbard was in charge, "there were no fences," Rathbun said. "If somebody blew, they blew. It wasn't until these purges started with Miscavige— where he was creating enemies and people… became a threat to him— that we went into this overdrive scenario."
Church spokesman Tommy Davis categorically denied Miscavige knew about or was involved in the pursuit of runaways or spying on former members. He said Rathbun and other former staff are liars, taking their own misdeeds and blaming them on Miscavige and the religion they have forsaken. He said they are trying to undermine Miscavige's leadership even as he presides over unprecedented church growth.
Miscavige "redefines the term 'religious leader,'" Davis said, while some of the Times sources are on the 'lunatic fringe' of anti-Scientology. He said they are the real villains, who Miscavige dismissed for "suborning perjury, obstruction of justice, and wasting millions of dollars of parishioner funds". He accused the Times of "naked bias" and engaging in tabloid journalism. "You have a few petty allegations,'' Davis said. "In fact, all you have is a few people who left a religion after committing destructive acts and are now complaining about what they did while in the church."
The story of how the church commands and controls its staff is told by the pursuers and the pursued, by those who sent spies and those spied upon, by those who interrogated and those who rode the hot seat. In addition to Rathbun, they include:
•Mike Rinder, who for 25 years oversaw the church's Office of Special Affairs, which handled intelligence, legal, and public affairs matters. Rinder and Rathbun said they had private investigators spy on perceived or potential enemies. They say they had an operative infiltrate a group of five former Scientology staffers that included the Gillham sisters, Terri and Janis, two of the original four "messengers" who delivered Hubbard's communications. They and other disaffected Scientologists said they were spied on for almost a decade.
•Gary Morehead, the security chief for seven years at the church's international base in the desert east of Los Angeles. He said he helped develop the procedure the church followed to chase and return those who ran, and he brought back at least 75 of them. "I lost count there for awhile." Staffers signed a waiver when they came to work at the base that allowed their mail to be opened, Morehead said. His department opened all of it, including credit card statements and other information that was used to help track runaways.
•Don Jason, for seven years the second-ranking officer at Scientology's spiritual mecca in Clearwater, supervised a staff of 350. He said that after he ran, he turned himself in and ended up locked in his cabin on the church cruise ship, the Freewinds. He said he was held against his will.
And then there's the story of the cook, his wife and the movie stars.

Rico says there's a ton more to the story so, if you care (especially about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman), click here to read the rest.
But "lunatic fringe of anti-Scientology"? No, they got that backwards; Scientology is the lunatic fringe... (And why didn't those who 'blew' get themselves some gubs and deal with those idiots trying to drag them back? Rico says it's another case of being stupid, thus unarmed and vulnerable...)