To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: Re: Freeh, Crimefighting and Opus Dei
From: Jim Burnes <jim.burnes@ssds.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 18:39:02 -0700
CC: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Organization: SSDS, Inc.
References: <Pine.GSO.3.95.980305133423.18219D-100000@well.com>
Reply-To: jim.burnes@ssds.com
Sender: owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM

Declan McCullagh wrote:

>
> Note I don't forward all politech stuff to cypherpunks. It's a roughly
> four-message-a-day moderated list. http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/
> to sign up.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 13:34:17 -0800 (PST)
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
> To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
> Subject: Freeh tells Congress crypto will "devastate" crimefighting
>
> An excerpt:
>
> >BOTH YOU AND SENATOR ROLLINGS SHOULD TAKE PRIDE IN THE
> >LEADERSHIP SHOWN IN THE AREAS OF ENSURING COUNTERTERRORISM
> >PREPAREDNESS AND PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL
> >PREDATORS AND PEDOPHILES.

Uugh. The level of hipocrisy is getting deep here.
If he's so worried about protecting our children
from predators, I say we start looking at Freeh himself.

According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, author of "The Secret Life
of Bill Clinton" the Freeh family, Louis and his brother are
heavily involved in an extreme pope-worshiping Catholic
power group called, "Opus Dei". I'm intimately familiar with this group
because they recruit young Catholic boys from grade school
and early high school and brainwash them. I was almost their victim.

My brothers and I were recruited by an Opus Dei cutout in St. Louis
called "Westpine" when I was twelve (around 1974). They go to all
the grade schools and entice young boys with their hobby
classes in model rocketry etc. What you find out later is
that after class you have to study "catechism" (sp?). This
is basic catholic brainwashing that was discontinued in
catholic schools in the 50's or something.

Systematically they separate you from your normal group
of friends. Once you get into HS they take the kids who go
to the best schools and take them on "study weekends" where
you do some studying but its really more separation from
home, friends, parents. A very interesting tactic since
these kids eventually become Opus Dei droids as they
grow up...all of them professionals engineers, writers,
lawyers etc. They give most or all of their income
to Opus Dei (sound like Scientology?)

They also occupy your Saturdays with an interesting little
regimen starting with soccer (to burn off lots of energy
and bring glucose levels down), then they take you back to
their communal home where everone bucks up for dinner.

After bringing down your glucose levels they make you
meditate for 40 minutes. Then its dinner time. So far
it sounds pretty innoucous, but if you have studied
conversion in psychology these are pretty much the
basics steps for brainwashing.

After dinner its a game of charades with the other boys
and the droids that run Opus Dei. Playing charades is just
a ruse to keep the kids amused while they individually get the
first degree from a priest in another room. The priest
gets you to tell him all the stuff about your life that
you don't even want to talk about with your parents...
girls...your grades..etc. In fact, what they are apparently
doing is slowing proxying for your parents. (opus dei,
by proxy syndrome)

This is where I really started getting creeped out. I mean,
its none of this guys god damn business how I did in
Spanish class. I got out of it...but they keep calling
you every Saturday and trying to make you feel guilty
about not playing along. After about a month or two
they finally left me alone. Thank Eris, because who would
want to play charades with 14 year old boys, when you can hack
computers and hang with 14 year old girls. ;-)

What I didn't know (and here comes the child abuse,
Mr Freeh) is that they were getting 14 year olds to take
vows of chastity without even mentioning it to their
parents. This happened to a friend of mine, Greg
Burke. A very nice guy, but he was coaxed away from
his family in high school andd was throwing himself in
front of the pope when last heard from. Actually,
(probably through his Opus Dei connections) he is now
the Rome correspondent for Time Magazine. Could it
be that Mr Feeh wants to stop Opus Dei from using
strong encryption?

Greg's family was devastated, of course. At the time both
he and I were going to St. Louis U. High, a Jesuit
prep high school. When the Jesuits started checking
this out they noticed that the priest that was in charge
of brainwashing was a guy named Father Bill. (don't
remember his last name).

Anyway, the Jesuits looked him up in some sort of
whos-who of priests and were stunned to find out that
Fr. Bill had a very high-level degree in theology.
Apparently this kind of degree was something you
don't find outside the cloistered research rooms
of the Vatican. What, they reasoned, was a guy
like this doing playing charades with 15 year old
boys?

Some very angry missives were sent by the Jesuits
to Rome about Opus Dei's practices. They fell on
deaf ears. The Jesuits used to be the right hand
men of the pope, but apparently the minions of
Father Jose' Maria Escriba de Belaguer (the founder
of Opus Dei) now play that role.

What is really interesting is that somewhere around
1990/1991 someone posted a transcript of the head
of the American Institute for Clinical Hypnosis
talking about conversion techniques*. I recognized
them immediately as the techniques of Opus Dei.
The techniques of assembly language programming
deprogrammed organized religion out of my head
one year later.

ObCrypto: If what Ambrose Evans Pritchard says
about Freeh is true it earmarks him as a complete
drone of some power group (as if you didn't already
know that ;-).

Anyway, I'm glad this is all in the distant
past. I'm 36 now and Louis Freeh has to be
close to my age. If he was indoctrinated in the
same way that Greg Burke was, it doesn't bode
well for freedom in crypto.

For what its worth,

Jim Burnes

*If you saved a copy of the transcript from
netnews circa 1990, I would really appreciate
it if you would forward me a copy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References:
Freeh tells Congress crypto will "devastate" crimefighting
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>