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After an embarrassing string of high-profile defection and leaked videos, Scientology is under attack from a faceless cabal of online activists. Has America’s most controversial religion finally met its match?
Clearwater is prepared for its enemies. It’s a warm, if overcast, Saturday in February, but all the storefronts lining the sidewalks of this sleepy town on […]

Nearly 300 demonstrators jammed the sidewalks out front on March 15, many of them young computer geeks in plastic Guy Fawkes masks honoring the 16th-century British subversive. Some hid behind party masks and bandanas. They hoisted signs: “Religion is free, Scientology is not,” “They want your money and your sanity,” and, in a reference to a string of mysterious tragedies involving members of Scientology, “How many more must die?”

The Church of Scientology was told again Thursday it could not have a court order restraining Anonymous protesters this weekend, largely because the church’s foe is as elusive as thin air.

But in its zeal to identify those who threatened the church, Scientology misfired, according to one woman who says she got fingered just because she works at Starbucks, near the church’s headquarters.

Rosalie Fair, 19, said she had simply come to check her work schedule on Feb. 10 when a group of about 200 protesters from the Internet activist group Anonymous demonstrated in downtown Clearwater.

The report of the suspicious package came this afternoon at about the same time Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird denied an injunction the church sought to stop the Internet-based group Anonymous from protesting outside Scientology’s headquarters in Clearwater this weekend.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Linda R. Allan denied a similar request Thursday.

The torrent of alleged harassment and threats was the underpinning of two church lawsuits filed Tuesday and Wednesday in Pinellas Circuit Court, each seeking to bar Anonymous members from coming within 500 feet of Scientology buildings in Clearwater during a planned protest this weekend.

Tuesday’s suit, a petition for an “injunction for protection against repeat violence,” was denied Wednesday afternoon by Circuit Judge Linda Allan, who ruled the relevant Florida statute does not apply to corporations.

Just hours before Allan ruled, the church filed a separate, nearly identical lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order. The second suit seeks protection under a different Florida statute. No decision has been made on that suit.

With the Internet activist group Anonymous threatening a second round of protests against Scientology this weekend, the Clearwater-based church went to court late Tuesday, filing a petition for a temporary restraining order.

The petition was filed just before the close of court Tuesday afternoon, and the St. Petersburg Times could not obtain a copy of the petition.

Pat Harney, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, confirmed the church had filed a request for a temporary restraining order, but on the advice of counsel, she refused to provide a copy of the lawsuit or discuss who it seeks to restrain.

On Saturday, March 15, the surprisingly upstart, leaderless movement known as “Anonymous” will be holding its second worldwide anti-Scientology protests at Hubbard sites in more than a dozen countries.

The grassroots, Internet-based group seemed to materialize out of thin air just a few weeks ago, and it’s difficult to tell whether the surprising success of its February 10 rallies - which were held from Oslo to Sydney - will spark even more rallies beyond this weekend. The February protests featured a lot of twentysomethings, for the most part, carrying anti-Scientology signs, and wearing masks to protect their anonymity (Guy Fawkes masks were popular) in places like New York, Boston, London, and Toronto. This time, they say, they’re bringing cake and candles.

John Sweeney looks back on his meeting with the late Shawn Lonsdale during the making of the famous BBC Panorama documentary “Scientology & Me”.

Luke Lirot, a First Amendment attorney in Clearwater who represented Lonsdale in 2006, said he was “deeply saddened” by the news of his death.

“He was a pretty energetic and driven individual,” Lirot said. “He was intelligent, and I thought he had a firm grasp on his constitutional rights. He was an outspoken critic of the Church of Scientology and had every right to do the things he did, I felt.

“I hope there is a very thorough investigation into the circumstances of his death.”

Shawn Lonsdale, whose one-man crusade against Scientology made him a public enemy of the church, was found dead at his home over the weekend in an apparent suicide. He was 39.

Police discovered Lonsdale’s body at 12:20 p.m. Saturday after neighbors reported a foul odor. They found a garden hose stretched from the exhaust pipe of Lonsdale’s car into a window of his home at 510 N Lincoln Ave., according to Clearwater police spokeswoman Elizabeth Daly-Watts.