The Office of Special Affairs or OSA (formerly the Guardian's Office) is a department of the Church of Scientology. According to the Church, the OSA is responsible for directing legal affairs, public relations, pursuing investigations, publicizing the Church's "social betterment works," and "oversee social reform programs". Some observers outside the Church have characterized the department as an intelligence agency, comparing it variously to the CIA, the Secret Service, and the KGB. The department has drawn criticism for its involvement in targeting critics of the Church for dead agent operations. OSA has mounted character assassination operations against many critics of the Church.
OSA is the successor to the now-defunct Guardian's Office, which was responsible for Operation Snow White; both are in Department 20 in the Scientology Org-Chart. The most recent head of OSA International was Mike Rinder, who has since departed from the organization.
Read more about Office Of Special Affairs: Structure, History, Methods
Famous quotes containing the words office, special and/or affairs:
“Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor ... over each other.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing to the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Dance with a girl three times, and if you like the light of her eye and the tone of voice with which she, breathless, answers your little questions about horseflesh and music—about affairs masculine and feminine,—then take the leap in the dark.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)