Verifiable Former Bethelite Willing to Answer questions (page 3)

The_Present_Truth

Yes indeed Uzzah. After posting to you I searched his name and found his user id. I just sent him a PM. He was a scholar indeed. The last time I visited Frank in Toronto I think he spoke 6 or 7 languages. If I remember right he was working on Italian then. Both he and his wife gave their lives to the service of the WTBTS. Frank and Dianne went way back with my family. Unfortunately when my family got Frank's letter about leaving the organization only my father read it and then threw it in the trash. We were forbidden to pull it out and read it. Keep in mind that until that moment Frank was held in the highest of esteem with my family. All we were told was that he had become an "apostate". I remember thinking to myself, "As smart as Frank is (speaking all those languages and years of service in N.Y. and Toronto) ....why would he be leaving if there wasn't something seriously wrong? Then 20 years or so later in my search for the truth about "The Truth" I found that letter online. Ironic that it came full circle when it was needed.

If you (or anyone else here that reads this) has contact with him, ask him to sign in and check his messages.

Thanks!

FatFreek 2005

Hi Uzzah,

We're all grateful to have you back here especially in view of helping us with this Johnny paradox. I will simply re-paste my post (following the ****) from page 23 of that long thread that is still active. I'm puzzled that I haven't seen a nibble on it. Perhaps you and others here can spot the fallacy in my theory.

****

Please forgive me if I'm repeating something that's been raised already. I'm on a slow connection and don't have time to swim through all the pages of this thread.

I don't believe all that Johnny has put forth. The one about hacking (or attempting to) Facebook accounts and accounts of other social networking sites simply doesn't pass the sniff test. We all know that's illegal and the Society's lawyers would jump all over the Society's IT (information technology) department for considering it, much less executing it. It would make them extremely vulnerable in a court of law if caught. Even if not caught in that manner, it make them vulnerable to any disgruntled employee (Johnny) who was aware of such illegal activity -- or even asked to perform such a deed. Johnny (and others with knowledge of illegal stuff) would be as bullet-proof from WT discipline as J. Edgar Hoover was bullet-proof with all the U.S. presidents that he served. Recall all the evidence Hoover collected on anybody who was anybody -- presidents included.

They wouldn't touch him knowing that he could qualify as a whistleblower under U.S. law. Such a court case would reveal all the details of Watchtower's IT activity and the flock would find it difficult to explain this objection in the door-to-door work. Their evil enemies would have a heyday.

And don't forget, Johnny (and others as whistleblowers) could become millionaires, provided he / they did all this properly.

This from Wikipedia:

A whistleblower is a person who raises a concern about alleged wrongdoing occurring in an organization or body of people. Usually this person would be from that same organization. The alleged misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud, health/safety violations, and corruption. Whistleblowers may make their allegations internally (for example, to other people within the accused organization) or externally (to regulators, law enforcement agencies, to the media or to groups concerned with the issues).

Len

Uzzah

Fatfreak: The only potential fallacy I see in your post is that Legal would immediate stop illegal activity. They would support it if they felt they could somehow justify it under "freedom of religion". Watchtower Legal will feel it is above the law if they are convinced that Jehovah's way is more important than any law of mere men.

That said, I do not believe for one minute any story about Watchtower hackers etc. The Society will likely act on reports from elders who do 'monitor other users' activities but only after cautioning such ones about the dangers of continuing their activity online. Brooklyn would not assign people to hack or monitor Facebook. In cases where they are involved or potentially involved with an individual, they will look at that person's online activity just like any lawyer would.

The last thing I would mention in regards your post is that they could still disfellowship the person who is a whistleblower, even if never announced. I was never officially disfellowshipped but am treated as such. So they might not publicly go after someone but the gossip/rumour mill is very strong among 'the faithful.'

ablebodiedman

If I wanted to get all my personal records out of the Watchtowers files how do I do it?

SnakesInTheTower

waves at Uzzah and CBD. good to see familiar veterans posting -- even if occasionally.

I didn't quit the forum -- the best I can do is cut back posting to a dull roar --

My fiancee wants my attention in real life. lol

Snakes (Rich )

lisaBObeesa

Uzzah, I am trying to decide if I believe 'Johnny' is real or not. He sounded pretty legit to me, with most things he said being things we already knew...with exception of the hacking stuff.

Have you personally listened to the recording of what 'Johnny' said in the first call?

Can you expand more on how you know for sure that Society would not assign people to hack or monitor Facebook? What I mean is do you have information or firsthand knowledge that this is the case? Or is this your feeling based on how things were when you were there?

Band on the Run

I left so long ago I don't know what "new light" refers?

Since the other Bethelite called from a closet, how was the closet space? I'm interested in the decor b/c I feel it reflects the general personality or character of a group.

What is the hierarchy of Bethels? I suppose the real action is in Brooklyn. When I lived in NY and ventured into Brooklyn iwth normal people, they would explain the presence of the Witnesses. What does the society have against fresh flowers? So many New Yorkers comment about the fresh flowers, particularly Brooklyn Heights, which is even more of a fresh flower place than Greenwich Village. They are truly incensed. No flowers would be better than fake, dead ones.

FatFreek 2005

Thanks for that Uzzah. To be clear, I went back to that thread, and hacking references were found on page 1 and page 2 (at minimum). I didn't listen to the audio, however, so those posts are actually heresay in my point of view. Nevertheless, there are too many references to Johnny using that expression to discount them.

I think it's fair to say that any IT person, such as Johnny (despite his young age of 22), knows what hacking is and what hacking isn't. He would not use that term to loosley describe logging onto Facebook and viewing whatever he could view, just as you and I could. Hacking, in this context, would be going beyond his authorization as a Facebook user. Ostensibly, he could learn things about users that such users intended to be kept private or away from general public eyes.

Check out the following Wiki definition of Hacker.

A black hat hacker, sometimes called a cracker, is someone who breaks computer security without authorization or uses technology (usually a computer, phone system or network) for malicious reasons such as vandalism, credit card fraud, identity theft, piracy, or other types of illegal activity.

In other words, asking Johnny to reiterate about such hacking activity may be a fair question.

Len

Uzzah

The simple fact is that Bethel just doesn't care. Once people leave they are gone.

People who are still known as JW's are faced with nosey elders, Ministerial Servants and their wives who like to make other people's business their own. But I know from my days both at Bethel and as an Elder there is no campaign to search out people online aside from individual efforts.

The Internet was just coming of age when I was at bethel and there was HUGE paranoia about it. I was one of the first bethelites to have my own PC and Internet account. I had many friends at Watchtower Farms and within Canada IT and even back then there was no concentrated effort to seek out JW's online to track their activity.

Again, we would all like to think we matter to Bethel but we don't. They are so convinced about the rightness of their ways that they don't spend a moment's thought about our activity online unless it is somehow involving a legal or potentially legal matter.

The only thing they actively pursue online is copyright infringement and they are equally as nasty with believers as they are with unbelievers/opposers.

lisaBObeesa

But he said they didn't snoop on everybody, just people who were organizing protests and people who ran big sites, etc.

Does that seem believable to you?

Also, did you listen to the recording of 'Johnny'?

Verifiable Former Bethelite Willing to Answer questions

Share this