did you ever feel you were being spied on? followed, cameras behind mirrors

undercover

No. I've been pretty much left alone since I went AWOL, outside of the elders push to visit inactive ones earlier in the spring.

I have a question for those that went to the DC this year. Any of you feel like you were being watched or followed while on convention grounds? I remember a thread a while back about the "black dot" attendants following suspicious looking people and cameras being trained on the same types. I haven't been to the DC yet but will probably go, at least a day or two. I was curious as to what to look for if this should happen to me.

Paranoid? I dunno, but when people are out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking.

primitivegenius

not really but i have worked at night in stores cleaning there floors....... janitorial the bane of all jdubs. and i have scared the s*** out of myself by seeing movement and then realizeing it was my reflection lol. but then again im a professional idiot so it kinda goes with the territory

maxwell

Yes, when I used to go to Wal-mart, and I'd here them direct security cameras to sweep a certain area, I'd feel as if they were following my movement through the store. I don't go to Wal-mart anymore. But still in other stores sometimes, I feel as if I'm being watched or followed. I try to only patronize stores that have reasonable security measures, not those with paranoid fears based on prejudice. That's not why I stopped going to Wal-mart however.

Oh?? Are we talking about JW spies. Well I know at least once in high school some other JW kid obviously saw something and told on me. (they thought I was writing the school song ) But they didn't have anything on me. Never have felt spied on since then. I know a lot of people here bash JW's. But really, most of them do have some sort of life.

Scully

There are security cameras in the corridors where I work. They don't bother me. I have nothing to hide, and I am authorized to be there.

I was a bit perturbed though when I had to go down to the Security office one time and realized that the images on the monitors were from the inside of the main elevators. The walls inside the elevators are mirrored. Again, I don't have anything to hide, but I would cringe whenever I noticed someone scratching their butt or picking their nose in the elevator, knowing full well that it was being captured on camera.

Regarding the JWs spying on me.... I don't care. If they want to park a car outside my house and watch my comings and goings, that is up to them. Obviously they have nothing better to do. If I ever catch them doing that, I will walk right up to them and ask them "Why aren't you out in service? Don't you have lives to save?"

Love, Scully

asleif_dufansdottir

Regarding the JWs spying on me.... I don't care. If they want to park a car outside my house and watch my comings and goings, that is up to them. Obviously they have nothing better to do. If I ever catch them doing that, I will walk right up to them and ask them "Why aren't you out in service? Don't you have lives to save?"

Damn straight, Scully! I may not be so rough on the 'average' JW who happens to come to my door (the last 2 were an older sister and a teenage girl, the teenager told my husband she liked his beard, after he told them we used to be JWs...bet she got chewed...he said he kinda had hope for her), but so help me, I pity the fool elder who thinks I'm going to be intimidated at the thought of them trying to get dirt on me.

Wonder if they'd even get the reference if I said, "I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee!" ?? Probably not.

rainbow2003

All members are told to report on each other. Ray Franz documents that a JW came up behind elders hiding in bushes spying on his house with binoculars and snapped their pictures. Also that JW staff at Greece's Bethel headquarters went to court after police found they were videocamcording a private Memorial meeting in Greece by some former JWs, after which the Awake magazine was used to say Greece's government was anti-JW without mentioning the crime. Ray had been on the Watchtower's Governing Body and now lives in Georgia.

Not only have friends and myself been spied on but I have know many other instances involving other JWs. Paul Blizard tells of his being assigned by elders to spy on people in a local congregation after he went there from world headquarters at the Bethel in Brooklyn. He notes that such tactics were also required of him at Brooklyn to control other Bethelites. He's now a Baptist preacher since Watchtower's teaching against blood transfusions impacted his daughter Jenny who later died.

William Schnell's book tells of spying instituted against himself when a Zone Servant long ago, also of secret files which the Watchtower kept on him and were in the then President's own desk. Euphimisms for it are on the order of "we don't spy, we just faithfully make discrete observations of the brothers." Schnell's book is titled something like Thirty Years A Watchtower Slave.

If you surf the net you'll find more references but usually at google.com it will give you first items telling of governments spying on JWs. This may be because Watchtower pays to get those items placed first.