Church Employee Claims He Was Assigned to Spy on Online Church Critics

[Calm]

It occurs to me that what Stay might have been asked to find was documented verification of NNN's identity because they were preparing for any legal issues.  Knowing who someone is isn't the same as being able to legally prove it.

It is even possible, I suppose, that they did not tell him ahead of time of what they knew about Norton because they didn't want claims of tainting the results.

-----

But Stay represents it as difficult to find in my opinion, so even if he was personally unaware of the history, I find his description exaggerated and therefore I have my doubts about accuracy.  How much of it is wishful thinking to see himself as the hero of the piece?  He has showed he was okay with lying to achieve his purposes.  He presents the false persona as solely his own idea, the one time he says anyone said anything about it to him, it is negative. I therefore don't put it past him to lie to his supervisors about how he was getting the material or at least omit details while convincing himself it was okay because he believed his supervisors knew how he was doing it.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Calm

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, cdowis said:

It is very satisfying to have the FBI track down and arrest someone for making a terrorist threat to the President of the Church on the internet.

details please!!!!! I have to set up 1000 chairs tonite for stake conference, I need something to look forward to!!!!!

[Duncan]

before I go did this information from Snap/Stay or whatever, make any difference? like was NNN stopped from filming or anything like that? I read somewhere he had 9 recommends, he probably borrowed them from people who don't care too much about it 

[The Nehor]

18 hours ago, sunstoned said:

This is not a church wide inquisition. 

Please stop crushing my hopes and dreams.  

[pogi]

20 hours ago, Button Gwinnett said:

 The church also gave approval for him to use fake Facebook accounts , create fake profiles in as effort to gain personal information on these critics.   

That is not entirely accurate according to Mary Snap.  It says in the blog post that:

Quote

I was also told they don’t necessarily condone the creation of fake profiles like I do, but they never told me to stop when I said I was doing it. 

Who did he tell that he was doing this?  Is the entire church leadership to blame for this guy going rogue?  Who really knew that this guy was working on his own, despite the church not condoning the fake profiles?  

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, Duncan said:

before I go did this information from Snap/Stay or whatever, make any difference? like was NNN stopped from filming or anything like that? I read somewhere he had 9 recommends, he probably borrowed them from people who don't care too much about it 

He has definitely continued to film, but the Romney video was never officially released.  Whether that was because he became aware he was being investigated (from what I have seen, he would have assumed it even if unaware) and figured that would draw too much harmful attention or a lawyer convinced him he could lose everything if he published, who knows.  Stay/Snap says the reason was inknown iirc, so if so, it wasn't being shared even in the private forums he was hanging out in.

[Calm]

9 minutes ago, pogi said:

That is not entirely accurate according to Mary Snap.  It says in the blog post that:

Who did he tell that he was doing this?  Is the entire church leadership to blame for this guy going rogue?  Who really knew that this guy was working on his own, despite the church not condoning the fake profiles?  

He says he showed screenshots of the information he was gathering.  If it was just shots of FB or message boards, I don't believe there is any way to tell the difference between public and private just by looking at the comments.  Given how many details were out in public, as in Norton's interview, videos being posted on YouTube, extensive conversations iirc on the exmormon boards, here even...I don't think there is any strong reason to automatically assume they were from private lists just by looking at them.  Why would someone say anything about a private forum being private in the middle of a conversation?  It might happen, but likely wouldn't....and it would be easy enough to make sure the screenshot did not cover that part of the conversation if it did.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Calm

[Atheist Mormon]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

If you mean Norton, are you sure?  Maybe in the older thread, I don't remember doing it here and a search of the topic doesn't bring it up.

I think more in terms of "what a jerk".

I also know nothing of his story save for a few things he has posted himself (see interview about "October Surprise") and the evidence he has intruded into the sacred space of others with no respect.

Yeah, subsequently I searched it and couldn't find it either, (sorry about that). I am looking forward to listen his podcast interview with JD though.

[Button Gwinnett]

3 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Yeah, subsequently I searched it and couldn't find it either, (sorry about that). I am looking forward to listen his podcast interview with JD though.

Sounds like a den of thieves 

[Calm]

41 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Yeah, subsequently I searched it and couldn't find it either, (sorry about that). I am looking forward to listen his podcast interview with JD though.

It is not a big deal.  I just get freaked out sometimes because of memory issues and for some reason got a bit of panic thinking 'why wouldn't I remember saying that?' (Generally I know why I have forgotten something...Am bien)

Edited October 21, 2017 by Calm

[Stargazer]

22 hours ago, JarMan said:

I would be disappointed if the church was not involved in counterintelligence. 

I once imagined to myself that there was a surreptitious Church Intelligence Agency (CIA) that kept track of everything going on in the world.

And then I remembered that there are news agencies around that could be tapped to get all that: UPI, AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, etc.

[kiwi57]

11 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

Do you, personally, find the behaviours outlined in the OP acceptable for the Church to request of its employees?

GIven that the Church didn't request that behaviour of their employee, don't you think the question is moot?

[Stargazer]

19 hours ago, Calm said:

A thread (see below) from 2012 that might interest some.  It contains a comment from MormonMason that Mike Norton was known about for a long time.  He had posted on the FAIR board in 2006,  I believe.  I even have a copy of something he posted about his activities somewhere online due to a friend asking for info about him back in 2006.  So he was hardly unknown before Stay/Snap started looking into him.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/59208-coward-member-secretly-filmed-a-temple-session-in-slc/

From my files (I never delete personal emails, in part because my memory is at times nonexistent due to medication, for example by the time of the 2012 thread, I had apparently forgotten that I had heard of Norton's temple trespasses long before). 

"For a long term project I'm working on, I need to borrow the name of a guy who is between the ages of 30 and 40 and has been ordained to the office of Elder. He must be PAINFULLY inactive and, in fact, so inactive that his local Ward leaders might not even know he exists and certainly wouldn't miss him if he moved. 

I need someone who, other than being inactive, is still a member in good standing. 

If you are such a person and/or know of such a person that might be willing to let me assume his identity in the Mormon Church for a long period of time, please contact me privately at mike@-------[had to edit due to the censor not allowing me to post] 

Norton

P.S. Don't bother responding to this just to ask  what I'm up to. I can't tell but, rest assured, it'll be a doozey."

Wow!  This guy Norton ought to go to work for the CIA or FBI! It would be a better use of his time and talents.

That being said, again Wow! I wonder if this constitutes a form of identity theft?  I guess not if the inactive member gives permission, but it still kind of constitutes fraud.

[Stargazer]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

well, I am not going to protest if someone calls him that.  I think I just got to other words first, at least in my mind, lol.

I might find enough compassion if I knew his history to understand why he justifies filming the temple.  However, his plan of doing a long term con on a ward by assuming the identity of an inactive member in good standing who his ward would not know by sight is inexcusable.  These people would likely have taken him in as part of their ward family.

The easiest way to assume the identity would be to have the imposter assume the identity in his or her own location, via a move request. The actual member would not then not have to put up with any more home teaching visits! Everyone wins!  

I manage to avoid home teaching visits by living in a different country from my ward of record! No church calling (well, I have one, but can't function) either! And one of these days the darned British Home Office will finally give me leave to live there with my wife! Grumble.

[kiwi57]

16 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

The easiest way to assume the identity would be to have the imposter assume the identity in his or her own location, via a move request. The actual member would not then not have to put up with any more home teaching visits! Everyone wins!  

I manage to avoid home teaching visits by living in a different country from my ward of record! No church calling (well, I have one, but can't function) either! And one of these days the darned British Home Office will finally give me leave to live there with my wife! Grumble.

Let's see: you think Home Teaching visits are something to be avoided - and so you choose to avoid contact with Church members by spending time on a Mormon-themed discussion forum?

"Can't leave it alone," eh?

(It didn't used to just be a Mormon-themed board. It used to be a bona fide Mormon forum. But the mods still haven't quite managed to weed out all the believing Latter-day Saints yet.)

[Marginal Gains]

5 hours ago, kiwi57 said:

GIven that the Church didn't request that behaviour of their employee, don't you think the question is moot?

I thought the claim was that this employee was operating like this under assignment from Church leaders. I’m not aware that this claim has been proven or disproven beyond the individual themselves making the claim. Do you have some additional references that I’m unaware of to support that? Or are you just making the assumption the claims are fake?

[Marginal Gains]

11 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

As Robert has pointed out, this question is based on an absurd assumption about the metaphorical use of the concept of war.
 

Participation on the Internet under cover of a screen name is not in my DNA. That's why I post  here  under my real name.

I note that you and I are different in that respect.

 

I will reserve comment until it is established that the "behavior outlined in the OP" has any substance or if it is merely rumor.

Beyond being utterly sleazy, what Mike Norton does amounts to trespassing and is thus objectionable on both legal and ethical grounds. I thus find it odious in any context.

That said, I would have no qualms whatsoever about providing a link for an interested Church leader to publicly accessible content I found on the Internet, just as I might provide such a link for an interested reader on this message board. Furthermore, there is no meaningful similarity between this and Mike Norton's sleazy behavior.

Scott, if the claims were to be corroborated, would you find the activity of the Church employee and their leaders acceptable or not?

I gave my answer earlier to the question I’m putting to you. I said “if it happened, and if it happened the way Mary Snap said it happened, I would find it unacceptable behaviour on the part of the individual and the Church leadership involved, regardless of what depths critics of the Church might have stooped to.”

Edited October 21, 2017 by Marginal Gains

[Calm]

My understanding is that Jesse Stay had a job with Social Media.  As part of that job, he was asked to investigate newnamenoah due to his threat of publicizing a secret temple tape with Romney in it, intending to release it in October of 2012.  Depending on when Stay was asked, church leaders may or may not have known already NNN was Mike Norton.  Mike Norton was already widely known as an antimormon who secretly filmed temple ceremonies, he was quickly publicly identified as NNN.  Stay may be inflating his experience by claiming to be the discoverer of the identity or they may not have told him to allow a pair of fresh eyes to do the investigation.

It sounds like Stay was left to determine how he would investigate.  This is what kiwi is likely talking about when he stated the Church didn't request the behaviour...it was the lies they didn't request; they requested him to investigate.  Stay describes himself as coming up on his own with a false persona, using a female in order to attract greater attention and acceptance from the men.  He did this in order to join private exmormon/antimormon Facebook groups.  He apparently gained a lot of additional information about plans, other videos, etc.  He was also responsible for asking YouTube to take down what would be copyright violations.

He claims he informed his supervisors once about his false persona technique and they told him they did not condone it, but said nothing to stop him.  Personally if my boss told me he didn't condone something I did, I would stop without him having to explicitly say "stop" and I see it as quite possible they just assumed he had.  He does not give details as to whether he ever identified the information later on as achieved through lying or not.  It sounded like he assumed on his own that they wanted the info and therefore didn't want to know, so it would make sense to me he would not include any info that would make his methods clear and that it was never discussed again.  If so, they may have known what he was doing and not cared or they may have assumed he had understood the information of not condoning as instruction and therefore he had stopped, so they assumed all his later stuff was not gathered under false pretenses.

 

[Avatar4321]

So the calling "Spy for the House of Israel" is still being filled from time to time? I always thought Joseph was the only one to ever issue that call

I don't have a problem with it as long as no illegality is occurring

[HappyJackWagon]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

He claims he informed his supervisors once about his false persona technique and they told him they did not condone it, but said nothing to stop him.  Personally if my boss told me he didn't condone something I did, I would stop without him having to explicitly say "stop" and I see it as quite possible they just assumed he had.  He does not give details as to whether he ever identified the information later on as achieved through lying or not.  It sounded like he assumed on his own that they wanted the info and therefore didn't want to know, so it would make sense to me he would not include any info that would make his methods clear and that it was never discussed again.  If so, they may have known what he was doing and not cared or they may have assumed he had understood the information of not condoning as instruction and therefore he had stopped, so they assumed all his later stuff was not gathered under false pretenses.

 

The problem is that failing to be explicit in telling him to stop can easily be interpreted in different ways. Saying they don't condone it while not asking him to stop could easily be seen as a CYA move. A kind of see no evil approach. "Just get me results but don't tell me how you do it" kind of mentality. This exists in many industries. It allows the institution plausible deniability should the tactics become known but also benefits the organization with ill-gotten gains. Sadly, this isn't an uncommon approach in leadership.

[sheilauk]

12 hours ago, Stargazer said:

And one of these days the darned British Home Office will finally give me leave to live there with my wife! Grumble.

On behalf of the UK, I apologise for the appalling incompetence of its government and warn you that it is likely to be several months yet, if at all and, should you get here,  it won't get any better! 

[Scott Lloyd]

8 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

Scott, if the claims were to be corroborated, would you find the activity of the Church employee and their leaders acceptable or not?

I gave my answer earlier to the question I’m putting to you. I said “if it happened, and if it happened the way Mary Snap said it happened, I would find it unacceptable behaviour on the part of the individual and the Church leadership involved, regardless of what depths critics of the Church might have stooped to.”

I agree with this individual’s leaders who reportedly told him they don’t condone his actions. 

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

I thought the claim was that this employee was operating like this under assignment from Church leaders. I’m not aware that this claim has been proven or disproven beyond the individual themselves making the claim. Do you have some additional references that I’m unaware of to support that? Or are you just making the assumption the claims are fake?

 

8 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

Scott, if the claims were to be corroborated, would you find the activity of the Church employee and their leaders acceptable or not?

I gave my answer earlier to the question I’m putting to you. I said “if it happened, and if it happened the way Mary Snap said it happened, I would find it unacceptable behaviour on the part of the individual and the Church leadership involved, regardless of what depths critics of the Church might have stooped to.”

We mustn't assume what has to be proved, especially given our long tradition of "innocent till proven guilty."  Scott and I have each given our view of the likelihood of the absurd OP claims being true.  All subsequent data (esp. that from Calm) make it most unlikely that the OP claims are factual.  One then has to ask, why is it that you are so intent on tarring and feathering the Brethren in advance?  Even theoretically.  That is a shabby and disreputable way to approach this issue, no?

[why me]

Spying is the wrong word. The better word is monitoring. Much better to use that word. But spying sounds better if one is now a critic. Why not monitor the internet? It is a good idea to do so. It is called protecting that which one finds dear.

[kiwi57]

30 minutes ago, why me said:

Spying is the wrong word. The better word is monitoring. Much better to use that word. But spying sounds better if one is now a critic. Why not monitor the internet? It is a good idea to do so. It is called protecting that which one finds dear.

I once had a brief email discussion with a critic who told me that it was absolutely right and fair for the Tanners to have "sources" in the Church Office Building who tell them what the Church is doing. He then expressed outrage that the Church used "spies" to tell them what the Tanners were up to.

So a Church employee who sneaks around betraying his employer to a pair of career troublemakers is a "source." Someone who looks into the activities of those troublemakers and reports on them is a "spy."

It seems that a similar double standard in favour of the execrable Mr Norton may be in view here.