Bumping an old thread, but I was just reading an interview Mike Ferriss did with Critic (Otago student magazine) in 2002 and they really grilled him about the auditing folders:
Critic: I've got a document in front of me. It's called the Hubbard Dianetics Foundation Enrolment Application / Agreement and General Release. ... Is this a legitimate document?
Ferris: I'm sure you're right. I don't doubt it.
Critic: It's got some interesting things in it. Did you sign one of these when you joined up?
Ferris: Probably.
Critic: Did you sign a form making you aware that secret files could be kept on you by officials of your organisation to which you could have no access at all?
Ferris: No, they're not secret files.
Critic: Aren't they? I'll quote to you: "I understand that as a condition of being accepted for participation in this service I am giving up any and all rights of ownership, possession and control, copying and viewing the pre-clear folder and other files concerning myself, both with respect to the files themselves and the information contained therein." That's a secret folder.
Ferris: No, that's just a summary of one's progress through auditing and so on.
Critic: Yes, but it's secret, and you can never have any access to it. Is that true?
Ferris: Yes, I agree that you don't have access to it. There's no particular reason why anybody would want access to it.
Critic: I can think of several good reasons why. For example, if you left the church and wanted to know what had been written about you. The Privacy Act 1993 guarantees you certain rights to information on yourself. This is just in New Zealand. So, that's a pretty good reason I would have thought.
Ferris: Yeah, to understand the pre-clear file - and certainly if you're going to add this in to your story you should perhaps put an explanation of our side of it - it's essentially a running record of one's progress through auditing, and it's a record so as things aren't repeated and so on. It's really just a record for the auditor to keep, it's not for the person to keep. Your memory of the sessions and so forth is the only record you need of what occurred. It's just an admin sort of exercise.
Critic: So why make it so secret then?
Ferris: It's not so secret. You're putting that word in there. The document doesn't say secret, does it?
Critic: "I am giving up any and all rights of ownership, possession, and control..."
Ferris: Does the document say 'secret'? I mean get fucking real, mate.
Critic: That's the definition of 'secret'.
Ferris: Oh, Jesus! [laughs] Listen, you're coming at this from a pretty weird angle eh, I mean...
Critic: I'm quoting at you from your documents...
Ferris: I really don't care. I mean, that document has got nothing to do with the overall thrust of what scientology is about, and I'm not particularly interested in arguing pieces of paper. I've told you what that thing is about, and you're putting the word 'secret' in there. It is not secret. It is something that a person agrees to if they have auditing. That's all. They don't agree to it, we don't audit them.
The full article is here
http://www.critic.co.nz/archive?page=51&type_code=a&archive_id=795