had reached a private settlement. Rinder regrets his role in that investigation and has stated he considered Minton a friend at the time of Minton's death in January 2010. Both have said the policy was backfiring because victims, such as John Sweeney, reported their experiences with fair game and this led to more negative publicity and thus produced more critics than they were silencing. Rinder's own decision to speak out against Scientology is an example of this as well because he decided to speak out against the church after being victimized by fair game despite not criticizing the church after leaving. Rinder has been victimized by fair game numerous times and recalled an incident where he was sitting in his car at a doctor's office parking lot during a phone interview with BBC journalist John Sweeney when "five senior members of [Scientology's] California-based international management team – surrounded and screamed at him". The screaming was so loud, Sweeney was able to record the episode and later aired the recording on The Secrets of Scientology broadcast by the BBC's Panorama program. The policy was becoming increasingly ineffective starting the 1980s as it was unable to stop publication of A Piece of Blue Sky by ex-Scientologist Jon Atack or the documentary Scientology and Me which ultimately led to Rinder's departure. The internet made it even less effective because information can be uploaded anonymously and then viewed by anyone with internet access. Rinder said fair game's most significant failure came with the discovery of Operation Snow White by the FBI and the subsequent raid of hundreds of church facilities as a result. The operation was undertaken as a result of the continued refusal of the IRS to reinstate the church's tax exempt status after more than two decades of fair game tactics. The raid led to the discovery of hundreds of documents detailing criminal activity within the church which led to the prosecution of dozens of high ranking church officials and provided grounds for the IRS to continue to deny tax exempt status to the church as well. According to Rinder, David Miscavige's claim that fair game was ultimately successful in regaining tax exempt status in 1993 is not true. It was reinstated because they abandoned fair game against the IRS after Hubbard's death and instead adhered to the IRS's policy for obtaining tax exempt status. According to Rinder, the church never recovered