Thursday, March 10, 2016

FBI Imitates Stasi

The FBI initiative—the latest manifestation of the “see something, say something” surveillance matrix—further engenders a government informant culture that shares a parallel with East Germany’s “Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter” or informal collaborator culture.

This Stasi network served as a primary instrument of repression in communist East Germany. The government forged partnerships with business, state institutions and social organizations. It is estimated that the Stasi had an informal collaborator or informant network exceeding 624,000 people (in 1989, at the height of Stasi power, the population of East Germany was 16.5 million).

Stasi