East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)

You put hateful in quotes but I do want to point out that this is the tweet from the thing you linked:

> Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f*** hotels full of the bastards for all I care …. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it

There was a CCC talk on the practices of the Stasi some years ago (I forget exactly which year).

What stayed with me from the talk was that they had shown recovered Stasi photos of a young man's home where he had a wall dedicated to American iconography.

The speaker stated that in the current era this would just be trivially collected from social media instead of needing to gain physical access to property.

Edit: It was 32C3 What Does Big Brother See While He Is Watching at appx the 40m mark.

You forgot to add a source for your claim that protestors called for the death of Rowling.

So Britain is not a liberal democracy anymore? Are you sure you aren't falling for some propaganda here? This just seems very unlikely.

If this were actually true Britain would be violating basic premises of what is considered justice in a liberal democracy. Policing someone based on whether the targets of their threats are politically acceptable is obviously not are tactics used in autocratic regimes. Loyalists e.g. in Russia are free to threaten the opposition however they like at worst getting a slap on the wrist. At the same time much less serious threats against the regime are harshly punished.

If what you say were true and not just some propaganda operation, then the British political system has slid sharply towards authoritarianism. Obviously liberal democracy is more than equality before the law, but is one important pillar. This happening is incompatible with my view of the UK.

If you think an enhanced dbs check can affect your job wait to see what posting on social media will do.

UK has a two-tier justice system.

This case sounds crazy, I cannot even imagine loosing a child and how anybody could expect someone to keep sane in those conditions.

Beyond this, there is a very clear difference between inciting hatred towards a group of people based on race, religion, nationality, origin, etc, and towards a single individual without those aggravations. The law is quite clear about this distinction in various countries (Public Order Act in the UK for instance), and the penalties are rightfully much stronger when one would try to instil hatred towards a racial (or other) group.

Sometimes there is a worthwhile discussion on the reach and breath of policing, sometimes ridiculous people with insane views and 0 technical or legislative knowledge make opinion eds for people to share as rage bait.

Please just look at the other content from the "lovely" Laurie Wastell of the spectator to find the kind of groups, opinions and places she wants to protect vs those she doesn't.

like I would be kinda embarrased to share news sources from people being actively sued for the harm they caused with their misinformation (in their case vaccine lies).

> If someone perceives something you say as "hateful" they can report you to the police, who can record a "Non-crime hate incident" against your name. [3]

this was a law introudced by a conservative goverment, as part of their increase in police tools, which in large part came from support for "anti woke" policing of the pro black protests that came after it erupted in america.

People like the previouslike mentioned Mrs Wastell advocated for stronger sentencing and more police, and now that the leopards are eating the faces of the people who spend all day on facebook sending death threats to muslims she is now so incredibly offended.

Btw another reason for the focus on the NCHI is because the police are swamped, the Conservatives under theresa may cut their budget 40% which meant they have way less people so to keep stats up, you gotta focus on the easy shit.

Maybe if we hadn't brought in consulting types who advocate for stats to show work progress, conservative cuts to salaries and advocated for "blue lives matter" which pushed for stronger sentencing laws we would not be here but somehow Mrs Whitehall and you will take 0 accountability and instead blame "woke judges" or some other nonsense as she does in her article.

Stasiland by Anna Funder is also a great read on the topic. And then there’s Katja Hoyer’s “Beyond The Wall” which takes a comprehensive look at the DDR.

From wikipedia surveillance movie list, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_survei..., these might interest a tech audience:

  Antitrust (2001)
  Anon (2018)
  Closed Circuit (2013)
  Eagle Eye (2008)
  Equilibrium (2002)

Have you seen it available somewhere in Europe recently?

I've been looking for it for a while, with no success. I'd be happy with anything from DVD to archive.org/youtube upload or whatever.

In some European countries, if you apply to rent an apartment, the landlord can see you failed to pay 1 month rent several years ago.

That's just a tiny example.

Is this control and surveillance or ... democracy and freedom ?

I feel like it started 2001.

Unfortunately, it seems as if the terrorists might have achieved many of their goals years later.

You can't disappear everyone. Deniable punishment of possible precrime would create superstitions for the general population to be on their best behavior. Sabotage that slows down an adversary would enable more time for surveillance.

See "predictive policing", https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...

> One former deputy described the directive like this: “Make their lives miserable until they move or sue.” In just five years, Nocco’s signature program has ensnared almost 1,000 people.

Perhaps for the same reason Russia's intelligence forces does it? They kill people in an obvious manner to send a message and the message is to demoralise, destabilise and psychologically harass other people. "I could be next"

I'm not sure if the Stasi disappeared people in an obvious or hidden manner though. Maybe they did it more frequently than modern states assassinations? In both cases it shows that the life of any person is not important to them - what's important is the effects an action causes.

The question you ask is really important, because it shows how devious the Stasi regime was and why it lasted half a century. Why would they do this? Why would they go through these lengths to destroy a person so entirely they wouldn't even need to disappear them?

The Stasi knew that power is never that absolute. The GDR was built upon the idea that is was good, not evil (like the West). You can't be good and regularly disappear public figures, especially those from intellectual cycles. Additionally, people were aware of the oppression as is. If the GDR would have simply disappeared people, there would have been revolts. Germans were too connected to the other reality.

Here is a popular song from that time

I think what I want,

and what makes me happy,

but all in silence,

and as it befits.

My wish and desire

no one can forbid,

it remains so:

thoughts are free.

...

And if they lock me up

in a dark dungeon,

all that is purely

futile work;

for my thoughts

tear through the barriers

and walls in two:

thoughts are free.

The Stasi documented what they did in quite some detail and most of the documents were not destroyed during the fall of the wall. So, there is no need for speculation.

I'm by no means an expert on the matter but as far as I know, the Stasi did not disappear political opponents regularly, at least not after Stalin's time. I looked over the article and didn't find that claim but if I missed it and it's in there, then the article is wrong about it. The Stasi had a large array of measures at disposal. Some people were cleared for moving out of the country to West Germany. Others went to prison. Some people were exposed to radioactive materials. Others got a better job that moved them away from other dissidents.

Specific "Zersetzungsmaßnahmen" you and the article mention were very rare - we're talking about an estimated few hundred to thousands cases in total. When they occurred, however, they were extremely devastating because not even experienced critics of the system imagined them. We're not just talking about switching socks and replacing good milk with spoiled one in the fridge. There were also cases of medical doctors prescribing the wrong drugs, for example, worsening the symptoms of diseases.

As far as I know, who became the victim of these special measures may not have been a fully rational decision. It seemed to be based to a large extent on the preferences of the case officers in charge.

Broader measures against critics of the system were far more common, however, and way more pervasive than what most people suspected at the time. For example, the father of a former girlfriend of mine was a famous GDR rock musician. He later found out from the archives that the Stasi planned and supervised his whole life and managed to break up his former band without anyone suspecting it. One guy moved somewhere else for work, another went to prison, and he moved elsewhere, too. There were also way more informants than he ever suspected. Basically, the Stasi and their informants interfered with what other artists he met, were he and his band mates got work, and so on. They planned over years. It went far beyond the usual method of giving people a telephone and letting them hear a loud click when the tape was switched on (they did that, too!).

> it seems very unlikely to me that using resources to troll someone like this provides an effort/reward ratio that would be interesting to someone with that much existing power

Nevertheless, this happened. The Stasi was a huge bureaucratic organization with ideology at its core, built after the example of the KGB. Stasi officers considered themselves fully in the right, defending their people against counter-revolutionary and decadent activities. Goals ranged from "helping" citizens get on the right track towards socialism in a friendly but firm manner, over collecting information about potential adverse political activities, to completely destroying enemies of the state and doing counter-espionage.

As for your last point, Solzhenitzyn said something memorable about that -

'We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.'

If people believed in the regime, they wouldn't have needed a Stasi to impose it upon them.

Soviet support? More like Soviet control.

As someone from a post-Communist country, unfortunately it didn't, exactly. The former ruling class just switched colours and looted the country during the "privatisation" phase of democratisation. People were never properly educated on democracy and stuff, and most of the parties that sprung up were just pure garbage interested in looting.

30 years on, the political landscape is still a disaster. Media is a shit show in the hands of a few. A lot of the older people (40+) long for the "good old days". A lot of the young have ran away for better opportunities. Democratic participation is very low.

The fall of the Communist regimes and subsequent liberalisation and democratisation were managed incredibly poorly in most of those countries. Yes, standards of living are much better, but if you ask a lot of the people, things are worse (because they're incapable of introspection, have been fed propaganda on Facebook and shit media, etc).

The communism collapsed because it was no longer possible to keep the knowledge of the 80s American supermarket hidden from them. That's it. If the communist regime provided what CCP does now - there would be absolutely no collapse.

Actual support from the people was not wanted or needed by these regimes. They were content with having support by their party lapdogs, the kinds of people with no skills or personality, that would inform on their peers and magically become the factory's overseer. Those people owed everything to the system and they were the key to it continuing.

Everyone else was just kept in line. They set up both positive and negative incentives. Be neutral and you can live an OK life. Be a good communist and you can climb socially. Meet your West German uncle too often, or don't show up to the Labor Day parade and get a threatening talk. Actually voice your opposition to the regime and you may well find yourself in a Stasi torture prison.

Socialist doctrine said that socialism would be so good that people would soon(TM) embrace it organically. Of course they didn't, because it never delivered on anything and some western media still made it behind the iron curtain. Seeing a western supermarket shelf while you had to bribe someone to get spare parts for your washing machine is stronger than any propaganda.

Informants fathering children with their sources was also a thing in the DDR. Often the lines were blurred because informants were former activists that were turned by threats and blackmail. But I personally know a woman who had 2 children with a guy who turned out to be an informant that had been specifically set upon her and her group of friends. She found out only after 1989 when the files were opened.

I really think the incoherence of modern reform movements (Occupy, BLM, Defund Police, etc) is the result of modern political suppression groups having enough tools in their toolbox to eliminate leaders of these movements.

Without a strong voice, the movement devolves into contradictory platforms, which results in no action.

During COVID face masks were enough. Fine speculators earner low hundreds trading them, politicians made frauds worth millions, anyone could pick on any stranger not wearing or wearing them incorrectly, law enforcement could impose the most ridiculous fines. It's so trivial to make people yap at each other.