‘A Partial Freedom’: What Latvia Found in the KGB Archives | Hacker News Reader

‘A Partial Freedom’: What Latvia Found in the KGB Archives

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40 pointssignor_bosco14 comments

A thing to keep in mind: just because there is an "agent" card on someone, does not mean they were a snitch ("productive agent").

It is entirely possible that at least some cards were there to simply pad the numbers - to justify a handler's existence.

At least some others are likely based on the KGB agent's noting someone down as a source as a means of blackmailing them ("I am not a snitch!" - "Funny, I have a file on you already. Wonder what your neighbors would think when we drop you off and thank you. Might as well cooperate..."). Because good luck proving a negative.

I am a huge fan of transparency, but I would strongly argue that raw data, without context, in this instance, does not mean proper transparency is achieved.

I wish the NSA made their metadata records available to citizens in some form or another. If I could download my personal history via phone records, locations, and such it would be a nice tool for me to help me review and better understand my past. I don’t want to see the analyst’s notes about me, just a unified set of records. Under a GDPR-in-US legislation this ought to be on the table. I’m sure people could abuse it to find NSA blind spots, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been filled since.

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As an American citizen, I wish the amount of surveillance done on me by the state security forces was as limited as this was.

The deal here, though, is that these KGB files are full of the names of Latvians who informed on their neighbors. It's one thing to be spied on by the NSA (or Google), and another to be spied on by people you regard as friends.

Exactly. And besides that, they used all spectre of technical surveillance means which were available at that time. That would be far worse than NSA by now if it was not the collapse of USSR.

That still dosen't make spying by NSA 'good'.

Yes, and Latvia had a population of about 2.5 million at this time. The article suggests that 24,000 people were recruited as agents and only 4,000 are found among these cards.

That's not quite high enough to be institutionally aware of every human in the country but it's not that far off. Discard the children, the sick, and the elderly and you're pretty much covered.

...always thought my neighbors worked at those places. silly me.

> and another to be spied on by people you regard as friends.

and with life or death consequences. Are people really comparing the KGB to Facebook and PRISM?

Back then, it was way less. Today, Google and Facebook surveil you.

The TL;DR: if you are in the dominant population group you are indeed subject to far more pervasive surveillance but are virtually immune from most forms of state intimidation (victimization rhetoric notwithstanding).

I think you have to consider the technology limitations. Those guys did the maximum surveillance possible at the time -- had the tech been better they would have done more. As they do today in Russia, China, and other countries.

In addition the Chekist model was proactive: not just surveillance but intervention (intimidation and imprisonment) and they were not just unapologetic but public that their efforts would sweep up many loyal innocents as simply a cost of assuring the security of the state.

So that's what you're comparing to. What is the comparison in the USA?

On the surveillance side the collection is of course far more than was possible with index cards and shoe leather, and thanks to Snowdon we do know that in some (many!) domains it is indeed maximalist, though there's some limited evidence of a slight step back from that. So in that regard I agree with your statement. In addition, just as the Cheka/KGB/Stasi et al used informants, the US governments (unlike USSR, at all levels: federal, state and even municipal) use the third party doctrine and other such artifices to get around whatever legal constraints might apply (rather than simply ignoring them, though that happens too). Once once it's been privatized, of course the collectors are monetising it. A vast subterranean surveillance state with even fewer controls than the KBB was subject to!

But on the proactive level, terror intervention is used somewhat selectively in the west: against marginalized communities (various racial minorities in a gulag system again operating at multiple government levels), expropriation of property without recourse (so-called civil forfeiture), what are essentially show trials with "plea bargains" (a favorite of the USSR and considered a violation of human rights in most countries) and of course concentration camps against immigrants and the use kidnapping of children for behavioral extortion purposes. The former are perfectly legal under international law; the latter (against foreigners) are clear violation of international law written and promulgated by the US -- law to which the country is withdrawing.

Between the "surveillance" and "proactive" steps there is analysis, which has grown immensely in the modern day - both technologically and economically. Analysis run by an explicit arm of the government is a cost center, whereas modern commercial-based analysis is (eg Equifax/Facebook) is actually a profit center.

Sorry, but you are stupid and ignorant.

KGB tortures aren't something cool to want.

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