> [western world citizens] are today under more intense surveillance than the Stasi could have ever dreamed of [...]

I keep hearing that, and I'm sorry, but it's pure sensationalist bullshit.

At the end, the Stasi employed one secret informer per ~90 citizens (!), and one official employee per ~180 citizens. That was the (proportionally) biggest secret service that ever existed. The Stasi kept tabs on more or less anything happening in the Eastern German society, down to what individual people had for lunch, and had infiltrated every organisation within its reach.

I can understand disagreement with things like this Bundestrojaner. But spouting ridiculous, sensationalist comparisons like these only harms a legitimate issue by painting its adherents as raving zealots.