The Underground University

As a Czech this is a fascinating look at the other side of the equation - from the perspective of the visitors. I'll be forever grateful for their efforts and can only hope they ever so slightly contributed to the Iron Curtain falling and the subsequent freedom.

An antecedent was the Flying University[0] in Poland while it was part of the Russian Empire, and was revived under the Soviet Union. Marie Curie was a graduate.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_University

> from time to time we hear threats: “We will destroy you together with your Plato” ... // The threats were real. University education was heavily controlled and censored; state functionaries decided who could study and who could teach, and what they might study and teach; academics were subject to long sessions of questioning at secret police headquarters; mail was intercepted; those deemed dangerous were sacked

...And this current ignorant excuse for an humanity is still shrugging in the face of a anti-society of transparent espionnage and profiling; they say "meh" or "they have nothing to hide" lightly like their pruned neural connections... Incapable of imagining scenarios - which, by the way, remains the definition of Intelligence (as per MIT 6.034), once a value.

(Edit: yes, by coincidence I had a number of privacy related incidents only in the past few days and hours.)