TSA employees in 2000's USA scan your luggage and poke through it with technology. For any reason or no reason, they can open it up and poke through it by hand, or ask for assistance from nearby policemen with guns.
Is there any moral difference? If so, what is it?
(Also, nitpick: The East Germans were Communists, not fascists.)
We take into account motivation pretty often to evaluate morality not sure why you can't apply it here
TSA's purpose is prevent harm to other passengers (effectiveness is debatable but not the point), the east German border guards were there to keep control on what information the population could access and share
They are not the same thing even if the means look the same
There's no action (and by that I do mean action, not something abstract that involves multiple actions and choices) that won't be moral some times and immoral others. Intent is always to be accounted for. I'd be happy to have counterexamples if you have any in mind
Also pretty weird to see you infuse a sense of moral superiority to this website of all places