It was good to see the end of this evil totalitarian system, where the Stasi would spy on civilians and monitor and record every telephone conversation.
Forget about living condition, corruption or censorship, let's talk about police state.
First, you couldn't just choose where you wanted to live, you needed to get government approval for it. Spending a few nights at your relatives? Had to register with the local police department.
Talking about local police, there was usually an officer responsible for a given residential area. He/she knew every member of every families living there. People, usually one per family, were "encouraged" to attend monthly meeting where they were reminded that there were "evil" forces who did everything to undermine the party and the government, and that was everyone's responsibility to report any suspicious activities (I did hear that a lot post 9/11 in the US, but only at public places, for unattended packages. Still it provokes a lot of memory).
Promotion at work? well, you'd need a recommendation from the head of the block where you lived. Make sure to be on good terms with him.
Wanted to visit another country? You couldn't, unless on official business. As the result no one could have a passport until their first trip abroad.
The sad thing is, most people considered all of that as normal, if annoying, facts of life. No one cared about police listening to phone conversation or checking (snail) mail. Because that was their job, of course. In fact, where I lived such policies were overwhelmingly supported. When the Berlin wall was demolished, I remember asking my dad why Soviet Red Army let such thing happen. Why not invade and crush "the enemies". You got brainwashed since very early years.
Where were the Snowdens you might ask? none existed, and if they did, there'd be no NYT or Washington Post or the Guardian to report on it. Newspapers closed up shop for much less serious incidents.
So bashing NSA all you want, they're hardly angels -- never broke any law evar! but the next time you try to pull a smart-ass, be damn sure you know what you're talking about.
Not really. The means were much more brutal, but the effect was the same: stifling opposition, containing criticism, controlling the population through fear of an external enemy and internal traitors, etc.
> Had to register with the local police department.
Every visitor to the U.S. needs to inform the authorities where s/he will reside for the duration. With the exact address, not something vague like state or city.
> and that was everyone's responsibility to report any suspicious activities
Have you heard about neighborhood watch? They even have menacing signs all over the area that they patrol, reporting any suspicious activity, calling the cops on you if you linger and look around.
Lately the public appeals to rat suspicious strangers intensified. About 3 years ago, in Boston's subway I was hearing a PSA with a friendly fireman telling us to be vigilant and report any suspicious individual to the local authorities. I did not have the courage to pull out my camera and take photos of the station. I was suspicious enough already.
> Promotion at work? well, you'd need a recommendation from the head of the block where you lived.
It was worse than that. You needed to be a member of the one true Party in order to get ahead. But it wasn't much different in the States at one point: you had to be proven innocent from accusations of un-american activities if you wanted to keep your job. Even today, people have to register as democrats, republicans or independents before voting. Can you guess how many of them get to keep their political affiliation a secret?
> No one cared about police listening to phone conversation or checking (snail) mail.
Of course they did. Those brave enough to seek information from external propaganda sources like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were taking a serious risk. So were those who told jokes that mocked the regime. Or those trading in banned books. Or those practicing religion in an atheist state. Or those secretly passing manuscripts to foreign visitors so they can be published abroad. Or those dealing with abortions in a state that forbid them categorically because it needed as many new citizens as it could get. Etc.
If you didn't guess already, this was not the communist block's cushy poster state. This was Romania.
You're talking about foreign visitors. That's very common in other countries as well. Obviously not a shining example of a freedom country. Still, I was talking about residents. In your own country.
> Have you heard about neighborhood watch? They even have menacing signs all over the area that they patrol, reporting any suspicious activity, calling the cops on you if you linger and look around.
I've never lived in one so I can't tell how it works in reality, but apparently as of early 1980s 12% of population was involved in a neighborhood watch: http://www.ncpc.org/topics/home-and-neighborhood-safety/neig...
Still, that's no where near as prevalent as what I described. Not even close. Also I figure neighborhood watch resonates well with Americans and their take-matter-into-my-own-hands, government-distrust mentality.
To be fair, I only experienced the last few year of the Cold War. I was young, my family didn't suffer from any hardship, and I still love the place and go back whenever I can.
It is beyond me why you think this is menacing. These things weren't set up to catch reds or terrists, they were set up to prevent burglaries and child kidnappings, which are real, regular occurrences. 99% of the time there's not even really a watch, it's just a sign to deter burglars.
> Forget about living condition, corruption or censorship, let's talk about police state.
Here's a recent photo taken in Ferguson, Missouri:
http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/53f10e8decad046f3d4...
Try looking at photographs of city streets taken during a normal working day, and note the absence of APCs and riot police. A police state is a very different thing to the situation in the USA or the UK.
You mean like Budapest in 1956? Prague in 1968? Riots like those? Or are those rioters worthy of their aspirations, while the rioters in Ferguson are unworthy of their aspirations?
> Try looking at photographs of city streets taken during a normal working day, and note the absence of APCs and riot police.
There weren't many riot police regularly tromping around Moscow or Bucharest or Kiev or Sofia during the 1970s either.
One of the exhibits that made an impression on me was a wall of jars with cloth in them.
The stassi collected the Scents of people and kept them in their files, in case they ever needed to give dogs the persons sent during a manhunt!
The DDR museum has many mundane things like "what type of soap they had in East Germany". The Stasi musuem makes you realise how oppressive it was. Letters from school children written to people who build the Berlin Wall thanking them for building the wall to protect the East German people, etc.
Marvelous times we live in, eh?
I don't think the USA even comes close to how oppressive that is.
At least, yet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/24... "5.1 million Americans have security clearances. That’s more than the entire population of Norway... About 5.1 million people — or more than 1.5 percent of the population — held security clearances last year."
A lot of people obtain security clearances because of jobs that brings them only in cursory contact with anything secret, either because it is a requirement, or because it is a hassle not to.
E.g. I once did a two week contract for a Norwegian defence research group. The stuff I worked on was not restricted in any way, but the only reason I didn't have to be put through security clearance procedures was that they were in too much of a rush and opted for the inconvenient alternative:
One of the senior developers spent two weeks "babysitting" me: Despite working from an office in a wing of the building that housed no high security projects, he had to follow me around wherever I went. Including standing outside the toilets whenever I had to go, and follow me when I went to lunch.
There's a bit in the film "The Lives of Others", where a neighbour sees the Stati agent install bugs. The agent tells the neighbor that if she tells the target he's being bugged, then her daughter will lose her place in university. One of the characters in the film is a director of plays. He has "lost his security clearance" for critiquing the regime, was blacklisted and couldn't work.