The Statsi employed one staff member per ~160 people in the country. About 1 in 6 people in the country were informants.
I don't think the USA even comes close to how oppressive that is.
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.