ArnoldRimmer said:
From what I know, torture was never a big part of the Stasi activities. I've hardly ever even heard claims about the Stasi torturing people. But since you made me wonder, I just looked it up on Wikipedia - the english page mentions torture just once, claiming that by the 1970 they stopped all such activities, because they were considered "too crude". And even the quite extensive german page mentions torture just once, saying that by 1956 they considered stopping all such activities. So despite the fact that they may have tortured, especially in the beginning, torture is not what the Stasi was infamous for. When people nowadays hear "torture", I'm sure even 95% of former east germans would rather think of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib etc. than the Stasi.
Sure. The Stasi had just one billionth the amount of information that the NSA collects in one single data center - but the quality of that information was very high, the information was condensed. But this is not about claiming that the NSA being as worse or even worse than the Stasi anyway. You cannot really compare the two anyway - the NSA is just once of about 15 intelligence services in the USA, each having a specific agenda, while the Stasi was one big national all-in-one agency that was responsible for just everything. But the sheer amount of data the NSA collects is just incredible I think. Can you even imagine an area twice the size of the USA, the complete surface being covered with full filing drawers? I can't... That's just... so much data! |
Well, it was mostly psychological torture inside of their prisons, but still. Also, I think the absolute distrust you had to harbor towards everyone because they might be an IM among other things probably could count as psychological torture as well. People start to have a bad feeling towards the NSA, but it is nowhere near the level of the stasi.
