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@@ -4,11 +4,19 @@ author: Mohit Agarwal date: July 2021 bibliography: ["reference.bib"] link-citations: true +csl: https://www.zotero.org/styles/apa-6th-edition nocite: '@*' --- <!-- *y --> +The Stasi's mission throughout the GDR was to practise surveillance on +the population of the country. The methods and impacts of the +organisation that operated until the recent reunification of Germany +may demonstrate the way in which a state can organise surveillance +against its own people and the implications it has for those in power +and those under their authority. + # Surveillance in powerful systems A government may get involved in the regular surveillance of its @@ -32,10 +40,6 @@ plant the seeds of doubt within the population. The methods of the Stasi are often described as inducing fear in citizens. -# The end of the Stasi - -Perhaps the most interesting - # Surveillance and control The tools of surveillance served the state, and in return the state @@ -73,10 +77,18 @@ prevalence of sophisticated devices with microphones and cameras, which the Stasi went to great lengths to plant in private places, but that we carry around with us as granted. +# The end and legacy of the Stasi + +The Stasi came to an unexpected end. Following the declining interest +of the previously heavily invested Soviet Union in maintaining a +powerful regime in East Germany, and the later fall of the Berlin Wall +as part of "The Peacful Revolution" in 1989, the Stasi fell with the +regime it worked under. + # Conclusions In a sense the reality of the Stasi and the ways in which it impacted -the lives of people in East Germany present us with an opportiunity to +the lives of people in East Germany present us with an opportunity to look carefully at a surveillance state that so recently fell apart. There are many people alive today who have lived under the influence of the Stasi and are yet to share their stories. It is by @@ -85,17 +97,16 @@ visible surveillance in our current societies, and avoid reliving the experiences of others that we don't expect to through naivety and don't wish to once we are shown them. -The nature of surveillance and the way in which technology enables it, -just as the Stasi were able to make use of telephone calls to spy on -citizens, is something that we cannot ignore, given our knowledge of -the past. Mass surveillance and the impacts it has are naturally not -limited to the Stasi, yet the seeming otherworldliness of events in -East Germany feel like looking clearly through a lens, particularly in -comparison to trying to make sense of the societies we live in. Thus -the opportunity information about the Stasi provides is a very -valuable one, given the clear view and judgement we are able to have -on it and thus our potential to learn more from it than other examples -of survaillance. +The nature of surveillance and the way in which technology enables it +is something that we cannot ignore, given our knowledge of the past. +Mass surveillance and the impacts it has are naturally not limited to +the Stasi, yet the bizarre and terrifying nature of events in East +Germany feel like looking clearly through a lens, given that the Stasi +no longer exists and we are able to understand it in way that we may +not be able to with current events. Thus the opportunity information +about the Stasi provides is a very valuable one, given the clear view +and judgement we are able to have on it and thus our potential to +learn more from it than other examples of survaillance. <-- horrible ending |