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5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

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Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#41

Post by throwaway0a5e »

noobermin wrote: post #22
philovivero wrote: post #4

Sometimes I think this sounds conspiratorial, and surely isn't happening. Who has the time or money to pay 5 people to just go around harassing and stalking people for political gain only? Then I remember the story of the lady in East Germany who, after it fell, managed to get the Stasi records that finally proved that yes, they had been stalking her, harassing her, and spying on her. They would do things like wait u…

That reminds me of COINTELPRO, and how the FBI tried to get MLK to commit suicide by sending him a harassing black mailing letter. It's amazing how states particularly when they have apparatuses that can go rouge or are even actually encouraged by the government like the Stasi were go to ridiculous lengths to harass people they find politically inconvenient.

My favorite is the time the FBI sent a bunch of fake correspondence making it seem like a bunch of prominent civil rights leaders were cheating on their spouses and was very confused when nothing came of it because said spouses already assumed they were and didn't care.

Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#42

Post by skrtskrt »

mistrial9 wrote: post #25
noobermin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of COINTELPRO, and how the FBI tried to get MLK to commit suicide by sending him a harassing black mailing letter. It's amazing how states particularly when they have apparatuses that can go rouge or are even actually encouraged by the government like the Stasi were go to ridiculous lengths to harass people they find politically inconvenient.

that is true, but that was more than fifty years ago..

I'm sure they've cleaned up their act by now!

Surely they aren't during stuff like that, and "thwarting" "terrorist plots" where the "conspirators" are FBI assets themselves

Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#43

Post by wswope »

stefan_ wrote: post #30
daenz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of Gang stalking[0]. It always seems to happen to people who present themselves as generally not very mentally healthy, but sometimes you have to wonder. If you were the very unlucky target of some deniable, organized harassment effort, it would certainly take its toll on your mental health. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking

The Stasi term for this was Zersetzung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung

You may want to dig into gangstalking as a cultural phenomenon before you legitimize it with that equivalency.

This is not cherry-picked; I just went to the subreddit and found a relatively recent post: https://old.reddit.com/r/Gangstalking/comments/tf2xd0/they_a....

(Spoilers: the number of people in amphetamine psychosis is several orders of magnitude larger than the number of victims of targeted government harassment.)

Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#44

Post by sneak »

daenz wrote: post #8
philovivero wrote: post #4

Sometimes I think this sounds conspiratorial, and surely isn't happening. Who has the time or money to pay 5 people to just go around harassing and stalking people for political gain only? Then I remember the story of the lady in East Germany who, after it fell, managed to get the Stasi records that finally proved that yes, they had been stalking her, harassing her, and spying on her. They would do things like wait u…

Reminds me of Gang stalking[0]. It always seems to happen to people who present themselves as generally not very mentally healthy, but sometimes you have to wonder. If you were the very unlucky target of some deniable, organized harassment effort, it would certainly take its toll on your mental health. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking

Worth noting that if you actually ARE being tailed by an organized and well-resourced group, they will frequently use a team of people to do so, time and circumstances permitting.

Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#45

Post by davidb_ »

IncRnd wrote: post #37
davidb_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance you have a source for the bicycle tire story? I'm keen to read more about it (and similar stories).

The East German Police after WWII had a policy of Zersetzung, their type of petty, persistant psychological harassment that disrupted people's lives. I'm curious, did they stop teaching in school that Zersetzung happened in East Germany in the context of WWII? I was taught in High School about that.

I was educated in the US and took AP US History in high school. I don't recall a specific reference to Zersetzung within that curriculum, but the idea that life in East Germany was difficult due to Stasi oppression was covered. I don't recall specific examples like the story I asked about though (besides my own extracurricular references from movies/books).

Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#47

Post by pphysch »

jfoster wrote: post #39
aussiegreenie wrote: post #18

Australia a country with a smaller population than Texas has about 50,000 Chinese "spies". They are not James Bond-type spies but informants on other Chinese in Australia. In East Germany, one in five people were informants for the Communists. Canada would have a similar number as well.

Do you have a source for that? Sounds too high to be plausible. With a population of around 25 million, that would mean that 1 out of every 500 people would be an informant.

I'll reckon their criteria for "spy" is something like "disagrees with me politically".

Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#48

Post by staticassertion »

mistrial9 wrote: post #25
noobermin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of COINTELPRO, and how the FBI tried to get MLK to commit suicide by sending him a harassing black mailing letter. It's amazing how states particularly when they have apparatuses that can go rouge or are even actually encouraged by the government like the Stasi were go to ridiculous lengths to harass people they find politically inconvenient.

that is true, but that was more than fifty years ago..

The problem with learning about things with a ~multi-decade delay (via FOIA etc) is that everything sounds so long ago, in a different time.

But there's not a ton of reason to believe that things have changed so fundamentally.

Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#49

Post by spacemanmatt »

mistrial9 wrote: post #25
noobermin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of COINTELPRO, and how the FBI tried to get MLK to commit suicide by sending him a harassing black mailing letter. It's amazing how states particularly when they have apparatuses that can go rouge or are even actually encouraged by the government like the Stasi were go to ridiculous lengths to harass people they find politically inconvenient.

that is true, but that was more than fifty years ago..

They definitely still do this.

Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police

#50

Post by IncRnd »

davidb_ wrote: post #45
IncRnd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The East German Police after WWII had a policy of Zersetzung, their type of petty, persistant psychological harassment that disrupted people's lives. I'm curious, did they stop teaching in school that Zersetzung happened in East Germany in the context of WWII? I was taught in High School about that.

I was educated in the US and took AP US History in high school. I don't recall a specific reference to Zersetzung within that curriculum, but the idea that life in East Germany was difficult due to Stasi oppression was covered. I don't recall specific examples like the story I asked about though (besides my own extracurricular references from movies/books).

Thanks for the complete answer! It doesn't actually answer what I wanted to know, but it does answer exactly what I asked.
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