11–20 of 52 posts
The stasi exists now. When east Germany fell all citizens could walk into their equivalent of the pentagon and look up their file. They had files on almost everyone. This was 1989. Imagine what you could look up on yourself today if the governments fell.
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/jun/21/foia-how-...
The stasi exists now. When east Germany fell all citizens could walk into their equivalent of the pentagon and look up their file. They had files on almost everyone. This was 1989. Imagine what you could look up on yourself today if the governments fell.
In the US you can send a FOIA request for your FBI file: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/jun/21/foia-how-...
If you find this era interesting, I recently read the book "Burning down the Haus"[0]. Most histories I've read of the region and era focus a lot on the mechanics or politics of it, but the book was interesting to me in that it made you aware of the changes, the ebbs and flows of the East German security-state over time as they fought against even harmless "dissidents" and the abuses (and to a lesser extent incentive…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US you can send a FOIA request for your FBI file: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/jun/21/foia-how-...
Someone said their friend did that and got back a single sheet of paper with the words "An artist of no repute"
That would make an excellent title for a book for film: "An Artist Of No Repute".
This makes me wonder what the legacy effects of the Stasi today and one gauge of that would be a measure of age demographic uptake of social media for people who grew up under the Stasi and compare that to west german's of the same age demographic. A quick dig into this and: https://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm proved a bit insightful, whilst this only has the data for Germany (as a whole as it is again with…
See for instance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_self-determina...
The bus had stopped under an archway, sheltered from onlookers. Tina and the others asked the driver to open the back door for fresh air. One of them chatted to the driver, while the others let Bernd in through the back. The teenagers stood in the aisle to block the view. Bernd folded his almost 2m frame into the hidden space, and the girls piled their coats on top. This is astonishingly brilliant. Some 20 minutes la…
The bus had stopped under an archway, sheltered from onlookers. Tina and the others asked the driver to open the back door for fresh air. One of them chatted to the driver, while the others let Bernd in through the back. The teenagers stood in the aisle to block the view. Bernd folded his almost 2m frame into the hidden space, and the girls piled their coats on top. This is astonishingly brilliant. Some 20 minutes la…
If you don't feel like a criminal in today's society, you are complicit.
I have plenty of criticism of what's wrong with the US. For example:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19888281
But I don't actually agree with your assertion, nor with other comments suggesting that the US is currently about as bad as East Germany was.
After she escaped, my mother helped multiple relatives get out. Family stories indicate that part of the process was sending enough cash to help them cover bribes to get their papers. My dad was an American soldier. The exchange rate was 4 West German marks to the dollar and 4 East German marks to the West German marks, or 16 East Marks to the dollar. My father's relative wealth and pragmatic attitude facilitated a lot of this.
You didn't have any means to wire it or whatever. You sent cash. Sometimes it got to the intended recipient. Sometimes it didn't.
It took tremendous faith, willingness to trust and callouses to keep sending help in the face of that and not just accuse desperate people of lying, etc.
My dad was a remarkable man.
This makes me wonder what the legacy effects of the Stasi today and one gauge of that would be a measure of age demographic uptake of social media for people who grew up under the Stasi and compare that to west german's of the same age demographic. A quick dig into this and: https://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm proved a bit insightful, whilst this only has the data for Germany (as a whole as it is again with…
I don't have numbers, but West Germany has string privacy culture. On the one side deriving from Nazi/Gestapo rejection as well as being different from GDR/Stasi. With many political debates. See for instance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_self-determina...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone said their friend did that and got back a single sheet of paper with the words "An artist of no repute"
For an artist, this might ironically be the most damning thing they could receive. That would make an excellent title for a book for film: "An Artist Of No Repute".