Month: July 2023

The state has a monopoly on violence. However, abusive repression harms government credibility and alienates public support in the long run. A more subtle and effective way to exercise power is to surveil the population and to prevent open manifestations of discontent.

This article analyzes the case of the of the German Democratic Republic’s (DDR) Ministry for State Security (MfS), also known as the Stasi. The thesis is that an effective surveillance regime makes the use of open violence less urgent because the population is nudged to discipline itself.

Shield and Sword of the Party

A shield and a sword form the symbol of the MfS, which is modeled on the emblem of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police. Discipline and loyalty to the Socialist Unity Party (SED) of the DDR were the core values of the Stasi. Members of the secret police saw themselves as first-class comrades who could make use of surveillance, propaganda, and psychological terror to secure the power of the communist regime.

One of the defining moments of the Stasi’s history was the general strike of June 17, 1953, which sparked widespread protests among the East German working class. The MfS failed to foresee the turmoil and had to repress it with the help of Soviet tanks and the imposition of martial law. Since the incident, the mission of the Stasi became to surveil society to prevent new open manifestations of dissent against the ruling of the SED.

Relentless Privacy Violations

The MfS developed one the most pervasive surveillance apparatuses in human history. In 1981, Erich Mielke, the head of the Stasi from 1957 to 1989, stated:

In its constant effort to clarify “who is who” the MfS—with its chekist forces, means and methods—has to identify people’s true political attitudes, their ways of thinking and behaving . . . to clarify means . . . providing an answer to who is an enemy; who is taking on a hostile and negative attitude; who is under the influence of hostile, negative and other forces and may become an enemy; who may succumb to enemy influences and allow himself to be exploited by the enemy; who has adopted a wavering position; and who can the party and the state depend on and be reliably supported by.

Many DDR citizens collaborated actively with the MfS. In 1989, near the end of the communist regime, the Stasi employed about ninety-one thousand people, or one out of every 180 residents. After 1968, the MfS relied heavily on unofficial collaborators, whose role was to report every major and minor sign of resentment and resistance against the SED. Unofficial collaborators were recruited after being carefully surveilled by the MfS to ensure total loyalty to the regime. They were well trained and used fake identification to infiltrate workplaces and neighborhoods. Among the 180,000 unofficial collaborators employed by the MfS in 1989, four thousand sneaked into opposition groups to spread false rumors and generate chaos. The case of Wolfgang Schnur is emblematic of the…

Last week, the Biden-Harris Administration announced new, voluntary commitments that seven leading A.I. companies—Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI—are taking to manage the risks of new A.I. development and use. These commitments come just two months after the White House announced new efforts to advance the development and use of responsible A.I. and six months after the National Institute for of Standards and Technology released its voluntary A.I. Risk Management Framework.

The voluntary commitments include (1) pre-deployment A.I. security testing, (2) A.I. risk management information sharing, (3) investments in A.I. cybersecurity safeguards, (4) exploration of A.I. vulnerability bug bounties, (5) research into watermarking systems and similar technical systems to help consumers identify A.I.-generated content, (6) public reporting of A.I. system capabilities and limitations, (7) research into the societal risks of A.I., including A.I. bias and privacy violations, and (8) greater deployment of advanced A.I. systems. The White House announcement did not detail any methods for holding leading A.I. companies accountable for these commitments.

In response to the White House’s announcement, EPIC released the following statement:

“While EPIC appreciates the Biden Administration’s use of its authorities to place safeguards on the use of artificial intelligence, we both agree that voluntary commitments are not enough when it comes to Big Tech. Congress and federal regulators must put meaningful, enforceable guardrails in place to ensure the use of AI is fair, transparent, and protects individuals’ privacy and civil rights.”

– Caitriona Fitzgerald, Deputy Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)

EPIC issued the following statement on the launch of Worldcoin:

Worldcoin is a potential privacy nightmare that offers a biometrics-dependent vision of digital identity and cryptocurrency, and would place Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity company at the center of digital governance. Worldcoin’s approach creates serious privacy risks by bribing the poorest and most vulnerable people to turn over unchangeable biometrics like iris scans and facial recognition images in exchange for a small payout. Mass collections of biometrics like Worldcoin threaten people’s privacy on a grand scale, both if the company misuses the information it collects, and if that data is stolen. Ultimately, Worldcoin wants to become the default digital ID and a global currency without democratic buy-in at the start, that alone is a compelling reason not to turn over your biometrics, personal information, and geolocation data to a private company. We urge regulatory agencies around the world to closely scrutinize Worldcoin. 
– Jake Wiener, Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)