{"id":3143,"date":"2017-05-27T01:56:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-27T09:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/?p=3143"},"modified":"2023-09-19T06:02:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T14:02:48","slug":"stasi-facebook-big-data-daad-day-15-notes-from-a-former-department-m-surveillance-operator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/stasi-facebook-big-data-daad-day-15-notes-from-a-former-department-m-surveillance-operator\/","title":{"rendered":"Stasi \/ Facebook \/ Big Data DAAD Day 15 \u2013 Notes from a former Department M surveillance operator"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>In the essay, \u201cEavesdropping for the class struggle: Postal control of the Stasi,\u201d from the book, \u201cSecret readers in the GDR: Control and distribution of illicit literature\u201d (ed. Siegfried Lokatis), Gerd Reinicke describes his work in the \u201cevaluation and information\u201d section of the Stasi\u2019s Department M. He explains his job was to assess and classify the contents of mailings, personal letters and printed materials, and in extreme cases, make decisions about confiscation.<\/p>\n

This work was not easy. The stream of mail was constant and so he had a limited time frame for his work. He operated in secret, but also had to consider the public perception of his decisions. While technically illegal, the government watched all mail moving within the country, as well as that leaving or arriving in the GDR. As far as the population was concerned it was an \u201copen secret,\u201d because they observed the effect of the government\u2019s policy of opening mail to remove valuable items, as well any writing or media considered to be \u201cPolitisch-ideologische Diversion (PiD)\u201d (English: \u201cPolitical-ideological Diversion\u201d)\u2014a task which was not as clear as it might seem.<\/p>\n

Upon his hire was told to collect information on people and facts that might be \u201coperatively interesting\u201d to intelligence services. But he also received instructions to remove \u201canything unnecessary.\u201d This work reflects the dual role that Department M played for the SED as a surveillance and control mechanism. On one hand, they watched for communications between spies or dissidents, but they were often a censorship apparatus.<\/p>\n

This flowchart shows the three basic categories by which mail was classified, and subclassified, specifically, as \u201cmessages suspicious of being intelligence communications,\u201d \u201cmessages suspicious of being PiD,\u201d and \u201cmessages determined to be \u2018interesting content\u2019.\u201d The assignment into of any of these categories determined further routing into the Department M machinery.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nHeimliche Leser in der DDR: Kontrolle und Verbreitung unerlaubter Literatur (ed. Siegfried Lokatis)<\/span><\/p>\n

These broad definitions also underline the ambiguity in how their surveillance and censorship was officially applied. For example, in dealing with Western and dissident literature, these instructions were followed in different ways. Sometimes operators were generous in their interpretation of \u201cclass struggle appropriate\u201d materials, while other times he characterizes their subjective interpretation as \u201cpetty.\u201d<\/p>\n

  • Hanna Labrenz-Wei\u00df. Abteilung M (MfS Handbuch)<\/a>. Hg. BStU. Berlin 2005.<\/li>\n
  • Reinicke, Gerd. \u201cMitlesen f\u00fcr den Klassenkampf: Postkontrolle der Stasi\u201d. In: Heimliche Leser in der DDR: Kontrolle und Verbreitung unerlaubter Literatur (ed. Siegfried Lokatis). Berlin, 2008.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In the essay, \u201cEavesdropping for the class struggle: Postal control of the Stasi,\u201d from the book, \u201cSecret readers in the GDR: Control and distribution of illicit literature\u201d (ed. Siegfried Lokatis), Gerd Reinicke describes his work in the \u201cevaluation and information\u201d section of the Stasi\u2019s Department M. He explains his job was to assess and classify […]<\/p>\n

    Read More… from Stasi \/ Facebook \/ Big Data DAAD Day 15 \u2013 Notes from a former Department M surveillance operator<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[90],"tags":[170,31],"class_list":["post-3143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-stasi","tag-surveillance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ovQg-OH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3143"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3360,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3143\/revisions\/3360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owenmundy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}