HBR | I was 10 years old when the Berlin Wall came down — old enough to
grasp that something important was happening, but not really old enough
to understand exactly what was happening. Like a lot of kids born around
that age, the specter of communism has never seemed like that much of a
threat. We would hear stories about how horrific life was living under
conditions such as these; but only in the context of something that had
already failed. It's only through history and books or films that my
generation has a grasp of what life must have been like.
Just recently, I had the chance to watch the German film, The Lives of Others,
which won the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Not only is it
a remarkable story, but it gave me the best glimpse I've had yet of
what day-to-day life must have been like in a state like East Germany.
The infamous East German secret police, the Stasi,
managed to infiltrate every pay of German life, from factories, to
schools, to apartment blocks — the Stasi had eyes and ears everywhere.
When East Germany collapsed in 1989, it was reported to have over 90,000
employees and over 170,000 informants. Including the part-time
informants, that made for about one in every 63 East Germans
collaborating to collect intelligence on their fellow citizens.
You can
imagine what that must have meant: people had to live with the fact that
every time they said something, there was a very real chance that it
was being listened to by someone other than for whom they intended. No secret police force in history
has ever spied on its own people on a scale like the Stasi did in East
Germany. In large part because of that, those two words — "East Germany"
— are indelibly imprinted on the psyche of the West as an example of
how important the principles of liberal democracy are in protecting us
from such things happening again. And indeed, the idea that it would
happen seems anathema to most people in the western world today — almost
unthinkable.
And yet, here we are.
In terms of the capability to listen to, watch and keep tabs on what
its citizens are doing, the East German government could not possibly
have dreamed of achieving what the United States government has managed
to put in place today.
The execution of these systems is, as you'd expect, very different.
The Germans relied upon people, which, even if not entirely effective,
must have been absolutely terrifying: if for no other reason than you
weren't sure who you could and could not trust. There was always that
chance someone was reporting back on you. It might have been a
colleague. A neighbor. A shop keeper. A school teacher. Not knowing
whether someone you couldn't see was listening to what you had to say,
or whether those that you could see might be passing it back to the
authorities — that must have taken an incredibly heavy toll on people.
But as any internet entrepreneur will tell you, relying entirely on
people makes scaling difficult. Technology, on the other hand, makes it
much easier. And that means that in many respects, what has emerged
today is almost more pernicious; because that same technology has
effectively turned not just some, but every single person you
communicate with using technology — your acquaintances, your colleagues,
your family and your friends — into those equivalent informants.
