Political Surveillance and the Constitutional Order

Abstract

It is a truism that knowledge is power and that secret knowledge is secret power. Both are a threat to democratic governments. One of the reasons why the totalitarian governments of both Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany were able to enslave their peoples was the fact that their security police and intelligence agencies expanded their legitimate security functions to include widespread political surveillance of all persons suspected of being ”subversive.“Inevitably, in an atmosphere of heightened political and social tensions, one man's liberal is another man's subversive. The definition of “subversive” can easily be expanded to include anyone who in any way opposes government policy or criticizes the established political and social order.