Former Stasi Reaction to NSA “You know, for us, this would have been a dream come true”

[Just Saying]

21. Now it's the Holocaust?

One hyperbolic statement at a time please.

I think the more people know about the Stasi, the more ridiculous the comparison becomes. Should we keep the reins on our intelligence community? Absolutely. But making such outrageous claims isn't helping us do that and it makes it challenging to take the arguments seriously.

More on Stasi:

The Stasi developed out of the internal security and police apparatus established in the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany after World War II. The law establishing the ministry, whose forerunner was the Kommissariat 5 (modeled along the lines of the Soviet KGB), was passed by the East German legislature on February 8, 1950, four months after the establishment of the German Democratic Republic. The Stasi, whose formal role was not defined in the legislation, was responsible for both domestic political surveillance and foreign espionage, and it was overseen by the ruling Socialist Unity Party. Its staff was at first quite small, and its chief responsibilities were counterintelligence against Western agents and the suppression of the last vestiges of Nazism. Soon, however, the Stasi became known for kidnapping former East German
officials who had fled the country; many of those who were forcibly returned were executed.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/563751/Stasi

Hey you were right about it starting small, but I think little else is comparable or would ever be tolerated in our Democratic society.