From Stasi to Spyware: Old tactics, New Technology

Mercenary spyware has become the digital counterpart of the surveillance tactics once used by the East German Stasi. What once required wiretaps, bugs, physical surveillance, and a sprawling informant network is now available to any government with a checkbook. Targeting someone can be accomplished in as little as a few clicks. The result? A growing list of abuses in dictatorships and democracies as spyware is used for surveillance, control, and to exercise psychological pressure on politicians, journalists, and activists. The panel discussion will explore how authoritarian surveillance mechanisms — then and now — affect those targeted, how societies can respond, how solidarity with victims can be strengthened, and what political options exist to protect against spyware attacks.

With:

• Carine Kanimba – Human rights advocate and spokesperson of the World Liberty Congress
• Marianne Birthler – GDR civil rights activist and former Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records 
• Prof. Isabella Heuser-Collier – Psychologist, director of the study “Landscapes of Persecution” on the long-term effects of Stasi repression
• Andre Meister – Founder of Society for Civil Rights (GFF), Netzpolitik.org, Digital Society and Member of Chaos Computer Club
• John Scott-Railton – Senior researcher, Citizen Lab

The event will be simultaneously interpreted in German and English and moderated by Hannah Neumann, Member of the European Parliament and board member of the Friends of the Campus for Democracy Association.

Before the event, we offer a guided tour of the exhibition "Access to Secrecy" about the Stasi Records Archive from 5 to 6 p.m. The meeting point is Normannenstraße 21a, Building 7. Places are limited.