The argument between the two of you is baffling.  It is incontrovertible that the U.S. is using electronic data gathered right now by itself and by private technology companies to screw with people.  Literally billions of dollars will be spent on that purpose this year alone.   There are several government agencies devoted to doing it.  There are also the government agencies of a dozen or two other countries which the U.S. government agencies work with and share data with to a greater or lesser extent.  Literally thousands of newspaper articles have been written about this.<p>The U.S. government has several orders of magnitude more information about the private lives and communications and beliefs and activities of its citizens than East Germany ever had.  This is also incontrovertible and undeniable.<p>How can either of you talk about abuses that happened in the past as if those were the only abuses?  Why would you need to?