Ceausescu in the 70's listening in on entire population

[robbedvoter]

All this NSA stuff is deja vue for me.
In Ceausescu's Romania, you didn't discuss anything political at home - you took a walk in the park for that. The phones were not just bugged, they were listening in the rooms.
It was forbidden to instal a non-regulation officially issued phone.
I thought at the time that this was urban legend. However, in the 80s. a high level officer who defected (Pacepa) wrote a book about it in US.
He described a listening room where the Dictator and his Dictatoress were taking pleasure to visit and eavesdrop on random calls/ off line conversations.
Elena Ceausescu heard one morning a couple having sex and got miffed that they weren't working like good little bots. She ordered them arrested.

Romania's population at the time was 20,000 - and according to this former officer was all covered.
Think of the technology level, the time, the resources.

Just a cautionary tale that keeps running through my head lately.

[Gato Moteado]

1. you must mean that the population was 20 million......

not 20 thousand.

and how could they bug and monitor the activities of 20 million people that closely?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Damn, beat me to it. -nt

[robbedvoter]

6. Sorry about that. Million.

They were bugged and stored. What use they had for it? My guess: the psy-op - intimidation. Everyone knew they were listened to. For 20 years everyone sat quietly through the worst abuses possible. And that paid for the program, IMO.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. You surely mean 20,000,000 instead of 20,000 -nt

[Adelante]

4. 20,000?

Is that right? Wow, I never knew that. I guess it wasn't a budget-buster for Ceausescu.


Edit: never mind.

[Gato Moteado]

5. yea, when i first saw that i thought, damn maybe he killed off the other..

19,980,000 people. i know that sonofabitch killed a lot of romanians.

didn't the people finally storm his residence and string he and his wife up and stone them to death or something?