What does Big Brother see, while he is watching? [32c3]

What does Big Brother see, while he is watching?
Uncovering images from the secret Stasi archives.

In the past years there has been a lot of discussion on the topic of state sponsored surveillance. But hardly any material can be accessed to support the general debate due to vaguely declared security concerns. So we are debating Big Brother with little knowledge about what he actually sees, while he is watching. Over the course of three years, I was able to research the archives left by East Germany's Stasi to look for visual memories of this notorious surveillance system and more recently I was invited to spend some weeks looking at the archive by the Czechoslovak StB. Illustrating with images I have found during my research, I would like to address the question why this material is still relevant – even 25 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

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➤Speaker: Simon
➤EventID: 7209
➤Event: 32th Chaos Communication Congress [32c3] of the Chaos Computer Club [CCC]
➤Location: Congress Centrum Hamburg (CCH); Am Dammtor; Marseiller Straße; 20355 Hamburg; Germany
➤Language: english
➤Begin: Sun, 12/27/2015 18:30:00 +01:00
➤License: CC-by

Host: What does Big Brother
see, while he is watching?

Simon Menner is talking to
you about this and uncovering

images from the secret Stasi archives. He
was born 1978 in Southern Germany and

now he lives and works in Berlin.

He does a lot of stuff
with photography and

history and he has been researching for
three years in Stasi files and images

and he is going to show us why this is
still relevant today or even maybe more

relevant than ever.
Give him a warm welcome.

[Audience applause]

I was told to use this rather than the
lavalier mics so I hope it works.

First a disclaimer - I'm an
artist. I'm not a historian

so my approach to the
material I'm going to show is

somewhat different from what you
might expect from a regular historian

but we can discuss this as we go on.
Very briefly before I am going to

show you images I found at the archive
of the Stasi and some very few

archives I found at the BND.

I'm going to show you three bodies of work
that brought me to my interest in the Stasi.

I am a trained artist, I'm a
photographer and normally I'm

doing things like this and
I'm very interested in the

relationship of what perception does
within the context of modern conflict.

It turns out more importantly perception
is a battlefield and fear is a weapon.

This is not just a set of landscape
images it is actually set of photographs

for which I had support of the German
army. They supported me with snipers.

They were hiding in the landscape aiming
at the camera and therefore at the viewer.

So the sniper would be and in most of the
pictures from the series there's actually

almost no trace to be seen from the
sniper but this is the way a sniper

looks within the landscape.

They were ordered to aim at me even
though I couldn't see them sometimes.

When were posing I
told them well just don't

hide behind a tree so I don't see you.
They told me "no no don't worry we are

aiming at you"
[Audience laughs]

Of course the whole thing is
artificial because they would

never choose this kind of setting and
this kind of environment to posed a

threat - there's a sniper here or
here but this is something that

really plays an important
role in today's conflicts.

You try to occupy your
opponents mind and influence

his or her behaviour in that
way through creating fear.

That's another set of images. It's
based on books by the US army

on how to construct booby
traps out of ordinary objects.

Here a TV set or radio if it is switched
it on its blows up. A box or pipe.

As an artist I find this image very
intriguing because there is one

famous painting by
Magritte; 'this is not a pipe'.

Actually this is not a pipe.
It's supposed to look like a pipe

But be aware that from the sixties
from the US army and these handbooks are

now out there and used by opposing
forces they encounter and the whole

story behind these manuals is you're
supposed to create fear in your opponent.

Here is a German chocolate bar. Break it
off it blows up in your face or a tea kettle.

The more ordinary the objects
are the more terrifying it becomes

because once you realize that
there's no way for you to avoid this

idea of fear, everything is dangerous.

The other side does this as well.
This is from videos I found online.

This is the last video frame
before the blast. The last frame

before car bomb, roadside bomb or
something like this explodes.

The same here. It's the same technique.

The more research I did on this big topic
of fear and perception within conflict

I started to think more and more about the
topic of surveillance because the

interesting aspect would be to look at
images of surveillance because that

would show us these
mechanisms from the other side.

But the strange thing is we talked so much about
surveillance and much of what we talked

about is image based so big brother is
watching you. That has something to do

with images but we take it for granted
that there's nothing for us to see.

Big Brother is watching us but
it's hidden behind some curtains.

I came to realize that actually
with the unique history of

Germany we have this huge opportunity
in the Stasi archives that are accessible to

the public to try to show what Big Brother
actually sees and I approached them

because I could only find written
references to images they have and could

never find images, do they still
exist and they said sure come over.

And that was the start of a
three-year research project.

First I am going to show you images I was

in the end not really interested in.
Images we know exist and from now on

that's authentic Stasi material. There
some from the Czech Republic CSR.

I'll point them out and there some from
the BND and I'll point those out as well.

That is something we expect to see.
Shots taken through button holes and

surveillance in the streets. That's
the US embassy in East Berlin

and the entrance doors were under
constant surveillance with photo

cameras and video cameras. Be aware
in the 80's video equipment was not that

sophisticated so at night time the Stasi
recorded eight hours of darkness but

it still ended up at the files. That's
the state of mind we're talking about so

everyone was photographed. Quite
often we find post boxes where each and

everyone who's posting a letter is
photographed no matter who he or she is.

Even if it's an elderly lady. Remember
these images because I'm going to

reference them later. I was more
interested in something like this.

The internal view. Roughly two
years ago I was able to

publish a book and now I'm going to
follow the structure within the book

because I was really interested in how
do you become a spy and encounted a lot of

material that was meant for training
purposes. These images are from a

training session on how to disguise
yourself as regular citizens.

Which I found strange because
normally that's nothing you should

have to learn, but still. Then you
have a soldier, these ordinary citizens.

Some of them look like they live now in
Berlin amongst the hipsters like this one.

That's entitled 'The Western tourist'.

Now the tourists is like the photographer
so the Stasi photograph something

that tries to look like a photographer.

Women worked for the Stasi as
well and so the same thing

So disguising manuals - what do you
need to dress up like this and in what

circumstances would you use something
like this. He looks like Hitchhiker's Guide

to the Galaxy I think. Be aware that's
not meant to be funny that was

not meant to be seen by anyone.
That was meant to train agents and we

are going to see later that was actually
used. Here we have a hitchhiker at a motorway

around Berlin and that's from the
CSR archives which I was granted access to

earlier this year. They did the
same thing. It's not just

something the Stasi did, they did it as
well. Then you had other aspects of

disguise like how to wear a wig.
How to stick a fake moustache.

Due to privacy concerns the images
had to be pixelated but I could see

the faces while researching the
archives. Much funnier actually.

Again from the CSR you
could also disguise cars.

You could draw something that's
from a from a steel mill in the CSR.

And then, a disguised stroller
with a video camera.

It's actually a video camera from
Japan and they imported

this type of surveillance equipment
quite frequently. And then you

encounter other material like how to transmit
secret signals and how to transmit codes.

The codes are not known now
but still the photos exist and they have a

strange beauty in them. Once you
got your training and then you have to

be taught how maybe to arrest someone.

You first knock the door
and then you arrest him.

Notice the piece of cloth on the floor because
he didn't want to ruin his white shirt.

Maybe he wants to fight so you
have to fight. [Audience laughs]

But the Stasi always wins. Again
they CSR took things very seriously.

Things there seem to be escalating much
quicker so you have to shoot people.

Again it quickly escalates and he has
to be shot. When you know that

you have to be taught how to to follow
people around. Sometimes you

find very elaborate stories where you
follow people around. Just a very

short exception. So she's at the bakery
and then she goes to a doctor's office

which is already something Stasi maybe
shouldn't know and then she does a phone call.

Here you see she's smiling at the
camera of course the whole thing is

staged for colleagues but this is
sometimes very lengthy.

You see this guy shopping and then shopping
and walking Alexanderplatz, meeting

another guy. It's like a photo love story.
Then they take the car and he gets out the car in

the middle of the woods and he walks.
Another car comes and then they meet and

why did you take such pictures.
What's the point of that but still

that ends up at the archive and
is part of the training operation.

So now the training is done and this
then is a real surveillance photograph.

The black arrow, that's supposedly
the person they were shadowing.

Then you see we are
not in the training manual

but we are already one step ahead
and that's then the real material.

He or she is followed
around the country and again

Czech Republic you have ordinary
citizens being shadowed entering a house.

With the shadowing comes also the breach
of privacy and here we have the room of

a teenager which looks very innocent to
us but I'm very positive that, I guess

it's a guy, he never entered university in
East Germany. Due to the fact that they

could prove that he was a fan of Wily
Coyote and the United States or so they

thought they could prove. They took
such images as evidence for your

thinking which is a problem of a
surveillance operation I would argue.

Here we have what might
be the biggest Madonna fan

in all of communist Eastern Europe.

Same thing. Probably would never
be able to study law or medicine.

You frequently have images
such as this and that was classified as

Western pornography and the funny thing
about this classification is very

often you find files that
read Western pornography

and the photographs are missing.
[Audience laughs]

Someone went to this apartment,
documented everything, archived it maybe

the guy was prosecuted and when there
was no one was looking they took the pictures.

Which then shows the
absurd nature of the system.

For me this is a very key
image, it's a set of images

but that's actually one of the images

that brought me to contacting the Stasi
archives. I read about those images.

This is a Polaroid as you can see by the
white background and as a matter of

fact Stasi frequency purchased Polaroid
films or confiscated Polaroid film sent

to East Germany and the reason for that
was when they broke into people's homes

and you should never find out, the
easiest thing was you break-in, you look

around, what looks interesting you take a
Polaroid and with that you are able to put

everything back in its original position.

This is an absolute brutal
image because that shows

the deepest possible breach
of privacy imaginable.

And most people in fact never found out
that their apartment was searched and that

was absolutely illegal even in East
Germany and it was very revealing last year

a German TV station thought it's a good
idea to hook me up with a former Stasi

general and I told him about the Polaroid's
and he said "Yeah but please keep in mind

I never broke into people's apartments."
I said did you order it?

"Yes I ordered it but I never broke into
people's houses" I thought what stupid excuse is that?

Who then is responsible because normally
the excuse is always I was ordered to do it

and his excuse was I just ordered them, I
don't really... why would they do it. I

just ordered it. It was not my intention.

That was revealing to me the state
of mind within such a system.

So you have folders and
folders of those Polaroids

and when they found something
incriminating they might have returned a

few days later with the police and
search warrant because they needed a

search warrant even in East Germany.
Now we realize that even though it looks

funny the way they disguise themselves
it's meant seriously and it's a terrible

brutal system. Which you also see in these
images from the CSR where people

are forced to stage their own attempt of
fleeing the country. They were made to stage

the thing they were arrested for, even a
young child was made to re-enact their

failed attempt to flee the country.
And that is brutal.

Sometimes you find images that are completely
out of any category. Like a guinea pig.

I told you earlier to remember
the postbox with the old lady.

That's an image from one of those
files so you have a surveillance

operation of a post boxes, you see its taken
from a high angle maybe out of a private apartment and

then you have shot after shot and then two
pictures of these guinea pig and then

the surveillance operation continues.
What I read out of that is he was in a

private apartment and was bored. He
lies flat on the ground, takes two shots and

then continues the surveillance operation
knowing that the material is going to

end up at the archive and gets his archive
number. That's German bureaucracy I guess.

Very revealing. So who are these guys?
That's actually a British spy.

There were some officially registered
Western spies within Eastern Germany.

The Russians had the same thing for West Germany
and the Stasi's job was to folow and document what

they were doing. They couldn't do
anything to them, only document.

You find many of these images.
Like a spy taking a picture of a

spy in an endless circle of surveillance.
What's very revealing is the fact

that I tried to gain access to their
material - it's still classified.

I'm very positive I know what the image
shows. It's pretty much the same thing.

I tried to understand what these
people are thinking but it turns out

even though they were fighting each other they
seem to share a very common state of mind.

That looks like the endpoint
of surveillance, no its not.

It's one step further. It's Stasi agents
watching Stasi agents watching other people.

That's a triangle of surveillance.

Common as well. Never be sure
about your colleagues. They could be up to

something so better spy on them as well.

I present you the absolute
endpoint of surveillance which is

the surveillance selfie.
[Audience laughs and applauds]

I give you another one.

They knew it was going to end up at the archives.

So they are spying on themselves, spying on other
while spying on themselves. It's almost medative.

Who are these people? Now we are at the
internal view. The Stasi looks at itself.

Here's a group photo. Remember this
guy, we encounter him later.

That happens to be the
phone surveillance unit.

Highest-ranking officials here, that's
the boss of the whole bunch and of

course the Stasi, it's Eastern Europe they
like medals and awards ceremony.

Flowers, a medal a piece of paper.

This guy again and he gets really shaby
flowers and a piece of paper.

That's odd - see the wax seal
and it is burned at the side.

Because he was knighted. A knight
of the phone surveillance unit.

To the non Germans that's a
symbol of a code of law in Germany.

He knew they were breaking the law

and they're mocking it with this
ceremony so now you are the knight of

the phones surveillance unit.
Congratulations hahaha what a good joke.

Another set of images which is very revealing is this.
Strange finding in the Stasi archive.

A strange combination. See the bishop
and the soccer player and back there

with the blue shirt. That's a Party Youth
member and then see the ballerina.

Strange. The guy in a suit; it's his
birthday and he's the boss of them.

These are all highest-ranking Stasi
officials and they surprise him with a

birthday party and the surprise is to dress up
as those people you put under surveillance.

Party Youth, soccer player, the
ballerina. Beautiful, very beautiful

Soccer fan. Of course you have to put
them under surveillance.

A doctor. Of course who cares
about a right to be quiet of doctors.

A judge, you have to put a
judge under surveillance.

Then there is this dress up. Hardly
to be understood outside Germany.

He's dressed up as a peace activist

and he wears this 'sword to ploughshares'
sticker at his head and some other peace

stickers there and he
is very proud of himself.

Why, because it was
such a successful costume.

I think where did he get the costume
from. The easiest thing for someone like him is

to take it from someone they put in jail.
Because you could at least lose access

to university for wearing one of these
stickers, or serve some time in jail.

You could lose access to good housing and
everything. Why is he able to mock it?

Because he's the one who would decide
whether or not you lose access and this

is the a terrible thing
about these images.

They're very revealing.

These images are now 25/30 years
old. Why do I think these images are

still relevant today? It's
because of something like this.

There was a short period after the fall of
the Berlin Wall. It fell in November 9th

and the Stasi wasn't
dissolved until early January.

So there was a very short period of time
were the Stasi could try to destroy material.

They managed to destroy
a huge bunch of material.

Not a very important set
except foreign espionage.

That's almost gone but if it would have
been up to them that would have been the

fate of all these images. Destruction. We
would have never been able to look at

these images. Even though we don't
know what these images stand for.

Maybe that's that's a group of gay men and they
infiltrated it and it was compromising

to one of their colleagues that they had
infiltrated it. They did things like that.

But they tried to destroyed it. Twenty-five
years after the fall of the Berlin Wall

why do you still think this material is
very relevant. I'm going to show you something

even more special and more rare
than the materials I showed you just now.

It's this. Over a course of
year I tried to convince

BND to grant me access to their
material which would be amazing because

in Germany we have these one society
with the two opposing systems so the

view on the cold war would be
absolutely astonishing if you would be

able to look at all the material.
After a year they got a call and told me

that we've got something
for you, come over.

They have a small section in Berlin
so I went there will my scanner and

they gave me that I would call them 14
most boring pictures of the BND history.

It's a matchbox.

I looked at these images and I was like what
do they show and this guy was very serious

and told me 'Unfortunately I can't tell you
because the information is still classified'.

[Audience laughter]

Back then he told me as far as he knows
these are the only images they ever released.

So there's a huge problem I
have with this of course.

They can decide which images to show.

One of the guys I was in contact
with there told me of course we have

these disguise pictures and dress up and
things like that but keep in mind

back then he might have been the lowest in
the hierarchy and now he might be

head of the department or the one who
brought in the guy who is now the head

of the department. Of course
not in their interest for

these images to be released.

Yeah, but its in my interest

and our interest as to decide which
images are worth looking at or not.

There's another problem
with images like this.

We have almost nothing that is
accessible from the Western archives.

This is rare, this is special. It looks
like shit but it's very special.

But we have a trove from the Eastern
archive and that's always like the miracle

and when one of the Eastern
former communist countries

decides whether we should limit access
to our former Stalinist archives we say 'No!

don't do that. we must be open' but what
happens when we have access to just one

side and see all the terrible things they
are doing and have no access to the other side?

I'm not saying that the BND did the same
terrible things the Stasi did but the

BND was certainly breaking our laws as
well. But it does look more innocent

because we only have access to
a very terrible looking archive

and if we look to the West Germany's
it's like nothing there, must be fine and

that's a terrible thing.
There's a lot wrong with that

So I'm almost at the end,
I was rushing through.

I can show you two videos from Czech
archive audio isn't important because I was too quick

Sorry maybe that
is not going to work.

It seems things escalated
much quicker in CSR.

Life in the CSR must have
been very dangerous.

He has weapons every where.

But the best thing comes now.
[Audience laughs]

Who would carry something like that there.

[Audience applause]

That's a very long film
that's just a short part.

If you are ever attacked
by someone with a chair.

That's like the six or seventh time he
shows that. He shows it again and then

it's going to be used but look closely
how the technique they just learned is used.

Do this the next time you are
attacked by some one with a chair.

Now he's going to be attacked by a chair.

Watch carefully he implements
it quite properly.

Well he didn't really look.
It's a long film and things

always escalates very quickly.

Two very long shots and you
are supposed to spot them.

They are are unnecessarily long.

[Audience laughter]

Of course they find the black guy smuggling.

He explains in English 'Do you have more like that

and he says no no ,no no

and still the porn is still in the
shot. And then he tells him yes but it's

going to be very serious
if you don't confess now.

Black guy says no I don't
have anything to confess.

The guy on the left get suspicious.
He doesn't want to sign his confession.

He gets suspicious. Very, very suspicious

Fortunately the camera man made the move to the left or

not to zoom in on the penis. No no he
doesn't have anything but it turns out

it turns out he has something because
he's black and suspicious-looking.

Ah! He is moving his arm.

It turns out his arm is not broken.

Sorry that was somewhat long but
I rushed through everything else.

For some reason he hides
batteries in his cast.

[Audience laughs and applauds]

He could bring in the watches but you better
hide the batteries because wooo. Any questions?

[Applause]

Host: Thank you
Simon: I hope you got what you paid for.

Host: Maybe before we start questions and
answers everybody who wants to leave, leave now.

Host: We will take one
minute so you can leave

and all the others who want
to stay have it quiet for the Q&A.

Host: And remember
to use the rating system

Simon: I brought postcards because we
have to make fun of them as much as we can.

Simon: It's all the same motif
but take as many as you want.

Host: There are two microphones for
the questions and answers, no four if you need them.

Host: 1,2 and we have questions from the internet.

Host: OK we will start with you

Audience member: Just a
short question please.

First of all thanks for the wonderful
talk was very very interesting.

Can you give us the
title of your book please.

Simon: Oh yeah, Google my
name. It's available in your

local bookstore or if you want Amazon. It
still available but not many copies left.

It's just Top Secret and then Simon Menner. My family
doesn't write that many books.

Host: thank you.
Audience member: Would you be so kind to

show us back that photo with the Coyote

ugly and American flag because I thought
I saw Yugoslav air transport logo on the...

There you see it. He flew with,
now it's called Air Serbia.

Simon: Yeah that must have been the reason
Audience member: I just wanted to check that out thanks

Host: We have a question from the internet.

Internet host: Yes Frankie2 is asking how
does this compare to todays surveillance?

Simon: The problem is, in a way, that's a
treasure trove but it's a very weird one.

If I could freely choose what material
to look at I would definitely try

to look at the last two weeks of
NSA surveillance like we all would.

but unfortunately that is
as close as as we can get

to this kind of material. Keep in
mind, back in its day the Stasi was

at least as sophisticated
as the BND. In fact there were

more advanced in the technologies
they used. The Stasi would definitely use

the same techniques BND and CIA

and everyone else uses today. They would
try to listen in on our phone conversations.

That might not be the right material to look at
it from a technological point of view

but I think this material is very interesting and
important if you want to find something

out about their state of mind. Which
is absurd but keep in mind the excuse

you hear from the NSA. They just want to
protect the law and that's why they are

breaking the law. That's an excuse you
regularly find with the Stasi as well.

You find parallels and that's why
it's important to look at this material

even though it's very old. The whole
archive consists somewhere

between one and two million
photographs which absurdly little

if you think that the system was in
operation for almost 40 years.

That's fifty thousand
pictures a year and they had

85,000 agents. From todays standards
that's nothing but today they would be

far more sophisticated I guess.

Host: We have a question over there

Audience member: Firstly, thank you for your talk.

You showed that some of this information had
been destroyed or at least attempts were

made to destroy and much of it was but
there's a still a lot left to look through.

What happens in future generations when,
given that now surveillance is done all

digitally, the Stasi had some number of weeks
from when the wall fell to when they had actually

disband and they had time to to to destroy
things. Given how quickly and easy

it is to erase digital information
what would you say to the people

coming after you,

future generations who might want to try
and find similar things in dissolved

surveillance organizations.
Are they completely stuffed?

Simon: Unless there is going to be a

revolution they are not going to be able to
look at anything that would be my guess.

You need this abrupt
shift in the whole system

that decapitates this operation and so they
lost everything and now it's frozen in time.

The guy at the BND told me it's
up to us to decide what we reveal and

what not because we have a veto.
Of course nothing is then revealed, ever.

As long as this stays the policy
and it is the policy currently

everywhere from what I understand you're

not going to be able to look at anything.
I'm not very optimistic in that respect.

Audience member: Hello, thanks for your talk.

How did you decide what faces
to anonymise and which not to?

Simon: With the Czech Republic archive images
I did it and that's weird you can do

whatever you want
which is terrible in a way.

The Stasi images, the archive
had to decide and it decided

on the basis when you work in
an official position, in the German law

when you work in an official position in
times of historical importance

like that you lose your privacy rights.

You don't share the same privacy rights.
So once we could find written evidence

that the person shown in the image was
working for the Stasi they lost the

right to privacy. If the slightest doubt
remained it had to be pixeled so it wasn't

done by me. The German privacy
rights are very strict.

Audience member: You said when you talked

about surveillance watching each other
and surveilling each other that this

would be something like the highest state
of surveillance but in a sense don't you

think there's now a much higher state and
also that before things were much more

clear. Everybody knew that there was a
regime trying to stay in power and tried to

put down everybody. Now
wouldn't it be a situation where they don't

even have to break the law, they just
make it legal to surveil. We can see in

France now with the law on
intelligence that passed just after the Charlie

murders and now we've got the murders
again and you've got people that have to

stay in their homes because the
intelligence has said that they might

protest and they don't have to go
through a Judge. They're actually

making it legal and not even have to
break the law and also where people

actually surveil each other.

Simon: That's Facebook today.
The general problem with

surveillance operations I would argue and
hope someone from the BND is here

to come forward and talk to them because
it would really like to find out.

I would argue that this type of surveillance
cannot work. What you're trying to find

proof for is a state of mind, his thoughts.
It's not something you did but some things

you think about or you
think you might want to do.

I'm a photographer and I know
how bad photography is.

You were looking at images of landscape where no
sniper was visible and each one of you saw it.

That's how bad photography is as an
evidence and this can be proved for

everything and nothing. Could be proof.

Audience member: They just write a paper
to the police and he just says okay they're

dangerous and they have to stay at home.

Simon: Yes but they need proof or evidence
for now. You leave behind such a trail of

evidence yourself that could be
read somewhere in the future.

What happens in 10 years
when the US like smoking and

drinking isn't socially acceptable anymore.
What happens to you then with

your Facebook entry that's twenty
years old then, it's a weird system.

Host: We have another
question from the internet

Internet host: Yes somebody from from IRC

is asking if you have tried
to contact other agencies.

Simon: Yes, like the BND which was not
very successful. With these spies taking pictures of

spies I tried with the British. I know
these pictures still exists. I know where

they exist but, sorry. Czech Republic I
was asked by the Institute to

approach them but it was very difficult
that's too lengthy to explain now.

It was very difficult working with them

language wise and because of the
structure of the archive itself.

They were very open and so if you want to do
more research on something like that

go to the Czech Republic's first because
it's much easier to work with them on

the bureaucratic level than with the Germans
but the Germans in a way are more organized.

That's the Germans!

Audience member: How hard was it to get the
material although it is not classified any more

how much time did you invest?

Simon: The hardest time was
waiting periods in between

requests because German
bureaucracy takes forever.

I'm from West Germany but now I have a huge
file in this archive because they compile everything so

they keep track of every picture you
looking at. The funny thing is

it's not hard. You can do it as well.
You don't have to be a researcher and

the archive considers research a basic
human right which I learned then and it's

a very convenient thing. There are some elderly
former Stasi agents who spend their retirement researching.

something, they can do it. The weird
thing was that most of the pictures

no one's looked at before. That could be
proven because they keep track of

everything. It's very easy, very
lengthy process but very easy.

Audience member: When you decided
to visit the archives did you

have to apply for a certain
corner in the archive

or could you just walk in and
say show me all your pictures?

Simon: No, it was very
open they might have

closed off behind me somewhat because
for them it was strangely overwhelming the

amount of feedback they got after my book
came out and they want to be left alone I think.

You have to formulate a theme quite
clearly for me but since this was new

back then, for them as well, it was surveillance
and photography which is a very broad topic.

Now they received quite a few requests like
we want to see what Simon Menners saw

and they don't accept something like this. So
you have to come up with something more clever.

Audience member: How much time
did you spend in their dungeons?

Simon: Three years on and off but it's
mostly waiting in between so be patient.

Audience member: Modern state agencies
including NSA and BND have this mentality of

collect all passive intelligence and
has this ability to minimize the impact

of the damage that there's no human eyes
looking at specific piece of surveillance.

Of course we know this is not true
and they can zero in when they want to.

As an archivist how do you
try to understand the

state of mind when you have so much data,
possibly unprocessed data, and how do you

get into the mind of filtering through
this bureaucratic censorship of not just

no documents but a
hundred million documents.

Simon: One has to be

very careful with such material because
you look through their eyes and that's

dangerous and that's why I try not to
provide that much "background

information" because the "background
information" and most of the images has

text complied by Stasi agents so theres
already guilty or not guilty written in the text.

I don't want to look at these pictures
through their eyes but still I find it very

revealing to look at the raw
material and the Stasi would have

collected everything in bulk if they would have been
able. They opened every parcel to East

Germany, every letter. Paranoia wise they
were several steps ahead of the NSA.

They had a university and when studying
there you could do your PhD but you

were not allowed to keep your notes

you took during the day. They had to be
locked into lockers that had doors on two sides.

You lock them in and they will copy
that night and you were not allowed to

keep your PhD thesis because the moment
you wrote it was classified top secret

and that's paranoia. It really is paranoia.

I cannot prove it and that's
the problem with the whole thing,

one side remains closed.

You cannot prove otherwise.
My guess would be they're quite

happy with the situation, that
you cannot prove otherwise.

Because they can always
say we did something else.

Well we can't tell you but not like this. It's always
very weak but from the state of mind insane.

Audience member: What is the
copyright of these pictures?

Are they public domain, can I
use them for internet memes?

Simon: Well no. Unfortunately most of
the pictures on my website are low resolution

which the archive doesn't like but it's there.

The problem is there's a law that covers
this archive. It's not part of the

archive sphere in Germany, it has its own
law and the law was written early

90's by lawmakers. We all know them
and love them. They never thought about

the fact that an artist might come along
and show them. So the law covers publication.

Once you have access to the archive
you are allowed to publicize it.

Nothing else is stated. But
you're not allowed to hand over the

files and I had lengthy debates with the
archive what that could mean because it

when you have it on their website you hand
out the files - it;s publicizing it. No no no no.

I said what's the difference? We don't
really know but.... Tricky.

And so many people copied it from my
website which I think is good.

Host: Having a look at my watch I think we have one
more question here two here.

Simon: I'm here the next three days look at me I
might not remember your face but you

might remember my bald head so talk to me

Audience member: Were you able to
access files other than images?

Audio recordings of this phone
surveillance for example?

Simon: That's a very tricky thing.
You could listen to those

but getting them is almost impossible
because German privacy laws again.

Their argument is whenever you speak you

could reveal something private and that's
their argument even though you might be

Erich Honecker or Helmut Kohl
but still it could be private

what you're saying. That's why they
could never release something, you would

never be allowed to release its stating
thats Erich Honecker because it could be private.

So it's a strange law but no one's
going to change it any more.

Host: And the last question over here

Audience member: I'm interested how you
always know what shown by the photographs?

Were there captions like spy spying on spy or
brought about by an explanation by yourself?

Simon: It's gazillions of kilometres of
files and just a very few photographs so

there's always a huge amount of
background information. The greatest

thing and I am absolutely thankful
towards, it was only ladies working at the

archive, really at the archive handing
me the files and giving me the copies because

the most important thing and whenever
you want to work with an

archive the trickiest part is how do
you find something you don't know exists.

Because you can't ask for it. I'm really
looking for...

is there a birthday party? You will never
ask for something like this but once

you've earned the trust of the people working at
the archive they provide you and provided

me with these images because they knew in
which direction I was looking for material.

There was always in most cases
there was background information.

There's a weird set of a dead swan
which I didn't include in the talk.

It's a set of 4 images of a dead
swan. It was only known that it was found

in the vault that was owned by Erich
Mielke the head of Stasi personally.

It's four images of a
grave of a dead swan with

GDR flags around it. That's very
famous for being the biggest mystery in

the Stasi files because nothing can
be found about these images.

I didn't include them in the talk but
it's a dead swan, very mysterious.

Must have been important!

Host: So thank you Simon very, very much.

[Audience applause]