In the 1970s and 80s the Czechoslovak secret police, among other things, were charged with surveying the population without their consent or, for that matter, knowledge. Taking pictures from under coats or inside suitcases, the secret police kept tabs on the goings on of the general public. And while the act itself is voyeuristic and creepy, the pictures turned out surprisingly well. Read more…

After several Egyptian secret police buildings were raided recently by protestors, Egyptian blogger Hossam (AKA 3arabawy) stayed awake for two days organizing and uploading photographs of members of Egypt’s secret police who have been accused of brutality and torture. The problem was, Hossam was uploading the images to Flickr, and Flickr wasn’t happy about the fact that he didn’t shoot them. Flickr soon vaporized the photographs and emailed him a warning for copyright violation.
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Randomly came across this camera today on Wikipedia in the article on Stasi, the secret police of East Germany. Apparently it’s a “quiet” camera that was able to capture photographs through 1mm holes in walls. Now that’s a pinhole camera.

If you see anyone carrying this thing around, be very alarmed.

Image credits: GDR Stasi Camera by Appaloosa