188 Chapter 10 ‘Bulk Surveillance’, or The Elegant Technicities of Metadata Mark Coté Intelligence collection programs naturally generate ever-increasing demands for new data. Church Committee Report (1976: 4) When the Snowden revelations broke, one image that may have come to mind was that of a new digital Stasi. The former East German Ministry for State Security was, infamously, the per capita largest secret police force in the world. The open secret of the Stasi was its pervasive surveillance system, focused internally as a means of state control, what German scholars frame as the practice of Herrschaft or state power. One could read, for example, a Stasi file from 1989, targeting a free- lance journalist and poet, and see its practice of state power expressed in unambiguous Cold War terms. This Operative Personenkontrolle (OPK) file is a culmination of sustained Stasi efforts to gain insight into this target as he was under suspicion ‘of intending to form a subversive group’, indeed, a ‘hostile group that would discredit party politics by means of public activities’ (OPK Files 1989). We read of a key event that triggered Stasi suspicions: on May Day 1987 he mounted a ban- ner on his rooftop which read ‘To Learn from the Soviet Union is learning how to Win’ – a slogan favoured by the East German state but seemingly used by our target with ironic intent. We read about the objectives of the OPK, which include identifying contacts and relationships, developing a character profile, and investigating plans and intentions. We read that these objectives, through on-the-ground surveillance, will be led primarily by Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter – that is, unofficial collaborators, or IMs – and that the investigation will seek to recruit further IMs from the target’s ‘social environment’. We also read that the OPK indicates the possible employment of ‘operative technical methods’ which include installing bugging devices. 5073_Beck and Bishop.indd 188 5073_Beck and Bishop.indd 188 22/03/16 4:47 PM 22/03/16 4:47 PM Author Proof. Do not cite without permission. Chapter in Cold War Legacies: Systems, Theory, Aesthetics (John Beck, Ryan Bishop eds.), Edinburgh University Press, 2016, https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-cold-war-legacies.html