Reprinted from:
http://throughthescarydoor.blogspot.com/2007/05/all-fun-of-stasi.html
Without Permission.


All the fun of the Stasi
Stasi scent-tracking methods are being used to keep a check on selected protesters planning to demonstrate at next month's G8 summit.

Scent traces collected directly from everything from people's palm sweat to their vests and cigarette lighters have been made available to investigators so that sniffer dogs can detect potentially violent protesters, federal prosecutors confirmed yesterday following reports in the German media."Potentially violent"... What a turn of phrase.
The revelations have immediately led to comparisons with the methods of the former East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, who habitually collected the scents of dissidents to identify suspects at a later date. It was thought that such chilling espionage techniques had been consigned to history.But the news that similar methods are to be deployed at the upcoming summit in a democratic Germany has further angered activists already fuming over the construction of a 7.5-mile barbed-wire fence around the venue, at Heiligendamm on the Baltic coast."[This is] another step away from a democratic state of law towards a preventive security state," said Petra Pau, a member of the opposition Left party. "A state that adopts the methods of the East German Stasi robs itself of every legitimacy."Which is a good sign, that Left Party MPs are using their position to be tribunes of the movement. Having said that, I can imagine the responding slurs about the party's connections to the GDR.I treasure these two factlets though:
A 68-year-old atomic energy protester from Hamburg, identified by police as a possible danger to the G8 summit, reported how investigators knocked on his door at 8am and demanded scent samples from him.The man said he was made to hold metal pipes in his hands - as palms give off an immediate scent - which were then sealed and marked with his name before being taken away.But, worse than that:
The number of car burnings in Berlin has risen considerably over the past fortnight as tension rises, as have incidences of anti-G8 graffiti. Honestly, what is the world coming to?