Reply #15: I've read Markus Wolf's autobiography and know a bit about the DDR Stasi and USSR

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They relied upon HUMINT, and the DDR had hundreds of thousands of paid state agents. The old KGB/GRU was okay at ELINT, but I have the impression we were usually at least 5-10 years ahead of them technologically.

The difference is that today we carry around our listening/tracking devices in our pockets, and "confess" our political thoughts on-line which gets added to our NSA record and FBI/CIA T-quotient profile, and have come to think all this is normal, even in a "free" country, which is really just another crumbling Cold War empire.

I'm not sure there's ever been a precedent for this. So, no we haven't learned the important lessons, but someone will hopefully, some day, will come to learn from our mistakes.

History is great, if you're the one who writes it.