How important is new communication technology both to maintenance of state control and subversion of state control?
Forty years into the era of xerography, the Soviet Union is getting ready to move its photocopiers from their guarded, double-locked, steel-covered doors as the country tries to catch up with the worldwide explosion of information.
The Soviet Ministry of Interior Affairs announced Wednesday that it wants to “relinquish control over the acquisition, storage and operation of copying equipment,” admitting that photocopiers are now standard office equipment and not really the grave threat to state security they were once perceived to be.
The ministry’s Second Department of the Main Directorate of Protecting Public Order acknowledged that the recent spread to more than 60,000 different Soviet organizations of kseroks machines, as all photocopiers are called in Russian, had made its task of supervising their operation virtually impossible.
Soviets Free the Dreaded Photocopier via The Los Angeles Times
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@pmarca Says 
While state surveillance of the mass population is abhorrent and smacks of Orwellian regimes. On the other hand what most people want is security, going about their every day lives knowing they will be safe.
I suppose much depends on the integrity of the security service. Security service must in essence be for the welfare of its population as a whole. Famous saying Red Guards for Chinese People.
Security service should be from the people and for the people – who checks the checkers though?