This was the "corner stone" technique of the East German Communist Stasi secret police. It got so bad that people would rat on their neighbors even if they did something as innocent as painting their house and making it look better than all the others on the block. The police would interrogate the "suspects" to see if they bought black market paint or smuggled it from the West. Coming to a town near you!
.............. I was also thinking of the East German Stasi. I've heard some of those stories about E Germany before the wall came down. Scares the crap out of me to be hearing that sort of stuff here in the USA. I never thought that would happen here in my lifetime. I guess it's really a "Welcome To The Great Society" moment.
