Secret police

A secret police force is an informal term for a police organization that operates in secret to enforce state security.

In states of limited democracy, such as police states, dictatorships and totalitarian states, the secret police often uses terroristic methods to suppress sedition, dissent, political opposition.

Examples of Secret Police Forces

National Socialist (Nazi) secret police forces:

• the Gestapo in Nazi Germany (the name is an abbreviation for Geheime Staatspolizei, German for "secret state police")

Fascist secret police forces:

• the OVRA in fascist-ruled Italy
• the Kempeitai in imperial Japan
• the Milice in Vichy France

Communist secret police forces:

• the Stasi in East Germany
• the CHEKA in the early days of the Russian revolution
• the NKVD in Stalin's USSR
• the KGB in the erstwhile USSR
• the Securitate in communist-ruled Romania
• the Sigurimi in communist-ruled Albania
• the StB in communist-ruled Czechoslovakia
• the Urzad Bezpieczenstwa (UB) and then Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (SB) in the communist-ruled Poland
• to be done: People's Republic of China, North Korea, Vietnam?

Middle-eastern secret police forces:

• the SAVAK in pre-revolutionary Iran
• the VEVAK in Iran today
• the Mukhabarat in Iraq under Saddam Hussein

North American secret police forces:

• The FBI (under the administration of J. Edgar Hoover)

Latin American secret police forces:

• The DINA under Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship of Chile
• to be done: see also: Operation Condor

Caribbean secret police forces:

• Ton Ton Macoute in Haiti under François Duvalier, better known as Papa Doc

African secret police forces:

• to be done?

Historial development

The secret police of late Imperial Russia was Okhranka, whose stated goal was to ensure the security of the Tsar.

Before World War II, the German Nazis created the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) to control domestic opposition.

During the World War II, the Soviet Union had a counter-espionage agency, Smersh.

Fictional Examples of Secret Police Forces

• Section 31 from Star Trek - Federation
• Tal Shiar from Star Trek - Romulan secret police
• Obsidian Order from Star Trek - Cardassian secret police
• Cable Street Particulars from the Discworld - Ankh-Morpork secret police (under Captain Swing)
• Nightwatch from Babylon 5 - Earth Alliance secret police
• Psi Corps from Babylon 5 - Earth Alliance secret police composed of telepaths, essentially "Thought Police", often working in tandem with the Nightwatch. Possess obvious references to the tv show The Prisoner and the Gestapo, which several characters comment on within the series ("...what are you up to today? Annexing Sudetenland?")
• Inquisition (Warhammer 40,000) from Warhammer 40,000 - Imperial secret police similar to the Spanish Inquisition

Related articles

• Intelligence agency
• List of intelligence agencies
• Mass surveillance