I don't see that as a Trump specific thing. As mentioned in other comments, other facilities for the same purpose existed before. VOICE just makes it much more

I don't see that as a Trump specific thing. As mentioned in other comments, other facilities for the same purpose existed before. VOICE just makes it much more visible. I totally disagree that this is an exaggerated historic comparison. As someone who grew up in East Germany, all the measures which restrict the individual freedoms, which were put into place, over the years, make me sad and angry. And having historical examples which show the bad effects of such policies in a very striking manner is in my opinion a very useful shorthand, instead of elaborately discussing a policy (with an expected outcome). Especially the effects of Stasi methods are well researched, so they are a very useful comparison indeed. I just wanted to pint out that what the article discusses has very close parallels to what we know about the "usefulness" of the same methods in e.g. East Germany.