Post-censorship and telephone and internet surveillance are hallmarks of authoritarian states and dictatorships. However, the NSA spying scandal proves that extensive listening and spying also occur in Western democracies. The foundations for U.S. espionage on German soil have existed since the 1950s. Mass quantities of mail were opened, seized, and destroyed, including 100 million from East Germany. Josef Foschepoth demonstrates that the Federal Republic was a tightly organized and efficiently functioning surveillance state. This book is not only the first scientifically grounded history of the surveillance of postal and telephone communications in the old Federal Republic, but it also provides the historical context for the current intelligence scandal.