If espionage was the invisible front of the Cold War, one of the major battlefields was at home. Nations regularly spied on their own citizens to gain advantage against the enemy -- or to maintain their own positions of power. In the West, legal limits on domestic espionage were stretched or broken; in the East, there usually were no limits. Cold War fears of subversion provided an excuse for civil rights abuses and the growth of secret police forces on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

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