Word: overtness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...their job with a loyalty bordering on fanaticism. Other uniformed crack troops, equipped with armored vehicles and helicopter gunships, were assigned to supervise the country's border patrol and guard the political prisons. A particularly brutish department known as Service K specialized in torturing political prisoners. Apart from these overt operations, as many as 3 million informants and collaborators -- in a population of 23 million -- clandestinely monitored mail and telephone conversations, analyzed handwriting samples to track down the sources of dissident material, tailed foreigners and spied on citizens in every apartment block, village and factory. Their ubiquitous presence helps explain...