From inside the front jacket: "Shrouded in mystery, secret police organisations flourish around the world. They recruit; they terrorise; they interrogate: always spinning a network of informants to intimidate and control people and governments.
This book penetrates the mystery surrounding these organisations. It offers first-hand testimony from defectors, former political prisoners, lawyers and other informed sources. Secret and semi-secret police organisations are shown with their various styles of arrest, surveillance, physical and psychological terror, and torture.
The SAVAK of Iran, the UBEK of Poland, the NISA of the Philippines, the Tonton Macoutes of Haiti, the KGB of Russia and scores of other organisations are examined, and the authors pose a frightening question: Are we immune to such organisations, or could it happen here? The most extensive bibliography yet to be published on the subject, and important, provocative and authoritative reporting lend a sharp edge of truth to this stark picture of inhumanity."