secret police

noun

1. a police force that functions as the enforcement arm of a government's political policies and whose activities, which often include surveillance, intimidation, and physical violence as a means of suppressing dissent, are usually concealed from the public.

secret police

noun

1. a police force that operates relatively secretly to check subversion or political dissent

Word History and Origins

Origin of secret police¹

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

Newsom previously said it was unacceptable for “secret police” to grab people off the streets, and that the new laws were needed to help the public differentiate between imposters and legitimate federal law officers.

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Look at Stalin, who used his secret police to imprison and murder millions in the Soviet Union—and was expanding his power into Eastern Europe.

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Without them, he wouldn’t have the bogeyman he requires to push forward the most authoritarian aspects of his agenda: mass surveillance, squads of secret police and wars of imperialism.

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Newsom said it was unacceptable for “secret police” to grab people off the streets.

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“The thing that got me into the topic of ‘maybe ICE is a secret police force’?” said Lee Morgenbesser, an Australian political science professor who studies authoritarianism.

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