secret police

secret police (uncountable) (often treated as a plural)

A group of Gestapo officers. The Gestapo is the main secret police of Nazi Germany.

1. A police force operating in secrecy and outside the normal boundaries of law and hidden from the public, usually in support of a totalitarian government's political policies to suppress political dissent through the use of methods including intimidation, violence, and surveillance. [1823[1]]
   • 1979, Jello Biafra & John Greenway, "California Über Alles", Dead Kennedys, California Über Alles.

     Now it is nineteen eighty-four / Knock-knock at your front door / It's the suede denim secret police / They have come for your uncool niece

   • 2014 November 27, Ian Black, “Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis”, in The Guardian:

     Leading Jordanian exponents of the Salafi-jihadi world view, such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, are now behind bars or silent, fearing arrest by the powerful mukhabarat secret police.