The fall of Communism
Restricted access - The Czech secret police files
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Dossier index
As part of our Fall of Communism series, Rob Cameron reports from Prague where the latest Internet hit is a database of leaked Communist-era secret police data - its popularity driven by frustration with slow rate at which the authorities are making these files available to the public.
The database was launched by former dissident and human rights campaigner Stanislav Penc, who claims he received the data from a researcher who was frustrated at the failure of the authorities to lift the veil of secrecy covering the records.
It does not give any details, but simply lists whether the secret police, the dreaded Statni Bezpecnost, kept a file on a particular individual or not. Nevertheless, so many Czechs wanted to access this information that the demand caused the computer server to crash when the records first went online in July.
Like most former Communist states, the Czech Republic has an official programme in place to archive and provide access to the old secret police files. But the sheer volume of paperwork - Czech researchers estimate they have 280 million pages of records listing even the most mundane details of citizens' lives - means this is a slow and costly process.
A system that allows individuals to request access to their records was only made available in 2007, 17 years after the Statni Bezpecnost was disbanded. Although a digitizalisation project now under way at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes should allow full online access in the coming years, the popularity of Penc's database shows that many think that this is too little, too late.
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