Opening Czech Secret Police Files.

GLOBALPOST.COM.

Controvery surrounds the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.
Opened 18 months ago, it oversees the Czech Republic's huge collection of secret police files, a collection numbering 280 million pages.

"The institute is in the process of digitizing the archives and creating an electronic registry, with the goal of strengthening democratic traditions by studying these communist-era documents, according to its website."

"“It's politicians trying to influence history — so it's like the [communist] past," said Vladimira Dvorakova, who heads the political science department at the University of Economics in Prague."