Magnetic tapes used before 1990 to store classified data could soon become degraded as the tapes have a life expectancy of 15-20 years, Nepszava daily said on Friday quoting historian Krisztian Ungvary.
Ungvary was a member of the committee examining secret documents from before the change of political system.
He warned that data stored on magnetic tapes needed to be rescued without delay.
The committee also proposed that a new law should be passed to guarantee public access to the documents. The committee’s report was published on the Prime Minister’s Office homepage in early October.
According to the paper’s information, secret-service data from before 1990 is not available in such detail by any other source. The secret services claim the tapes cannot be played anymore for lack of appropriate playback hardware, but experts say this obstacle can be overcome.
The committee has proposed that the contents of the tapes, which classified until 2060, should be printed and the data should be reviewed, the paper said.
Many prominent people in Hungarian politics will be squirming in their seats and hoping that those tapes “mysteriously” become unreadable !!
Save them,play them, but not in private,make it public.
Agree 100% Ricsi. This involves a whole era and an entire people. Too much happened to keep secret forever, and the truth of it all will come out some way, some day.
Why not. There is a problem is how the information on the tapes should be evaluated. The tapes by themselves do not represent the ‘Truth’, just the version Hungarian Secret Service had at that time. Probably a rather ineffective and corrupt organisation, that made a lot of records/reports for their own sake, personal promotion and vendetta. Just look at the STASI in DDR.
It will be a number of well-known Hungarians that will be accused for being informers, homosexuals, criminals, etc. Probably rather many in today’s Radical Right Parties and Fidesz.
Mr Viking as you so rightly say the tapes contain the twisted ravings and distortions of the truth as perceived by the AHO (or was it 111/111). These worthies would see a conspiracy in the interests of a philatelist or the chess moves of a corresponding chess player. They would make a ‘federal case’ out of old Pistie who once bought a packet of laxatives; branding him as a ‘secret Senna pod drinker’ if it suited them.
The best thing to do with the tapes is to burn the whole confounded lot. Let the dead bury the dead and forget that unpleasant era. What was done cannot be undone and it is best to forget it, but learn its lessons and remember that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance!
Agree with Ricsi – for a change, play them in public
Agree with Viking – the problem is how the tapes are evaluated
The tapes should be released and evaluated in a structured public forum – like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation commission. All views should be represented to avoid victors’ justice, as at Nuremburg, or an attempt to ‘pacify the victims’ as currently in Russia (Anne Applebaum, Gulag).
From what I remember the first listserv (news groups in the days when the internet didn’t have a visual interface) messages where recovered after about 30 years (http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=551 ), from some really dodgy tapes from computers that no longer existed. Admittedly a lot of smart minds (including Google folks) were involved in that effort – which may, conveniently, be lacking locally.