Thousands of Leaked KGB Files Are Now Open To the Public 95
schwit1 (797399) writes "Over 20 years after being smuggled out of Russia, a trove of KGB documents are being opened up to the public for the first time. The leaked documents include thousands of files and represent what the FBI is said to view as "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source." The documents include KGB information on secret Russian weapons caches, Russian spies, and KGB information on the activities of Pope John Paul II. Known as the Mitrokhin Archive, the files are all available as of today at Churchill College's Archives Centre."
Re:Strictly speaking... (Score:3, Informative)
trove
noun \trv\
Definition of TROVE
1
: discovery, find
2
: a valuable collection : treasure; also : haul, collection
No adjective record in the dictionary.
Re:Strictly speaking... (Score:4, Informative)
Strictly speaking, trove is an adjective.
Strictly speaking, you're wrong. Trove is a noun for "a collection of objects" and short for "treasure-trove". Ref: http://dictionary.reference.co... [reference.com]
Not anonymously available (Score:1, Informative)
From their web page:
"Access and Use
"With the exception of sections 6-7, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge. Churchill Archives Centre is open from Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm. A prior appointment and two forms of identification are required."
You're in the USA and you want to look at them? Too bad.
Thought you could have a look at the material without them knowing who you are? Sorry, not allowed.
Someone needs to tell the Churchill College that in the age of the Internet, we expect material like this to be available over the Internet without needing to walk down your corridors.
Hmm, expect? No.
Demand.
Re:Strictly speaking... (Score:3, Informative)
In English, "trove" has been a standalone noun for more than two hundred years. It's short for "treasure trove".
Etymologically, the "trove" in "treasure trove" comes from an adjective, but "trove" by itself isn't an English adjective. That's language for you.
Strictly speaking, you're inventing a meaning that would make sense etymologically and asserting that it's the "real" meaning of the word. It's only dictionaries and speakers of English that disagree with you.
Re:seems like snowden did the exact same thing. (Score:5, Informative)
Here are a few more differences and corrections:
* Mitrokhin turned the data over to British officials only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He did not endanger his country's ongoing intelligence operations. He may have embarrassed several former Soviet officials, but the revelations were not a crime against his country, as that country no longer existed at the time of their release. While the act of copying the classified data would certainly have been a crime against the Soviet Union, again, that country was gone. (Snowden released the data of his own still-active country, including information about active operations.)
* The data he turned over was archival material spanning decades and ending in the 1980s; he gave it up in the early 1990s. Some of it was less than ten years old at the time it was delivered. (Snowden's data was indeed more current and relevant.)
* After the publication of his notes in two books, the SVR actually provided academic access to the old KGB archives for a time. I think that was ended after the wrong person was embarrassed by his historical record, perhaps a former lieutenant colonel in the KGB. (The NSA has not yet opened their doors to the public in response to Snowden's release.)
* He was not a "whistleblower" in that he did not release this data in an attempt to change any ongoing practices. He was a historian who respected the truth, and did not want the facts distorted or destroyed by a regime with a long history of rewriting history. (Snowden is an activist, who is trying to effect change.)
* Mitrokhin's position was a Senior Archivist. He had access to essentially all KGB historical records, not simply operations of which he was a part. (Snowden was an administrator of systems, and had access to the records they contained; he also used other people's credentials to gain additional access to other records.)
Re:seems like snowden did the exact same thing. (Score:5, Informative)
If he had this "decency" you speak of, he would have only alerted his own people and not the foreign governments.
And how is he supposed to only tell the US when the internet covers the whole planet, local news is an illusion.
Re:seems like snowden did the exact same thing. (Score:5, Informative)
He tried - the US didn't want to listen to him.
Re:Strictly speaking... (Score:2, Informative)
Oddly, it's not. That's where OP is coming from. "Treasure trove" comes ultimately from Latin via French (or at least, some language fragments the Normans brought over). The "trove" means "found", so it's "found treasure". That's why in the original (pre-English) phrase, the word order is backwards: "trove" is the adjective, "treasure" is the noun, and it follows the appropriate French/Latin word order. It was pulled directly into English without reordering (common for borrowed phrases). Eventually, "trove" (which had no English meaning at all) became a synonym (a shortening) for "treasure trove".
So by etymology, "trove" was originally an adjective. However, it means nothing in English. The phrase "treasure trove" is a noun phrase all by itself that can't really be broken into parts.
Re:seems like snowden did the exact same thing. (Score:4, Informative)
Oh my, he did something ethically ambiguous, that must be the same thing as being an enemy.
Your biting insight totally destroys the fact that the majority of American citizens appreciate the knowledge of being unethically spied on.
I'm sure your appallingly simplistic worldview can help us with other challenges. Please guide us.