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A further irony is that some 700 of those clerks have been placed in charge of the agency's voluminous dossiers. "Only they know how to find things," explains Werner Fischer, chairman of the citizens' committee. Some Germans want to preserve the files as a valuable historical archive. Fischer wants to see them destroyed on the ground that they could serve as a source of leaks and blackmail. "I am in charge of it," Fischer says, "but I don't want to see it. What if you find out about friends who informed on you? What if you find out that your wife was having an affair? Some things are better not known."