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Russian Leader Putin Signs Controversial 'Big Brother' Law (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Today Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the controversial "anti-terrorist" legislation adopted by the lower and upper houses of parliament in late June, despite the flurry of criticism from opposition-minded circles and the serious concerns expressed by Russian telecom and internet companies. As reported earlier by East-West Digital News, the new legislation -- which Edward Snowden has called "Russia's new Big-Brother law" -- is not only severe against those involved in "international terrorism," its financing or non-denunciation. Law-enforcement agencies will also be granted access to any user's messages without any judicial oversight. Several key provisions will directly affect the internet and telecom industry. In particular, telecom operators and internet resources will need to store the recordings of all phone calls and the content of all text messages for a period of six months. They will be required to cooperate with the Federal Security Service (FSB) to make their users' communications fully accessible to this organization.
Russians too often just copy what Americans do.
it's on the way here as well.
It's already been here, you just haven't been paying attention.
Who is being targeted by it only depends on what regime is currently in power.
Both halves of the political spectrum (i.e. Republicans and Democrats) push for ever-more government. They might differ in some instances as to where this bigger government should be intruding, but they both support it. The days of the Republicans being proponents of small government are gone. (If that ever was the case, in the first place. At the very least, the GOP has been a steady supporter of increasing the military's size no matter what.)
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Access to every communication with no judicial oversight? The question isn't "will this be abused" but "how quickly will this be abused?" Also: "Will we ever know that it has been abused or will the Russian government cover it up?"
Bonus question: Will the Russian equivalent of Snowden flee his country with files detailing the abuses this law allows, publish the information drawing the ire of the Russian government, and flee to the US for sanctuary? Also, would the US grant him asylum or use him in a trade for Snowden?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Obama has simplified the matter and just has the NSA do it.
Well, according to the article if the russians do it it's controversial.
Fact #1: The republicans and democrats have dominated US politics together over the past century. Neither has dominated alone; they have shared roughly equally in the domination of US politics.
Fact #2: The US government of today dwarfs the US government of a century ago, in terms of both revenue (adjusted for population growth) and power over the people. In that time period, the US government has grown itself into the largest and most expensive world empire in human history, with a military presence in some 200 foreign countries. By any measure, the US government is the largest and most powerful government this world has ever seen.
Now consider the common view of the republicans being the party of small government, and the democracts being the party of big government. If that were true, wouldn't we expect their political efforts to roughly cancel each other out, resulting in a US government roughly the same size as a century ago, measured in either revenue or power over the people?
The problem is that it's not. In fact, it's not even comparable. The US government of today absolutely dwarfs the US government of a century ago. What can we possibly conclude from this except that neither the republicans nor democrats have been fighting for smaller government? If they had been, we wouldn't be sitting in the middle of the largest, most far-reaching, most expensive, and most powerful government in world history.
As we have seen by Russia's aggression against its neighbors (Georgia and Ukraine specifically), with Putin in charge they have sunk back to the old ways of repression and oppression. This law is only one of many designed to give absolute power to the one in charge, reminiscent of days past when the person in the Kremlin had the final say on anything.
The Soviet Union is dead yet Putin is insistent on trying to resurrect it, attacking its neighbors, sending in little green men to capture land, disruption of those who have left the oppression of Russia or those trying to crawl out of the hole dug for them by sycophants of Russia.
As we have seen in Crimea, where Putin has decreed the Tartars are not allowed to speak their own language or have schools which teach the Tartar language, where Tartars are beaten for speaking out against the indignities thrust upon them, where his oligarch minions have swooped in to steal at gunpoint the businesses people have built up, where the only news broadcast is what Putin says can be broadcast, everything possible to suppress people is being done all, ostensibly, to protect them.
Yet how protected can they be if their own government treats them as vassals? When Putin orders the murder of those who point out the endemic corruption in his government (such as Boris Nemtsov), when his estimated net worth, based on those who directly worked for him and managed his accounts, to be in the billions of dollars despite his salary, when he denies the deaths of thousands of soldiers when they invaded Ukraine, when he denies his own troops who admit they have been captured during the aggression against Ukraine, even going so far as to make it a crime for the mothers to talk about their son's deaths, it is quite clear he cares not for the Russian people but only himself and his legacy.
This law is nothing more than another step on Putin's march to returning to the past where neighbor spied on neighbor, where freedom of speech is only so much as he says is freedom of speech, where opposition newspapers, television and radio stations are routinely silenced to prevent the people from hearing anything other than state sponsored "news", where he and his oligarch buddies steal the country blind and live in lavish homes while the common man can barely afford a decent meal.
Is it any wonder the world doesn't take Russia seriously and why Russia, to this day, has still not advanced to a first world status.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
there's only semantics diffs between russia and the US, or the UK and the US, when it comes to this very human-need to snoop on our fellow man and control, Control, CONTROL him.
we used to make jokes about 'we dont do this, we are not russia' but we have become the stereotypical 'russians'. minor details vary, but the theme is 100% identical.
a week ago, I was at a store that was giving away american flags for the 4th of july. I looked at them, thought to myself 'I have no pride in the US anymore, why would I want to boast about being american, these days? we are no better than anyone else, truth be told, and everything I was taught about the US, as a kid, were lies'.
I walked past the table of flags and I have to tell you, it was not a pleasant thought to think what my country has become, over the last 20 years. I was never a flag-waver before, but the very thought of being proud of ourselves makes me feel quite conflicted. yes, there are some things we do well, but with so many lies and so much corruption, I just don't feel the same about my country anymore.
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