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Control Over Society: The Kremlin methods
Irina Borogan

Ezhednevnyi Zhurnal and Agentura.Ru has been investigating the government’s campaign against extremism, which was unveiled today, in our opinion, in order to gain control of civil society and strengthen the government’s police services.

In recent years, the Siloviki have often put pressure on political activists and public figures, citing the struggle with extremists; however, it has to date always targeted people who interfere with the government.

But now the government has widened such resources and powers include anti-extremism measures that will inevitably affect people far removed from politics as well.

Blacklists of alleged extremists, which currently include 10,000 Russians, will grow to include hundreds of thousands, and the freedom to make critical statements online will become a thing of the past.

Agentura.ru - FSB: Not backing down over skype
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FSB: Not backing down over skype
Andrei Soldatov

The Deputy Head of the FSB Scientific and Technical Service, Alexander Andreechkin’s statement on the danger posed by the use of encryption systems in gmail, hotmail and Skype prompted a flood of comments from high placed officials. First came an anonymous comment from President Medvedev’s administration, making it clear his own position superseded Andreechkin’s statement. Then came the Prime Minister’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, backing the FSB official and supporting the FSB initiative. Then came a statement from the FSB’s own Public Communication Center declaring that the agency had been misunderstood and that no one intended to ban anything.

For some reason, this final statement led many people to decide that the issue had been resolved: an FSB official simply made a somewhat extreme statement, the President’s Administration had taken them down a peg or two, the FSB then distanced itself from the claim. The only area still causing confusion being Peskov’s statement, which provided new grounds for speculation about friction in the tandem.

In reality, no one took anyone down a peg or two and the FSB in no way changed the position which it formulated back in the 1990’s.