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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Federal Security Bureau asks for more authority to controlInternet
On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 [email protected] wrote: The changes there in last 4 years seem to be in that direction. Plus also their system of people spying on their friends and co-workers (donosi) was never fully dismantled and people involved were not banned from publichttp://en.rian.ru/russia/20050428/39757635.htmlThis makes Russia sound like some insane place where Big Brother spies on the communications of all citizens, office and government like it happened in Chech and other Eastern European countries. like in the United States. Neither Russian nor US government announcements are good for Internet, if it is to stay as means of international cooperation and unrestricted information exchange. Its not always about exact laws and in Russia laws are meant to be "reinterpreted" (that is what Putin said :) by each court. In any case, courts there are mostly controlled by executive branch (and so isHowever, the last paragraph in the article makes Russia sound like a more sane place where people realize that the Internet doesn't need lots of special laws, rather like Canada. parliament as of year ago), the transition to democracy in Russia was stopped half way in mid 90s and is now fully reversed in direction with active and former KGB officers largely responsible for that. Controlling the media is always important for totalitarian regime as means of controlling the society at large. First most important media is still TV and steps to control all national channels was first thing done by Putin starting in 2001 and now TV is fully under governmental control in Russia. Next most important media are newspapers and then Internet. The attempts to control are being done by requiring all newspapers and all internet media sites (!!!) to be registered with ministry of press (now office in cultural ministry) and while its not all under control (yet), the steps are being taken to restrict what newspapers say if they want to keep being published. But latest trend of blogger sites are not subject to media laws and that is why this new announcement of need to control what is being said on the Internet is coming up now. Frankly, I think they are too ambitious if they think they can actually control the internet and what people in Russia can say (and same at even stronger scale for US) - Internet there is not that of China and its too difficult or too late to change developed infrastructure, so I believe it'll most likely stay open as means of open personal communication exchange and possibly 20-30 years from now that will be the decisive factor in Russian government's downfall, but for right now its all going into the direction of totalitarian regime, something like that of Chile in 1980s... -- William Leibzon Elan Networks [email protected]
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