When I first heard about the laws, I only heard of the cell communication part, which states:

    Now companies like Megafon, Beeline, and MTS [the biggest cell providers in Russia — TFG] will have to store records of all calls and text messages exchanged between customers for a period of six months. And for three years, the companies will need to keep the metadata on all calls and text messages

But holy shit, is it not it.

    “the failure to report a crime” will itself become a criminal offense.

    if an online service—a messenger app, a social network, an email client, or even just a website—encrypts its data, its owners will be required to help the Federal Security Service decipher any message sent by its users. The fine for refusing to cooperate can be as high as a million rubles (more than $15,000).

    Yarovaya's legislation introduces a new criminal-code article that outlaws “inducing, recruiting, or otherwise involving” others in the organization of mass unrest.

    Currently, people in this age group [age 14 till 18 — TFG] can be prosecuted for 22 different criminal-code articles. Now the number will rise to 32.

    The legislation will obligate “postal operators” (Russia's official postal service and all private postal companies) to monitor that they aren't shipping anything illegal.

The two of the most infuriating parts of what now became law - the ability of the government to strip people of their Russian citizenship or deny them the ability to travel outside of the country - have been removed at the last minute.

I'm scared.

EDIT: Apparently, the lawmakers are willing to make revisions "if Russians’ phone bills spike".

user-inactivated:

    EDIT: Apparently, the lawmakers are willing to make revisions "if Russians’ phone bills spike".

Either Russian IT guys are much less insubordinate than American IT guys or saying that ensured that the project will be expensive enough to make the phone bills spike whether or not it needed to be expensive enough to make the phone bills spike.


posted 2853 days ago