Russia passes 'Big Brother' anti-terror laws
Source: The Guardian
Russia passes 'Big Brother' anti-terror laws
Alec Luhn in Moscow
Sunday 26 June 2016 16.29 BST
Russias parliament has passed harsh anti-terrorism measures that human rights campaigners including the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden say will roll back personal freedoms and privacy.
The lower house of parliament voted 325 to 1 on Friday to adopt the Yarovaya law, a package of amendments authored by the ruling United Russia party member Irina Yarovaya, who is known for previous legislative crackdowns on protesters and non-governmental organisations.
Snowden, who has lived in Russia since receiving asylum in 2013, tweeted on Saturday that the Big Brother law was an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights that would take money and liberty from every Russian without improving safety.
The legislation makes it a crime to not warn the authorities of reliable information about planned terrorist attacks, armed uprisings, hijacking and several other crimes. Expressing approval of terrorism on the internet will now be punishable with up to seven years in prison.
The legislation obliges telephone and internet providers to store records of all communications for six months and all metadata for three years, as well as help intelligence agencies decode encrypted messaging services. Telecoms firms have complained that users rather than providers typically possess the encryption keys, and that storing this huge amount of information would require expensive new infrastructure.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/26/russia-passes-big-brother-anti-terror-laws