© nail_m@bayard.ru |
In the USSR, the state
has always had its nose in citizens’ private business. Ten years after the fall of
the Soviet empire, how closely are the Russians watched?
Of course, the communist party is no longer the almighty power it used to be. But
old habits die hard. In 1998, the government decided to take a close interest in
Russia’s three million Internet users. By passing a resolution setting up SORM 2,
(an acronym for a system of operative investigation measures), the secret services
and the State Telecommunications Committee extended SORM 1 to the Internet. Since
1995, that system has allowed the Federal Security Bureau, the KGB’s successor, to
eavesdrop on traditional communications (telephones, telex, fax and so on), as long
as it had a warrant.
So far, a single man has dared to challenge SORM 2. Naïl Murzakhanov, 34, is
the chairman of Bayard-Slaviya Communications (BSK), an Internet access provider
based in Volgograd (1,500 kilometres south of Moscow). “When the FSB agents came
to have me sign their co-operation plan, I refused,” he says. “My team and I went
through the document with a fine-toothed comb and we came to the conclusion that
it was illegal.” Murzakhanov, who has a degree in robotics, explains that “we’re
not against all forms of co-operation. We’d be willing to go along in specific cases,
but not systematically. For example, if the FSB brought us court documents proving
that an individual is suspected of tax evasion or pedophilia, we could cooperate.
But that has never happened.”
Cut to the quick, the ministry of communications threatened to take away the rebellious
provider’s license. But in January 2000, Murzakhanov sued. The court has met three
times. Each time the session was adjourned because the ministry’s representatives
failed to show up. The case dragged on. Then, in August, Murzakhanov received a letter
from the minister himself, who withdrew his threat to take away BSK’s license. “There
was no longer a need to maintain our lawsuit,” the young businessman says, frustrated
at seeing the Russian government get off the hook so easily. |
