Translated material
The printer became furious again
Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the Duma cuts the rights and freedoms of voters
The spring session of the State Duma began with new prohibitions - this time under the pretext of fighting terrorism. What other rights and freedoms deputies will deprive their voters - the New Times found out 
The “furious printer” was called the Duma in 2012-because of the suddenly awakened love of deputies to legislative prohibitions. Of course, in the name of the "fight against evil." In the year before last, the main evil was declared “extremism”. Judging by the plans for the spring session-2014, which the New Times got acquainted with the prohibitive fantasy of the people's chosen ones, by no means exhausted-now the tip of the struggle of the Dumans was directed against "terrorism".
The printer joined on January 15 - a package of “anti -terrorist” bills was submitted to the Duma. The contents of the package look like this: to expand the powers of the FSB, tighten the punishment for terrorism (up to life imprisonment), oblige Internet providers and site owners to maintain all information about any users' actions for six months, limit anonymous payments on the Internet 1 thousand rubles per day (instead of the current 15 thousand) and 15 thousand rubles a month (now 40-now-40-now-40 thousand).
As often happens, a scandalous initiative was developed in federal departments (in this case - in the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Rosfinmonitoring), and in the Duma they launched through friendly deputies from all four factions, led by the Chairman of the Security Committee Irina Yarova. “In order to take unpopular measures to limit freedom, they needed to cover themselves with some kind of emotional surge in society. The New Year’s terrorist attacks in Volgograd became such a surge, ”Dmitry Gudkov, deputy Dmitry Gudkov, explained to The New Times.
Operation "Anti -Internet"
The first two points from the innovations - on the expansion of the powers of the FSB and tightening the punishment for terrorism - the public did not cause any special emotions. Experts only recalled that Lubyanka’s authority is already plentiful, and the prospect of life -long conclusion of terrorists will still not stop - not to mention suicide bombers. “You can only fight terrorism with operational methods, at the stage of preparation of terrorist attacks. And what they now come up with is simply the idiocy that will be used to combat the opposition and dissent, ”said Deputy Gudkov. Along the way, he expressed bewilderment by the term “destabilization of the activities of authorities”, which is proposed to be considered a sign of terrorism: “What is this? Wrote a swearing word on the fence of the governor - and you are already a terrorist? It will be interpreted this way. ”
But the proposals for strengthening control over the Internet have become a real bomb. Apparently, no one could even assume that, hiding behind the struggle against terrorism, the authorities would go to the actual defeat of the electronic payment system-one of the most advanced and dynamically developing industries of the Internet business. It is no coincidence that the next day after the bill was introducing the shares of the largest Russian payment system QIWI (15 million electronic wallets, 167 thousand terminals) on the NASDAQ exchange collapsed by 20%.
At the same time, the Internet companies themselves responded to the initiative of the State Duma very restrained. The press service of Qiwi The New Times reported that they support “effective legislative measures aimed precisely at counteracting terrorism”, but hope for further refinement of the bill “involving members of the business community”. And in Yandex (the average daily audience in October 2013 - 29.5 million people) consider the fulfillment of new requirements “technically possible”, although so far they cannot assess the volume of “storage information” and possible costs for this. In a conversation with The New Times, the company spokesman Asya Melkumova suggested “wait for the government’s decree”, in which all technical details should be clarified. "
“A terrorist threat is now we have such a very convenient pretext for pulling any, most non -estate and unprecedented prohibitions in any field”
“Ploking on January 15 to the Duma correspondents the essence of innovations, Irina Yarovaya pushed the fact that“ society and the state should be as consolidated ”in the case of“ ensuring the security of society and the state. ”However, society did not believe. For example, bloggers immediately drew attention to the fact that it was through the Internet that civil activists collected funds for many projects. There were and political ones among them and, for example, the Campania, as, for example, the Campania. Alexei Navalny for the election of the mayor of Moscow, the work of his corruption fund or rallies for honest elections.
“With the help of Internet payments, ordinary people helped each other, sick children, raised funds to help victims of floods,” Dmitry Gudkov recalls. - People collected money voluntarily, they did what the authorities did not do, did her work. But now it will not be possible to do this. ”
“The terrorist threat is now we have such a very convenient pretext for pulling any, most non -estate and unprecedented prohibitions in any field,” Mediaxpert Anton Nosik summarizes in his blog. “I won’t be surprised if in the next anti-terrorist package a ban on ordering goods from behind the border on the Internet is long lobbying for domestic retailers.” 
From mayors to NGOs
Another noticeable victim of the prohibitive activity of deputies may be the elections of mayors of regional capitals. Vladimir Putin, however, at his December press conference said: "Mayors, of course, just choose." But the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (ISEPI), which now performs the functions of the Kremlin “Brain Center”, in its analytical note prepared in December last year for the presidential administration, proposes to leave elections only at the level of districts and small cities.
By March 31, the relevant ministries, together with governors and municipalities, must prepare the concept of local self -government reform - this was instructed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. However, in the Duma, according to Dmitry Gudkov, the project is ready to develop by the end of February - early March. “I know that they are afraid to just cancel the elections of mayors, so now they are collecting local reviews,” said The New Times. The preliminary results of this survey were announced on January 16 by the head of the Duma working group on municipal reform Vyacheslav Timchenko: according to him, the support of Iseper's proposals speaks about half of the 500 reviews of representatives of the regional and municipal authorities received by the State Duma over the past month.
| *As of January 16, 2014, 74 parties and 67 party organizing committees were registered in the Ministry of Justice. |
It will not do without restricting the rights of citizens in the new law on elections to the State Duma - in it, according to the Duma sources of The New Times, another pre -election filter will appear. The municipal, as you know, we already have (in the governor's elections), the criminal one also (the ban on persons convicted of serious crimes, run for any elected posts). And now there will also be party. He will be introduced, of course, "at the numerous requests of the workers." In fact, what, tell me, a working person will want to find in ballots in the Duma elections 2016 as much as one and a half hundred parties*. The Kremlin can only decide which of the ways to “eliminate the excess” to choose-to force new parties to collect signatures, or to allow only those who won at least something at the regional level.
By tradition, the Duma will also “take care of non -profit organizations (NPOs). The authorities have already figured out the most dangerous "foreign agents". Now it was decided to "slightly strangle" those who do not jackal the embassies. To do this, the Law “On NPOs” introduces an “extended list” of the grounds for unscheduled inspections: if so far they have been carried out only at the request of the election commission during elective campaigns, now the Ministry of Justice will also be able to check the NGOs at any time on the signal of the government agencies, on behalf of the president and the government or at the request of the prosecutor. "
“This is generally the property of our authorities: if they are caught on non -fulfillment of the laws, then they then adjust these laws to the current practice”
“In fact, the situation is simply returning to what was before, until 2009,” Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the NOVA information and analytical center, explained The New Times.
However, everyone remembers what massive checks of the NGO were subjected to last spring. But then, nevertheless, some social activists tried to dispute the actions of the auditors in the courts, referring to the lack of legal grounds for the inspection. But now, after the adoption of the Duma amendments, it will be easy to come up with a formal reason for checking. “This is generally such a property of our current authorities: if they are caught on non -fulfillment of laws, then they then adjust these laws to the prevailing practice so that there was nothing to complain about,” Verkhovsky emphasized.
By the way, the revision of the Medvedevsky heritage will not be limited to a revision of the NCO Law. Until the end of January, the Duma must return the investigating authorities to the investigating authorities in December 2011 the right to initiate criminal cases of tax crimes without tax authorities-custom cases for these articles have always been a good increase in salary for security forces. And in the spring, apparently, it will be finally eliminated “forever summer” time (one bill on this subject is already in the plan of the session, and one more should be entered in the coming days). Well, after that, the only one has not yet been canceled by Medvedev will be renamed the police to the police.
Voices from places
The rest of the Duma prohibitions planned in spring, although not so large, are also very sensitive to certain groups of citizens.
| ** Such a norm is contained in the bill developed by the Government in fulfillment of the decision of the Constitutional Court, allowed to challenge the election results not only to parties and candidates, but also to ordinary voters. |
For example, wrestlers for honest elections are unlikely to like a reduction in the appeal of the voting results from a year (as now) to three months **. Many parents will be dissatisfied with the introduction of a single school uniform - although the Duma made sure that this discontent is turned to the regional authorities, which are advaired by the right to make such decisions. Well, lovers of imported cinema will surely outrage the introduction of a quota for a show in Russian cinemas of foreign films: the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky promised to develop and introduce to the Duma on January 13.
Separately, however, it is worth mentioning prohibitive initiatives from below. Their fate has not yet been determined, but many of them, as they say, "fall into the stream."
Thus, Kemerovo deputies advocated the final decision of the “Orphan issue” by introducing a complete ban on the adoption of Russian children by foreigners (with the exception of relatives). Given that within the boundaries of the Kemerovo region such a ban is already valid, the Kremlin can calculate this experience useful and worthy of worthy implementation. Moreover, the consideration of the project is scheduled for April, when the Sochi Olympiad is already over and Russia will no longer need to build a civilized state.
The Communists also have certain prospects about the widespread creation of public councils in the Russian media to protect morality. Over the past 20 years, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has repeatedly made such attempts, but taking into account the current concern of the Kremlin’s concern, the problem of “spiritual clip” the chance of accepting the document is more than ever (by the way, the Duma Committee on Public Associations has already approved).
Of course, there are also completely exotic prohibitions in the Duma plans. For example, the LDPR bill on the ban on television and on the evenings and on weekends. Someone exclaims: “Nonsense! Absurd! How can it be?! " But against the background of the expected defeat of electronic payment systems, the deprivation of advertising revenue television channels in the prime time no longer looks so incredible. Remember the commemorative bill of the deputy Alexander Sidyakin on millions of fines for violating the procedure for holding rallies - in fact, the history of the “inflated printer” began in the spring of 2012? Some three years ago, such an idea would also be considered exotic. But it turned out - the usualness itself.
And yet it is difficult to resist the question: when will the printer stop? And will it stop at all?
“In order to prohibit, this is exclusively a matter of fantasy,” says Alexander Verkhovsky. - Moreover, it is difficult for these people to stop: the deputies will accept scandalous laws now - and what's next? Should they quit everything, or what? Stop "fight with evil"? Well, no, they will definitely come up with something else. ”
Photos: Evgeny Pereverzev/Kommersant, Dmitry Dukhanin/Kommersant