Putin signed a law allowing to block communications at the request of the FSB

The President of the Russian Federation signed a law that obliges mobile operators to block cellular communications and landline Internet at the request of the FSB. The State Duma adopted the corresponding amendments to the law “On Communications” on February 18.

The document spells out the FSB’s requirement for operators to restrict the Internet in cases “established by regulatory legal acts of the President of the Russian Federation.” In these cases, the telecom operator is relieved of responsibility for blocking, even if its actions violate the contract with the client.

The original version of the bill stated that the intelligence service would be given a new right “in order to protect citizens and the state from emerging security threats,” but by the second reading of the document in the State Duma, this wording disappeared.

Thus, the adopted law allows the President of the Russian Federation to personally establish conditions for blocking communications in a country or a particular region, without explaining whether there are grounds for this. Previously, the authorities explained the need to adopt the law by attacks by Ukrainian drones.