New Russian Law To Forbid Storing Russians' Data Outside the Country 206
TechWeek Europe reports that on Friday Russia's parliament passed a law "which bans online businesses from storing personal data of Russian citizens on servers located abroad[.] ... According to ITAR-TAAS, the changes to existing legislation will come into effect in September 2016, and apply to email services, social networks and search engines, including the likes of Facebook and Google. Domain names or net addresses not complying with regulations will be put on a blacklist maintained by Roskomnadzor (the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications), the organisation which already has the powers to take down websites suspected of copyright infringement without a court order. In the case of non-compliance, Roskomnadzor will be able to impose 'sanctions,' and even instruct local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to cut off access to the offending resource." According to the article, the "measure is widely seen as a response to reports about the intrusive surveillance practices of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK’s GCHQ. Edward Snowden, who revealed sensitive data about the operations of both, is currently residing in Russia, with his asylum application up for a review in a couple of months." The writer points out that this would mean many web sites would be legally unavailable altogether to Russian users.
Not really surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of countries that already do this at the federal and state/provincial levels. And a lot of companies are following suit, especially after privacy laws have been toughened up by federal law.
popular with Americans (Score:2, Insightful)
These Russian online services will be very popular with Americans.
So they don't have to ask the NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how such a thing is going to be enforced. Seems to me this is more about burdening Russian companies who use western services than it is about securing the privacy of Russian citizens. Besides if Putin forces all Russian companies to keep their data local then his cronies can more easily do their own spying on it, rather than have to beg the NSA to give them access, which given Russia's frosty relationship with the US, is probably pretty much cut off these days.
Re:popular with Americans (Score:2, Insightful)
Americans in general don't care about privacy. There are very few countries where the public gives a shit.
Re:What a shame, but... apk (Score:5, Insightful)
Nationalism aside it's not a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently (Score:2, Insightful)
You are SO poorly educated (I'm NOT calling you "stupid", just saying you had bad teachers) that you do not understand what our founders wrote; For "effects" do not substitute "computer graphics" or Zuck's, Page's or Brin's software. Try substituting the word "stuff" - you'll probably "get it" then. Our founders did not believe the government had any right to dig through and look at ANY of your "stuff" without a valid, explicit warrant from a judge where the investigator/policeman had to swear under oath that his application was accurate; this provided accountability.
Like any good short-sighted progressive, you seem to assert that the internet is some new magical thing that renders the Constitution obsolete; it does not because the constitution is not concerned at all with the specific technology of communications (your right to be secure in your papers and effects has NOTHING to do with whether those are transported by pony express rider or by teleportation device). Half or our founders were inventors and they won the Revolutionary war, in part, aided by the advance of technology in the colonies (for example by pioneering advances in the mass-production of firearms with interchangeable parts). They very wisely knew technology was advancing and would continue advancing and they tied NONE of our rights to any fixed technology. Yes, laws that other men added to our country later are plentiful, sometimes narrow, frequently overlapping, and often tied to various technologies (therefore needing amendments when technology changes) BUT that's NOT the Constitution and many of those laws were narrowly-tailored and tied to bits of tech in the first place as corrupt acts of crony-capitalism.
I know there are people from all parts of the political spectrum who think that anything, when tied to the Internet, becomes something shiny and new, but that just is not the case. The existence of the Internet does NOTHING to the definition of the word "privacy", does not magically obliterate the Constitutional requirements for warrants or anything else. Some judge or prosecutor or patent troll is free to make such assertions, but that just does not hold water.
Oh, and in your wiretapping comment you displayed more ignorance. The Constitution does not give the federal government any wiggle room to wiretap people without a warrant, and it was not permitted to intercept such private civilian communications before progressive judges and prosecutors who claim it is a "living document" started pretending such wiggle room existed. The president arguably has the right Constitutionally to wiretap communications that cross international borders particularly to/from "hostile" countries or "enemies" as part of his authority as "Commander in Chief" but a careful reading of what our founders wrote can lead to the belief that they intended that CinC authority to be in the context of wars declared by Congress. Wiretapping laws at the state and local level are certainly needed both because the Constitution is not designed to regulate the behaviour of individuals toward each other, and because the Constitution leaves all matters it does not explicitly grant to the Feds to the states and to the people themselves. In other words, it's up to California to have laws that keep californians from snooping on each-other, and being snooped upon, in any way that does not involve the Federal government.