Russia is under surveillance: at least 6% of the population has been tapped

Фото: Depositphotos

During this period, the courts granted four million 517 thousands of four million 695 thousands of such petitions, human rights activists say in their study, citing data from the judicial department at the Supreme Court. At the same time, in just 9 years, 9 millions of people could have been tapped on the basis of a court decision.

Among the media that use "wiretapping" of special services in their materials, the authors of the report call the TV channels Lifenews, NTV and "Russia".

One of the authors of the report, the legal analyst of Agora, Damir Gainutdinov, explained that the number of millions of people in 9 is the smallest possible number of Russians whose conversations could be tapped by special services based on court decisions.

“As a rule, at least two people participate in a telephone conversation. Permission for wiretapping is issued for a specific period, for example, for 180 days. That is, the total number of objects is greater, but we proceed from the minimum possible number, ”said Gainutdinov.

From year to year the number of such requests is increasing, and, more and more often, the security forces are tapping telephone conversations without initiating criminal cases. In 2015, the courts received more than 600 thousands of communications control requests as part of operational search activities. In 2014, there were just over 400 thousands of such requests.

A large number of people whose telephone conversations could be intercepted by the secret services, the authors of the report explain by the fact that, according to Russian laws, not only suspects or accused of committing crimes, but also those who may have information about a crime, can be intercepted.

In addition, the law on operational-search activity provides that telephone conversations can be intercepted to prevent actions that pose a threat to national security. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in December 2015 of the year recognized that by such actions the Russian authorities violate Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Among the people whose telephone conversations were tapped by the secret services during the past years, the authors of the report called politicians Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny, Nikolai Lyaskin, Alfred Koch, Ilya Yashin, Alexander Ryklin, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Garry Kasparov, Maxim Katz, and journalists Sergey Parhomenko and Timur Olevsky.

According to the experts of Agora, “the authorities have at their disposal such methods of surveillance as activity analysis in social networks, control of financial operations, collection and analysis of biometric data, as well as provocations involving state-owned media”.

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