Russia¡¯s main security agency is expanding its sweeping surveillance powers, deepening the state¡¯s reach into economic and social life to suppress any risk of dissent to President Vladimir Putin.
The Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is getting wide-ranging access to corporate databases, telecommunications networks, financial communications and even information on international contacts by scientists under a spate of legal changes.
¡°Every political model has its own beneficiary class. And in Russia the beneficiary class is the security apparatus,¡± Ekaterina Schulmann, a Berlin-based political scientist at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said in an interview. ¡°The system is built, essentially, for the convenience of the security enforcers.¡±
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