Posted on September 4, 2009 - by Venik

Modern-day KGB accused of breaching civil rights in huge snooping campaign

Russian security service officials opened 115,000 letters and listened in on 64,000 phone calls in six months, figures show

It was James Bond’s most ruthless adversary – a secret spy organisation sworn to defend the Soviet Union, and to administer death to its foreign enemies.

But Russia’s modern-day KGB is far more preoccupied with snooping on its own population than doing battle against troublesome British spies, new figures show.

According to information from Russia’s supreme court, the country’s security services are engaged in a large scale surveillance operation, which includes bugging telephone calls, steaming open letters and breaking into private apartments.

The scale of the operation is breathtaking. In the first six months of 2009, shadowy intelligence officials opened 115,000 letters, and listened in on 64,000 personal phone conversations. They also broke into 11,000 private flats or houses – apparently searching for compromising material, the court said.

Today human rights campaigners accused the Russian government of carrying out a “massive infringement of civil rights”. They said that the Kremlin was exploiting a law on extremism to spy on campaigners, members of Russia’s tiny political opposition, and anyone who disagreed with the government.

“The Kremlin has an exaggerated fear of an Orange revolution taking place in Russia,” Lev Ponomaryov, director of the group For Human Rights, said.

He added: “Anyone who provokes the authorities or is active in civil society is automatically labelled an extremist. That means they fall under a special regime. Under this regime, you can read their letters and listen to their calls.

According to Ponomaryov, the level of surveillance has grown dramatically in recent years, following the 2004 pro-western Orange revolution in Ukraine – the stuff of Kremlin nightmares. He conceded that the Kremlin was battling a major insurgency in the North Caucasus but said most of those targeted for surveillance were not extremists.

“This is on a much bigger scale than anything in the west,” he said. Asked whether he suspected his own phone was bugged, he replied: “Yes, of course.”

Most experts believe there is little prospect of a popular pro-western uprising in Russia. Nonetheless, Russia’s siloviki – the name given to officials working in state force structures – appear determined to quash the smallest hint of insurrection. Opposition rallies are routinely banned in Russia, with demonstrators frequently arrested.

Russia’s domestic KGB successor agency, the Federal Security Service or FSB, is supposed to get court permission every time it wants to bug a phone.

But speaking to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Anatoly Kucherena – a lawyer and member of the public chamber that oversees the security services – admitted that this did not always happen. He said the real figures for state-authorised break-ins and phone taps were probably far higher.

Figures show the supreme court refused the FSB’s requests on a minority of occasions – turning down permission to eavesdrop 1,500 times, to open letters 2,000 times and to enter private flats 1,000 times. It is so far unclear why the supreme court has decided to go public with this information. It has previously been considered a state secret.

Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin – who served as a KGB colonel in former East Germany in the 1980s, and who later became head of the FSB – is not exactly known as a fan of openness. Some believe that Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, and a former lawyer, is behind several recent progressive-seeming initiatives.

Original article

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