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Snowden Blasts Russia's Proposed Anti-Terror Laws

Former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden has condemned a proposed set of new anti-terror laws in Russia which would require ISPs to store users’ data for a year.

The proposed laws would also require phone companies to store the contents of all calls and texts for six months, and metadata for three years. The Russian Duma (or lower legislative assembly) voted 325-1 on Friday to approve the bill, which also requires any company encrypting digital communications to assist the government with decryption.

SEE ALSO: Tech Companies Speak Out Against “Dangerous” Anti-Encryption Bill

The law has been presented as a response to the bombing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt in October, the Guardian reports, and includes provisions requiring individuals to warn authorities of plans by others to commit crimes, which some are calling a throwback Soviet repression.

Snowden took to Twitter over the weekend to denounce the “Big Brother law,” saying it will cost money and liberty “without improving safety,” and urging Russian President Vladimir Putin not to sign it into law. He also suggested it could require a “tiny 50Gbps ISP” to set up and run around 100PB of storage to comply.

Russian telecommunication companies have responded critically. The founder of Russian instant messaging service Telegram told a Russian newspaper that “Telegram does not provide data and encryption keys to third parties, including governments,” RT reports. A company refusing to assist in decryption can be fined up to a million rubles ($15,000) under the proposed law.

Russia’s largest mobile phone operators, including MTS, MegaFon, VympelCom and Tele2, sent a joint letter to the head of the Russian Federation Council (or upper assembly) Valentina Matvienko, protesting the law, the Moscow Times reports via newspaper Kommersant. The letter called the measures “technically and economically impractical.” MTS estimated its cost of storage at 2.2 trillion rubles ($33.8 billion), and several of the companies claimed they would cease to be profitable, depriving the Russian government of billions of rubles in tax revenue.

They also pointed out that such mass storage creates a data breach risk, which they argued could threaten national security.

Operating in Russia already poses some unique challenges to technology companies, including data storage laws that led Apple to lease data center space in the country in September.

Snowden was revealed in March as the target of an investigation which resulted in the closure of email provider Lavabit in 2013.

Source: TheWHIR