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RFE/RL Newsline
January 6, 2005
THE FSB WEBSITE AS A SYMBOL OF THE PUTIN REGIME
By Paul Goble
Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

The official website of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) marked its fifth anniversary recently by posting a special report showing both how much information this agency, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has released via this channel and how many emails of "operational" interest it has received from ordinary Russians.

The report (posted online at http://www.fsb.ru/new/ofsite.html) notes that the number of items included on the site rose from 1,259 in 200 to 2,504 in the first 11 months of 2004. Over the same period, it says, the number of visitors rose from 11,764 a day to 59,811, and the number of gigabites of data transferred went up from 10,405 to 92,154.

All this is typical of the kind of information that websites normally release when they mark anniversaries. But the FSB report then adds the following: It says that so far this year, the agency has received approximately 30,000 e-mails with what it calls "operational interest" -- a reference to the tips the site has urged people to send in to fsb@fsb.ru.

In one respect, of course, what the Russian intelligence service is doing with its website resembles what such agencies in other countries are doing with theirs: going public with information about what they do and encouraging people to send in information that might help the authorities combat terrorism or other kinds of crime.

But a closer examination of the FSB site underlines just how different the Russian site is from the others. Instead of stressing the ways in which the Russian FSB is distinct from its Soviet-era predecessors, the FSB site insists on perfect continuity, offering a history of Russian intelligence agencies since 1917 (but intriguingly not earlier) and biographies of its leaders from Feliks Dzerzhinskii to Lavrenti Beria to Vladimir Putin to the FSB's current head, Nikolai Patrushev.

Second, the site's language sets it apart as well. In talking about the terrorists and criminals it has tracked down, it uses Soviet-era words and phrases like "destroyed" and "liquidated." And when the site posts pictures of its current operatives meeting with schoolchildren, it electronically obscures the faces of these officers.

And third, the site posts articles by and interviews with FSB officers that underscore just how much influence this agency has gained under Putin. Not only are more officers speaking out than they did five years ago, but they are speaking out on many issues far removed from those normally thought to be the province of intelligence operatives.

But perhaps the most striking part of the FSB website, one that sets it apart from those of other intelligence services, is its contact page (http://www.fsb.ru/contact/contact.html). That page advises visitors that they can give the authorities tips about actual or threatened terrorist actions and/or other crimes or make comments about the site and the FSB as a whole.

The site promises those who do so "guaranteed" confidentiality -- although it adds that "for better organization of work," it would be helpful to provide contact information including telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and postal addresses as well. The site further provides specific email addresses for different aspects of the FSB's work.

And then it makes the following offer, one that perhaps no other intelligence service in the world has made so openly and blatantly: Drawing on existing Russian legislation, the site specifies that "Russian citizens who are cooperating with foreign intelligence services can contact the FSB" to become double agents.

If such people do come forward "voluntarily and in a timely manner," the site says, they will not only be allowed to keep whatever money they have received from these foreign agencies but they also will be freed from any criminal responsibility for their actions -- as long as these have not involved any other kinds of criminal behavior.

Three days after the fifth anniversary of the FSB site, President Putin said at his 23 December news conference that the Internet -- despite all the problems it sometimes creates -- is nonetheless "the most democratic means of distributing information," according to the Kremlin's official website (http://www.kremlin.ru/appears/2004/12/23/1414_type63380_81691.shtml).

But at least some visitors to the FSB website are likely to conclude that this "most democratic means" can sometimes be used for the most undemocratic ends -- even by those who claim to be doing otherwise -- and that as such, the site symbolizes the nature of the Putin regime, one that often appears to be doing just that.

(Paul Goble, former publisher of "RFE/RL Newsline" and a longtime Soviet nationalities expert with the U.S. government, is currently a research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia.)