MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. Russian Federation Council (parliament's upper house) passed a law that makes it possible to classify personal information (including information on property) of judges, prosecutors, staff of the Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service, as well as certain categories of the military even without a direct threat to their security.
The authors of the bill point out that currently such a measure can be applied in case of threat to the life or health of an official due to their professional activity. At the same time, according to them, the information on private life of law enforcement and watchdog employees and military officers is "illegally published" online more and more often, which "negatively affects the implementation of their duties."
"It has been proposed to establish the possibility to introduce the ban on providing information to third persons about protected people upon the decision of the security agency regardless of presence of a direct danger to their security, with the exception of consent of the protected person, pre-investigative inspection in a criminal case and implementation of the anti-corruption legislation," the attached memo reads.
The bill amends the law "on state protection of judges, law enforcement and watchdog officials." According to this law, protection measures apply to judges, prosecutors, investigators as well as staff of the Federal Security Service, the Investigative Committee and the police who maintain public order and carry out judicial rulings and sentences. This list also includes servicemen of the Ministry of the Interior’s internal forces, military police, National Guard, Armed Forces servicemen directly engaged in fighting terrorism, foreign military intelligence officers involved in special operations and penitentiary system employees. Besides, the state protection covers the relatives of the abovementioned categories of people.
At the same time, the bill amends the law on police activities, classifying information contained in investigation queries to citizens and organizations. The exception is made for the information published during an open court proceeding, expressed in complaints against bodies carrying out investigative activities, as well as made public by the authorities.