Attack on SORM: the national provider will sue the FSB

In December 2015, the Internet Protection Society (OZI), a non-profit organization that aims to protect the Internet in Russia from censorship, excessive regulation and administrative arbitrariness, was formed in Russia.

In February, OZI chose the first three projects to get started. Two of them have already been completed: an index of Internet freedom and monitoring of network connectivity are published. There is a third project left - an attack on SORM.

Now the FSB is forcing providers at their own expense to buy the unnecessarily expensive SORM equipment from a narrow circle of special licensed companies in order to spy on users. Participants in the project OZI are going to sue the FSB about the illegality of the requirements for the installation of SORM equipment at the expense of the provider, since such a requirement directly violates the law "On operational investigative activities." By law, the financing of the OSA should only come from the budget .

Yesterday, activist Leonid Volkov summed up the first three months of the work of the Internet Protection Society and shared his further action plan .
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“It seems to us that everything turned out quite well, in the sense that we correctly identified the sore point,” writes Leonid Volkov. - The amount of news that something will be done with the Internet, something will be forbidden, something will be adjusted growing every day. Therefore, I do not regret that we undertook this; if I regret anything, so that they did not take it a couple of years earlier. ”



Despite the obvious violation of the law, the attack on SORM was not so easy to carry out. The fact is that many providers, who gladly agreed to participate, in the end simply ... were afraid to sign a collective appeal.

In this situation, the PYI decided to create its own provider - the “national provider” - with the sole purpose: to file a lawsuit against the FSB. “It will be purely virtual, we are not going to conduct any commercial activity and provide real communication services. The plan is as follows: we obtain a license for the provision of telematic communication services, collect the minimum possible communication center, and put it into operation. At that moment, by law, the FSB comes to us and demands to agree on a SORM plan and purchase equipment. And we are going to court, ”explains Leonid Volkov.

The price of the issue is small.



Activists Leonid Volkov and Sergey Boyko have already begun to issue a license for telematics, having invested 10 thousand rubles of their own funds in the project. Yesterday they offered everyone to donate a small amount for a good deal - and less than a day received 66 transfers for a total amount of 62 thousand rubles .

Apparently, people liked the idea of ​​a “national provider”. “It is especially pleasant to read the field“ purpose of payment ”: there donators write all sorts of nice things like“ Keep it up ”,“ Win this SORM already ”and, more often,“ To the national operator, ”says Leonid.

He also considers it important to emphasize one thing that not everyone understands about the lawsuit to the FSB: “If you can win, it will not lead to the cost of SORM being transferred from providers to the budget; this will lead precisely to the fact that SORM in its current form will cease to exist. Because he has not fulfilled his nominal destination for a long time, and exists only to shake money from providers. It will become unusable to shake - will be written off for scrap, to the dustbin of history. It's simple. ”

Leonid Volkov also encourages all sympathizers to express ideas and suggestions for the following projects of the Internet Protection Society.