MOSCOW - Russia's most feared counterintelligence service prepared to take on even wider powers under a law approved Friday in the lower house of parliament, and critics warned that the country was sliding back toward Soviet-era repressions.
The FSB, a modern-day successor to the Soviet KGB, will soon have the authority to issue warnings to people who have broken no laws but are viewed as potential criminals.
Rights monitors have criticized the law as a throwback to the times when Russians lived in fear of state persecution for appearing ideologically objectionable. Many warn that the measure will be used to further silence dissent against the government.
"It's a plain attempt on the part of the FSB to return to the old KGB methods ... when a person committed no crime but still became an object of KGB attention," said Nikita Petrov, a historian with the Memorial human rights group who specializes in the KGB.
Despite the outcry, the bill sailed to a 354-96 vote in the Duma on its final reading Friday. The bill still needs the approval of the upper house, but that step is widely seen as a foregone conclusion.
Asked about the bill Thursday by a reporter, President Dmitry Medvedev intimated that he helped to craft the bill and that foreign observers had little business questioning it.
"I would like to turn your attention to the fact that it is our domestic legislation, and not an international act," he said. "Each country has the right to perfect its own legislation, including that which affects special services. And we will do this."
The legislation was proposed during the tense weeks after two suicide bombers attacked the Moscow subway, and its stated goal was to stanch the growth of radicalism among Russian young people.
Lev Ponomarev, a veteran activist with the group For Human Rights in Moscow, said liberals in Russia were seeing the bill as a litmus test for Medvedev and were surprised to hear him take credit for it.
Said Ponomarev: "This is a pretty important moment."
NEWS SERVICES