this distinguished panel today on a really important set of laws and facts in russia that unfortunately we haven't heard much about in the american or western media. the atlantic council patience has been very if gauged to highlight the increasingly repressive regime under putin and russia going from the corner of the civic space, the media space and increasing pressure on

human rights under putin. today we hosted approximately 20 events to highlight these issues on russia. the atlantic council worked closely with what is considered the emerging or consistent russian opposition in russia tod today. we are really proud of this work and this is part of highlighting some of these works and trends first of all societies, religious groups, and internet freedom in russia. so i would like to introduce our panel. the senior director for russia and eurasia is to my left. he has a ph.d from boston university and developed a civil

society state for many years and thank you for being here. next to him we have -- this event is co-hosted and co-sponsored by the national religious freedom association. kathy is part of the staff on international religious freedom as a senior policy analyst in 2003. she has been an expert on not just the administration but the soviet era and she has lived in many places across western and eastern europe doing during the tough times in the 1990's and before even. and then last about not least we have an our colleague who is a

research study. she has been spending a lot of time in ukraine. she is a peace core volunteer there. she has done a lot of research on mr. putin himself as a personality and political leader. hannah, starting with you. you have done a great deal of work on this. ...

>> anti- extremism and antiterrorism, can we go down to civil society. another form of free expression. my question to you, is this recent by the russian federation that extreme in the russian contacts? is it just another incremental set of laws that really goes in line with what we have been seen and we unfortunately expect from the kremlin today? >> first my thanks to you and to the u.s. commission on international freedom for convening the seminar today. it is very nice to see that these issues are actually being done here in washington. i think over the last couple of years of the events that have been occurring in both western and eastern europe have sort of shifted our attention away from some of the really unsavory kind of things in russia. i'm glad we

have a time to sit down and focus on the religious aspect as well as internet freedom and civil society. to get to your question, it is in a way very incremental. what we are have seen since 2001, sorry 2011 and 2012 at 12 the last time we have parliamentary elections in russia, you saw a large amount of people take to the street protesting what they consider to be a stolen election. protesting the idea that vladimir putin had simply gotten onstage and set i'm going to return as your president and you will essentially have very little choice in the matter. so you saw hundreds of thousands of people protested on the streets and in small places like st. petersburg. ever since that point you really seem latin american pollutants kremlin become concern about

losing control of the prickle situation in the country. i think that your has been exacerbated by what happened in ukraine a year or two later. they saw that there really is this kind of potential for people power for people who are extremely upset and disgruntled with the way that their leaders are handling the country and leaders who are pushing the bounds to far. they thought that that would be a possibility. that is really, you can see a trend in the past couple of years. it has really push them in the wrong direction. you have a full set of these kind of movements, and a full set of these laws and those were named for the parliamentarian arena, who was the one who really push them to the parliament and was the initial sponsor of the bill. these are just another in a long laundry list you could go through of events and decisions and laws that have been pushed through over the past two or

four years that have slowly been eroding the civil rights and civil liberties of russians. i think it is also very important through tension that many of these laws are in some ways targeted toward folks in the in crimea. it doesn't get as much attention as it should. over the last two years you have seen it with these anti- terror laws as they announced are in a way targeting against people like particularly crimean's who are living in crimea who are not very keen on the russian annexations. they're willing to go out and protested willing to say something about the way they are being treated. so you have a situation in which the anti-terror laws can terror laws can really be used to stymie political protest, to put people that the kremlin regime just does not like. people they considered to be potential troublemakers.

to put them in jail, to silence them, and so you are seen a trend toward that direction. unfortunately it is starting to take in other people in its trap. i think kathy is going to talk about what is happening now with the liberties of certain groups of religion. certain different concessions that are not russian orthodox. better jehovah's witness, mormons, all being caught up in this essentially say that we, the kremlin have a better idea of what it means to be a russian. if you do not fall within those ramifications then you are out. >> so you're really describing

the centralization of control over society not just in politics and the economy which we come to expect from the kremlin for quite some time. but this trend now on centralizing control over religious institution and also specific states. and it is something that we need to see more attention to. it's like the next step overall in the system of control that we have established. you also talk about crimea and this idea of the revolution and it causing a great fear of the regime. i will go back to that because as most of you probably know russia will be holding its next election in a couple of days, the sunday and it is the first time they're held in crimea as well. i think we should come back to this. so i like to kinda take this over to you for a moment. you work for the national for

democracy which specializes in the development of civil society. already we are starting to say civil society and rushes under pressure. increasingly hostile increasingly hostile laws such as the foreign asian law, a law which really is about the trend of oppression. and this information campaign to humiliate publicly on television and even suffer physical threats and reprisal. yet many many russian domestic organizations continue their work in russia. could you tell us a bit more about the challenges the civic groups that are so working in russia despite the many challenges continue to face? >> thank you. that. that is a great way of introducing the topic. i want to start also with the protest of 2011 and 2012. which suppressing future protest like that is the theme of the various repressive laws that have been passed. among the first of them was the

foreign agents law which was passed in 2012. you can, in a way compare the legislation that just came into port in july is a one of the theories of worsening pieces of legislation. so what did the kremlin want to clampdown on? it wanted to clampdown on public assembly. so much efforts at this point, even individual pickets can be seen as mass disturbances. people can get jail time. law and extremism, a law on extremism has now been applied to online so there are four or five you new cases in the last year people going to jail for liking something on facebook or reposting something on other

sites. usually the content is pro-ukrainian and this is a way it might be. there is a case where a young lad went to gel for three years for reposting pro- ukrainian content to 12 people. so there is a kremlin sense from 2011 and 11 in 2012 that protest can break out anywhere. not just from organizers but from falling to volunteer groups the internet needs to be controlled and it is increasingly control. kathy will talk about the religious fear but -- went to jail for last for me essentially. it was like like a witch trial and three young people went to jail for blasphemy. the foreign agents law, there is

a character in the hemingway novel who lost his money first gradually and then all at once. that is kind of think limitation of these laws. first gradually for a few organizations. initially the foreign agent was written so you had to go and voluntarily put yourself on the list. of course no one did,. no one put them on the foreign agents list. so it was rewritten so that the m bd and justice industry puts you on the list. another is is 157 organizations, organizations are finding it in court. among the most recent to the foreign agents law, so the russian contact said you find yourself as a foreign agent is to simply say i take money from abroad, i am a spy in the 1930s the stalin's set millions of people to their death basically

of a charge of be in a agent. so for russian organizations to themselves as a foreign agent is reminiscent of that. so so among the most recent additions to the foreign agents registry is the -- center. that is independent pollster, that found that united russia has declined in support in the most recent poll they found that united russia, putin's a party has 31 percent. very quickly after that they were declared the foreign agents and put on this list. effectively shutting them down a couple of weeksbefore the parliamentary elections. the last was a wonderful metaphor of what is going on, any kind of violent tear is on volunteerism so the summer there's forest fires and two

environmental volunteer groups organized volunteer firefighters to go fight for spires. so they were stopped by forcefully stop by the emergencies in ministry. you have the russian state stopping volunteers who are trying to fight forest fires and then declaring environmental watching caucus a foreign agent. you have civil society trying to do something helpful and beneficial, you have the state doing everything they can to suppress it because god for bid anybody does anything independently. in the meantime you still have the forest fire. so it's a wonderful metaphor for what's going on in russia right now. >> i think to import things that i want to emphasize of what you said to get people to understand what the situation for russia and russia is today. one, in in the u.s. context it is impossible for us to imagine that if you like a friends post on facebook that this could

actually have legal, criminal consequences. this is really extreme and the profound sense of that word. on on the other hand, the recent development particularly with the bravado center being put on the agents list is worrisome. it shows how closely the kremlin is watching the civic groups. when there is something that is is just even a small bit against what the current government sees as what needs to be done, what should be done, organizations are not holding their party line so there be a basically immediately shut down. this was happening almost immediately. so i wanted to kind of dig a little deeper on the civil society question. so these specific laws are focusing now, how are are they

really going to further affect the work of civic groups in russia today? >> the foreign agents of targeted organizations, they target everybody. it has some shocking provisions. one of which which is an obligation, legal obligation to inform an advance of potential criminal acts. again it's in the 1930s type of legal standard how that is supposed to function and what that means. it's legal obligation to to become an apartment. in that piece of it is not discussed very much at all. the other piece that is astonishing are the internet provisions. the application by internet providers are loosely defined anyone who is in that sphere to

collect and store all data, photos or anything that looks at the internet and russia has to be stored, it's contact has to be stored for six months, government has access to without any it without any warrants. it's a system of total surveillance. metadata has to be stored for three years. the idea is that this, in addition to that, all encryption company must provide encryption keys to the government again, without any warrants, anonymous accounts are impossible if a provider or provider is obligated to terminate an account of a person cannot be identified through the account. and nullifies privacy completely.

so it just goes for the population instead of organized informal groups. but the implication of that set of provisions is is huge. it also, one of the things that we think about is that when one country adopts a set of rules you can expect others to as well. in the sphere of internet the idea that some companies may start providing backdoors or somehow breaking encryption, what i should say about it is also the technical requirements are kind of ridiculous. there is not a lot. if it's end-to-end encryption it's probably not impossible to break. but the direction of this

is very dangerous because if it is accepted in one place they can become accepted in another. the way the internet works if it's compromised here can be compromised elsewhere. these pieces, although what i've said about the other law it wasn't traditionally enforced but it is now very much in force. so the other will be tweaked a little bit and enforced maybe not such a ridiculous form but in a some kind of equally dangerous form not too long from now. so just the fact that the law is written so broadly and it covers so much that today it's not enforced the law does not mean, it's just too early yet, for the potential employer mentation is extremely troubling. >> let's go back closer to the ends to talk about these broader ramifications. not just for the domestic society but for other potential diffusion across a regime

specifically, and i do want to talk a little more about more on the underreported consequence of the law which you mentioned is the application to become a servant in your peers which goes back to some of the dark. of the soviet union. another aspect i think it has been underreported that i would like kathy to talk about is the consequences of these laws of various religious groups that function in russia today. so could you tell us a bit more, hannah started talking about it. how the new laws or these religious groups in which religious groups are being affected and are most likely to be affected in the future? >> before doing that i wanted to mention one other aspect of the law that i consider particularly mind blowing i suppose. and that is that it lowers the age of

criminal responsibility to 14. for numerous an actual supposedly terrorist crime. so so that in addition to making a crime to fail to report a possible crime, in other words to inform on your neighbors, stall and style, now children as young as 14 can be held liable for crimes. also i wanted to mention that the internet provisions, there is a lot of complaints from the community, the technical companies that are involved in all of this because it's just enormously is expensive to do with the law requires. so even they, or they were even granted an extension. so that those requirements do not go into effect for another year. so we'll see what happens. >> is pointed out as far as religious aspect is concerned

there are many ways in which religious community may, and are ready are being affected by the law. one is again, this applies not just to religious community there are enhanced penalties under russian extremism law. and they affect all kinds of people in civil society, crimean -- and of course religious believers. there is one aspect of the extremism law that gets not much reporting but we do report it in the chapter from our annual report which is available in print and of course online. also in russian by the way our chapter from our annual report and that is that there are now 3800 items on russia's officially banned books, materials, internet sites. many of them are religious material, majority of them are muslim.

which do not add or pay for violence in any way. there is in fact a major scandal, i believe a year ago when they tried to ban a translation of the koran which has been with very popular with translating by very popular scholar into russian. and that was overturned. so works that are on the extremism list can be overturned with extreme difficulty. also, i won't go into detail, it's mind-boggling, the limitations of this aspect of the extremism law which affects not just religious believers of course and it does include some materials which are generally hateful for example it took them several years but mein kampf is on the list.

this only applies to a specific addition. so that would just give you of flavor of how mind-boggling and complex that aspect of the law is as well. the extremism law has been used also against religious community. two particular aspects, if a community has been ruled by court to be allegedly extremist then any person who is active in this legally legally liquidated community is liable for criminal prosecution. so which groups are the most affected by that? a pacifist group, jehovah's witnesses, and the other, those to read the works of a well-known turkish, kurdish --

why we would see this on the list of officially banned material? probably because russians feel funny about the fact that an estimated 20 million of the population are muslim and are turks or at least tartare's who are turkish. and you know enough to know that the caucus means language mountain and indeed it is. and then the the majority then of course are muslim as well. so the potential is huge. but to get back to the and many of them, a majority of them are muslim as well. to get back to the other dialogue, as usual when dealing with russia is interlocking directorate which is complex to disentangle. and religion, the 2012 lot of sending religious feelings or

sentiments, it amended the criminal and administrative code and i want to mention two vivid examples of the way in which that law has been used or is being used as one is an atheist who is on trial for at least his trial started in march of this year. he went online being extremely skeptical about religion in general. but his on trial for offending the russian orthodox community. in september -- it speaks for itself. a russian video, perhaps considering -- he is in house

arrest because he posted a video of himself playing pokémon in a russian orthodox cathedral. these examples show you the flowery excesses of all of this. i won't go into great detail about the numerous provisions except to say that this is one requirement that religious communities in order to be able to function as religious groups is one step towards requiring that they be registered with the state which is not currently required. because the only people who can legitimately engage in limited

but still visionary activity are those who are either clergy or on the board of registered religious communities or have written permission from a general meeting of the religious community. they can only engage in this activity in very limited places, inside buildings or on land owned by registered religious communities. as many of you know, often deny permission to build churches in russia, then you have to choose or refuse registration, choose not to register because it goes against their religious belief to register with the state. so they are then only allowed -- not going to be allowed to hold

informal religious services in their own homes because if there is one single non-official member of the religious community present in that apartment or house or whatever, then they will engage in missionary activities and have gone to town against several individuals in various parts of russia for engaging in missionary activity. mormon missionaries have been denied permission to come because they don't have proper documentation. the first who was tried and acquitted, the only one who has been acquitted as a commissioner. that breathless, hopefully not too confusing situation. >> in the interest of time i

want to go back and have plenty of time for audience questions. some of the things you talked about, the online space, i want to get your thoughts on that. a law that allowed the government to shut down the blog with known opposition leaders, the online space in russia today, one of the last spaces for public open discussion and that is also closing, the things miriam described to provide and store information on users and provide open access to the government, to provide

encryption, these are too expensive to enforce, for the private firms that provide those services to do that, require a great deal of capacity but do you think the kremlin is likely to use information it has access to and for what purpose? >> a very interesting question. several years back there was discussion whether russia would be interested in following the same path the chinese are taking on building the great internet firewall, most of the consensus was russian internet was too free and open. building the chinese system would be impossible. and russians will be attempting to build their own version of a controlled internet. russians have gotten used to

having ability to go on websites around the world, russian twitter is reasonably active so they are used to the use. and this could be a protest. to create and implement and enforce, all of the data. come back to the russian government or telecommunication companies for three years, text messages and pictures people send over there cell phones, that is the kind of thing you can see will be useful if they are attempting to prosecute

people in major protest, and in 2012. the kremlin essentially went to the then owner, the kind of russian version of facebook and they said we want this information, we want to access what users have written. the creator and owner said absolutely not. he had the entire company taken away from him, put into the hands of pro-kremlin businessmen and he is now in the same situation. he has a new company, telegraph, a popular encrypted apps you can use for messaging with your friends and with these orders of giving up encryptions keys, there is some question what

happens to companies that refuse, what happens to companies, attempts to make companies like google, gmail, keep the information of users on russian oil, in california and europe. will the russian government have their hands, will they have to band these apps, will they block them? will they take over, take away these mechanisms like telegraph, gmail? will their hand be forced? if so what will that mean for the way russians choose to interact with the world? that is extremely interesting question. >> one thing you point out is given where we are with technology globalized, if one company forces shutdown others

replace it, the government has to be involved, the question we should consider, incredible amount of metadata we have access to and it is not clear to me the government, the russian government has the capacity and capability to use it and analyze it. is this about having the population a sense of being surveilled or is it about social control more than it is about access to specific information. >> if i can jump in for a moment i think another piece of this is to look at the behavior of large american companies. we saw in china companies buckle and it is important to take a courageous stand.

and how companies behave, facebook moderation that account, and controls complain about in a targeted way, famous commentators and get taken down. and a whole petition, 100 prominent opposition, they handle moderation, and accounts the russian government, and major figures signing a petition

to take a look at how you are handling russian accounts and for us, and in other states -- >> russian orthodox, alternative russian orthodox, runs a website called portal, basically no longer partially no longer lives in russia, the russian orthodox church with which he is affiliated, included earlier this month, call in by the

security services, and was forcibly removed, but video of that, and was very much involved in publicizing that. >> the question i wanted to ask, and authoritarian regimes. it is the top of the policy agenda. why should the united states in western countries, why should they care about this? >> lots of protestants and evangelicals do care, quite a few, one in particular very

lengthy letter signed by 100 representatives of religious organizations from all over the united states and i should also mention the church of scientology has provided space and support for these efforts as have many other churches. i should say it is interesting that franklin graham call the huge world summit in support of persecuted christians has decided not to hold the summit next may in morocco but will hold it in washington instead. 100 religious leaders from 100 countries are scheduled to take part in this and franklin graham

has said specifically not doing this because of that. it affects a lot of americans people and especially in that movement and religious freedom does not get the attention as a foreign-policy question and many other issues and environmental issues you pointeded out. >> i want to ask what is happening, about the way some of the laws, closing space for different religions have a tendency to trickle down to

other post-soviet countries. and quite clear that russia implements one law altered to do something similar. there is a trend, is pakistan, they tend to take the page from what russians do and you see these many instances. no one cares what russia does, these tend to feel we can get away with it too. >> right now, considering the law, i don't know if they are as

stern but are significantly reorganizing their government structure to deal with religion. >> mimicking of the law is all true but a lot closer to home and the washington post, russian hacking and us elections. trust and confidence, russian hacking of the dnc that material leaked, wikileaks deliberately compromising a presidential candidate, trying to influence us elections. and russian abuses in cyberstates are major us domestic issue.

you don't need to go very far to see the relevance. >> i want to open up to audience questions. please introduce yourself, give us your name, and in the back, please. >> thank you for mentioning the washington post article, leads to what i am talking about was the allegation of russian involvement and colin powell's email. to what degree do you think this interference has to do with a tit-for-tat approach we see with covert and us government support for domestic russian opposition groups and overt support for the ukraine. >> i don't think this is in any

way a tit-for-tat, russia has clearly chosen sides in the us election and they are trying to manipulate, we have seen similar operations in other places, germany for instance with the scandals. there were allocations that were completely false, manufactured by russian media and destroyed germany's consensus in favor of accepting refugees. there are instances where russia manipulates internal politics and that is what they are doing here. is not tit-for-tat for us

policy. [inaudible] >> the united states does not support -- the united states does not hack and release documents of united russia for instance. there is no parallel between the behavior of these governments, to support russian opposition parties, does not hack vladimir putin's servers. >> just to follow. >> it could but it doesn't, it hasn't done that.

>> arguments we are engaging in go to the heart of russian disinformation campaigns have become over the last we 10 years and accelerated in 2012, to undermine trust in democratic institutions, making the argument us and western european countries do the same thing and that is not true. that is the kremlin mind that is consistently out there and in the united states right now, countries in ukraine, georgia etc. it is just that right now it is incredibly brazen of the russian federation and russian affiliated hackers to leach out and use these abilities in a western country and we are experiencing that so it is not new, how russia tends to

manipulate and seeks to influence politics across the globe. the next question, yes? >> i have a masters degree in security studies. you expressed a bit of concern about the legislation on uncertain types of things. several instances of terrorist attacks that intelligence services never would have picked up but people knew about. i am wondering is mandatory reporting something we see as a legitimate counterterror tactic or something morally unacceptable for governments to force? >> part of the problem is how

you define terrorism. and the legal practice does. in the extremism law, there is no necessity to advocate violence, this is opening the window very wide to allowing citizens to report neighbors they don't like because they seem in a semi-religious tone given the vagaries of the russian judicial system and legal tradition. i think it is written and conceived of in too wide and vague a way. >> i agree, context is everything. i understand where you are coming from but the way these

laws are applied are different context than what is at stake. >> herb rose. the events of the past week have stimulated thinking of some of what is going on in russia and two words come to mind, irony, and read a hard copy of the newspaper, washington post, they have seen an ad sponsored by the aclu requesting its node in be pardoned for his activities and

it seems ironic now that what is going on in russia has been the revelation metadata has been used to find out what is going on on the internet and what i am wondering is any portion of the russian public and i don't think the word horrified is too strong a word which took place in the united states when a lot of people learn their metadata has been checked. any portion of the russian public horrified by what they learned about use of metadata? be change there are a couple interesting things, and snowden has come out against this law

and is quite horrified, these are implemented against the russian people. there was in the initial stages of the drafting of this law, people who were convicted under this law -- that particular provision and it was very quickly when it became clear, was quickly removed from the law but there was a feeling in the air that that is added back in later on once they are acclimated to the current law. and certainly there have been groups of people who are upset about this reality, the difference is the russian press

is controlled by the government so you won't see the same aclu ads in moscow. and what -- happened a couple years ago. it was a different picture. there have been protests but not on the same scale because they have gotten there because of the way the law has been implemented slowly over time, got used to the government being in their business. people who live through the soviet era, not that strange anyway. >> there have been, why did they want to shut down the internet? and among young people there was a poll recently 22 to

40-year-olds, and the search engine, use the television which is significant, online petitions signed opposition, there are two online petitions each with 500,000 signatories, there have been numerous protests. go to jail for protests? 5000 people showing up in moscow, pretty big deal. individual tickets, smaller protests in other parts of the country. there are russians who are opposed, the companies themselves, internet providers are bankrupt so their unions and advocacy organizations, business interests connected to the internet are in opposition to

this law so i would take it as a kind of -- it floated down and there is an acknowledgment you can't implement this anytime soon. . >> many protests from religious leaders, a major muslim deputy before the law was passed, they protested and i should say there are all kinds of oddities to the way this law was put together. the defense committee has total control over the wording,

religious affairs, anti-missionary provisions were produced by the first -- it has been overturned. and on the national level russian officials are critical of anti-missionary shut down. >> one question i want to pose to the panel is the timing of these laws. what we have seen the kremlin do is something -- another clampdown, the lobbying passed. the elections are this weekend. is this connected? the last massive protest we have been talking about around the election at that time. is this and anxiety attempt by

the kremlin to prevent a similar outburst of protests or is it not connected to the election and it is part of the legal process? >> as they like to say in russia it is not accidental. it is passed on the last day of session. >> i think i agree. those parliamentary elections were moved up from when they were scheduled in september of this year and moved up to september by the kremlin because there was concern on the part of the kremlin that something similar might happen again and hoping to forestall those instances. >> one more question.

>> i am unaffiliated. the crackdowns occurring in russia and elsewhere on civil society, what is the united states's response to that other than just complain about this? any specific thing we can do or incentives we can offer or do we just continue complaining? >> the state department did issue a statement which i checked very recently but it has only appeared on the us delegation. as far as i know it has not appeared on the us embassy in moscow's website. the statement was in the finest tradition of wording. >> there is more that can be

done but is not happening right now. one thing that disturbs me a little bit is these laws are put out under the name anti-terror, anti-terrorism. this current administration does see russia as an ally in fighting isis and terrorism and there is a history of terrorism that we are not paying as much attention to as we should. the russian government learned the labeling. >> that is a great point. these laws are focused on russian society at large, part of the national security package. russians have been passing these represses laws under the label of anti-terrorism and security which exists. i will not intervene in posing

russian or national security laws. and learned how to use language of human rights and anti-terrorism to increasingly pass the opposite of those values. do you have a comment? >> there are all sorts of international standards, laws and norms we refer to more frequently. russia's behavior internationally, contributing all kinds of international standards. >> if i complain, what else can we do? we can be clear in our approach.

>> these laws are not tied to the current sanctions regime imposed on russia's actions in ukraine and crimea. this should make policymaker's feel more confident a sanctions regime should be maintained because russia domestically is moving in the right direction. >> patrick tucker with defense. the fsb, russian intelligence service has been getting a lot of press, one of the groups suspected of, through opaqueness, breaking into the

dnc, stealing a lot of data and operationalizing that data by releasing through wikileaks and other proxy publication services so talk a little bit about the fsb. is that method of data theft and crediting opponents something you see in play in terms of dealing with dissidents in russia and how do russian people, russian incidents perceive fsb in their activity. >> >> there have been instances, different tactics and different situations, putting sex tapes on television, discrediting leaders

for the opposition party, clearly hidden video, people who, why was it done, at that point, a clear leader of opposition of several parties. his private life was taped, it is purported to be people i should say. and private conversations are assaulting, this tape was used to make sure russia opposition parties will not enter into the

election period. the sort of thing, becomes a basic element of controlling the political context in russia. >> a more simple example, i was told russian opposition politician studying music in london told his son would have his fingers broken unless a politician mended his ways. >> all types of propaganda campaigns, and sinister forces who are manipulated from abroad, fear and discredit whole

categories of people. individuals are occasionally plucked out and it becomes a subject of intense denunciation and this is done periodically, different scapegoats are identified and a light is shined. >> the random selection nature of how they are used is effective for the population. it is not clear. these laws are the disposal of various government agencies when they feel like targeting an organization, you never know when you are the target if it is part of the process. the other thing, how do russian citizens think of this? we won't ever actually know

that. we have lost access to the only independent polling in russia today so the information we are going to get from russia going forward was tainted by the government perspective. >> the kgb has a long history of collecting compromising material, the same thing miriam mentioned and setting up these situations whether they are hunting traps or video cameras it is gathering information today that can be used in the future to make political gains and earn political points and

the hacking of political parties and political systems is not something new. the famous hacking they did in estonia took most of the country online in 2007-2008. i was in ukraine as an election observer and a few days before the election, parliamentary election was supposed to happen, it was taken off-line most likely by the russians. the ukrainians are quite tech savvy themselves. they were able to back everything up but it is not something outside the norm of what they would do. to meet it fit very much in the same kind of pattern and use of seen it go a little further, taking part of the ukrainian electoral grid off-line. these are capabilities the russians have and are happy to use when they see an opening.

>> i am the editorial russian outlet. don't you think institutionalized prosecution of political opponents in russia, inclusion of the infamous article, assignment of social, religious, ethnic hatred and in that time, total abolishment and

the parliamentary party,. >> russians are masters at issuing many restrictive laws and things i have come to understand, the court system is organized or disorganized, there is no precedent and in one place can rule one way but court in another regionals a different way and the court ruled another way, doesn't influence how the court's and lawyers can give a better explanation so in short there are many restrictive laws and what we are pointing to is

another in the arsenal. >> do we want to do comments? is that on? i have a lot of history in this area and the question but to get to the deck of lack of precedent all civil offices do not have a formal precedent like a common law system. having said that it is not supposed to be completely random. there is supposed to be consistent interpretation of the code. and my question is how technology is a game changer. everyone made reference to the fact, everything old is new again. a tool of total social control

is not an invention of the regime, has been going on hundreds of years depending on where you pick in russian history, incompetent attempts at control and what is obtained in the 1980s, and how this new technology, collection of metadata that i don't understand, and on either side, russian government don't attempt to control social organizations, and how it works on behalf of the other side to maintain

openness, content. >> the internet first became a thing, expectation the internet doesn't change the way people connect with each other, a great tool civil society activists can use and this might change for the better and that has been proven to be incorrect because we have seen with every step, every progress made in the technological sphere you create telegraph. these governments have in their best interests to push back on those. they may not get control of proprietary information and the fears of gaining encryption

codes to be able to gain access to proprietary information of other technological systems, they are moving at the same speed as the creation of new technologies. we have seen some innovation on the side of democratic activism, when the law was passed last year that bloggers with 2000 hit that they had to register official news sites and put under the control of the same kind of sensors as the russian media. a lot of bloggers affected by that decided to do something different and had a sign up list on their website and you would give an email only to one

person, the blog contained inside so being able to circumnavigate the restrictions of these laws, it is getting a lot harder. what miriam was saying earlier about concerns about facebook and twitter being appealed to by the government when we don't stand up and take notice, ordinary normal citizens don't stand up and say hey, calm down, let's get people to investigate this and make sure governments and large corporations like facebook and twitter are cooperating with governments you may end up in a situation where our worst fears about control of the internet can come through. >> that is a great question

because it gets to the theme of what we expect of the internet. there used to be this phrase liberation technology, social media, it remains -- the main vector of free speech. that is where content can be shared, people can meet and discuss and it has for a long time been open. it reflects our moods about the internet, larger forces in the world. as things were liberalizing globally the internet was flourishing and a global clampdown in greater authoritarianism, they are using the internet for surveillance and repression and so forth, something inherent in the technology, it is part of a

broader global trend. that is an important question. i am not sure how to get at that. it is simultaneously the best avenue for free speech in many places that are repressive and at the same time closing, contains within it potential for greater forms of surveillance and we should never underestimate innovation of the russian people specifically to get around these restrictive measures. we are moving closer in that

direction again. literature, music, the regime, very informally, we can use encrypted networks and messaging services and that is being done. technology is an enabler, and as people live their regimes more broadly have been very savvy using those tools to undermine the regime. >> a quick note. i want to point -- i would say we, meaning the russian state, has gone further back to the

19th century. the famous trend, and in the russian orthodox church, and not only inside russian society but in foreign policy. >> it seems to me the issue you spoke about exist in many countries where you have authoritarian regimes who maintain control and try to mask violations of human rights, terrorism or security, the

russian orthodox church, the mosque, religious community, official understanding of islam so if you violate that, they use these laws to quash any forms of dissent against evidence that are authoritarian and not democratic. my question is how much do you think the united states broadness for open the pandora's box about going after terrorist and tens of thousands of people put in other grades or brought people into guantánamo who didn't belong there. and moral high ground, can't use

tourism in broad strokes. some are using the playbook for analysis, using terrorism to do things that were not appropriate. >> i will respond first. international law does not allow restrictions of legitimate practice of religion in the name of public security or anti-terrorism. that is the high international standard which many countries violated and when we think of russia we should remember what russia has done in various wars in chechnya. be change i would have said -- particularly when it comes to using the idea of security, russia learns that in the 1990s

when it was fighting these wars in chechnya dealing with ideas of separatist states, there was a movement on religious or different things to break away as a whole, and certainly utilized. >> time for one more question. >> the lithuanian american community, the last question i want to see if anyone will venture an answer, how many more cycles of repression do we have

to live through in russia to get them to be a western democracy? i have european background and i think of russians as europeans and feel terrible for russian democrats. it is a lonely place to be. how many cycles of this are we going to see? a western liberal democracy china before we see western russia? >> anyone want to take a stab at that one? change it will always be in a kind of -- thank you. >> i don't think any of us have a crystal ball to say what is going to happen.

i think i hope -- i hope a lot of people have is you go to russia, particularly the larger cities more open then 1989, there has been a change, every day lives of people have been much freer for 25 years and perhaps the putin regime will close again but i don't think it will ever go away unless that generation of people came of age during perestroika and glasnost, they move on and die. i have a hard time thinking the country will completely go back to the 1930s but the fact that those symptoms are there is something we should be worried about.

>> rusty is the most religiously diverse country in the world. rather than embracing this and making the best of it which it could, it is certainly in its power as we have been discussing. >> i will into you with quotes from two russian dissidents. in the 1980s, living in the us, published this book called the russian idea in 2000 and went into cycles of russian history that said liberalism never becomes systematic, if you trace russian history, always suppressed by horrible dictatorship that slowly, there is an opening, everything changes to suit stereotypes of

political change. if you are projecting that to what is happening now you would see it, you would see the 1990s, a liberalizing period but can't systematize itself and goes back in a few quarters that are similar. there is always another one. a year after the killing in moscow, no one should speak because it shouldn't be politicized with a small group of people, and exhibit of photographs, we said we are not going to politicize, people are

standing around awkwardly. there is an older gentleman with an umbrella and a young man helping him and he takes off his raincoat and he starts to pray. he turned around and said what is this faith you are supposed to have? what is it? that goodwill triumph even here in russia. . >> thank you for joining us today and thank you to our panel. thank you again to the united states commission. if you have time after the session for questions, we should really close at this point so

thank you for joining us, really fascinating discussion, thank you. [applause] >> i do want to say -- >> take it outside.