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(296,893 posts)suppressing *******.
Putin ramps up Internet censorship, citing Google and Snowden to ensure public support
"On March 13, a half-dozen highly trafficked opposition blogs and indie media outlets were suddenly blocked within Russia. The websites including the highly respected Ekho Moskvy radio station and the blog of popular nationalist opposition politician, Alexei Navalny received no notice of the impeding cutoff.
There was no court order, no trial, not even a public hearing. But theres no doubt the move was official: Roskomnadzor, Russias mass media and telecommunications regulator, very publicly announced it in a directive to Russian ISPs, explaining that access to these websites must be blocked for extremism and for encouraging people to attend unsanctioned protests in this case, against Russias annexation of Crimea.
This new formal power to unilaterally block access to any website comes via a brand new Internet censorship law that went into effect on February 1, 2014. Its called the Law of Lugovoi named after its author, State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi, a scary ex-FSB officer-turned-Duma deputy who is better known as the prime suspect in the 2007 polonium assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in London.
MOre..
http://pando.com/2014/03/20/putin-ramps-up-internet-censorship-citing-google-and-snowden-to-ensure-public-support/