A new internet law came into effect in Russia this month. Ostensibly designed to tackle extremist websites, the list of banned sites has already cast a much broader net. Things are likely to get even worse, says Irina Borogan.

Russia’s police are starting to use unmanned drones much more often for monitoring street protest rallies, Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov report. This sinister development has the complete support of President Putin.

In a previous article, Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov asked who was bugging the Russian opposition. Here they develop this theme, looking at how a combination of recent legislation and new technology has allowed Russia’s many security agencies to expand their activities still further.

The Russian authorities became aware of the power of social media late, but have since been making up for lost time with a campaign of dirty tricks against the opposition’s web presence. Irina Borogan and Andrey Soldatov outline the history of the government’s strategy and assess its effectiveness.

In December 2011, Wikileaks released ‘Spy Files’, a project revealing details of the burgeoning surveillance and interception industry. The list of companies providing high-tech equipment to governments included a number of Russian firms, which are emerging as global leaders in the industry. Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan took to investigate how the Soviet Union’s expertise in spy technology is being adapted to the new reality of global capitalism.

Moscow’s protest movement is gathering momentum, bringing in greater numbers and a wider constituency of supporters. What is as yet unclear, however, is whether it has the organisational clout to become a sustained force for change, write Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov.

President Medvedev has made much of Russia’s need for modernisation and advanced technology. One project piloted in some Moscow metro stations involves face recognition using biometric technology. This can clearly be used as protection against terrorism, but given that the organisation which commissioned the project is the FSB, information gained could also be used for other purposes, say Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan