Russia plans its own Internet

The state Duma has approved in the first reading a law that Russia's network, in fact, from the global Internet. The Opposition fears: censorship and total surveillance is possible.

By Martha Wilczynski, ARD Studio in Moscow

"Russia wants to test the complete separation from the Internet" - or so the headlines read.

In today's debate in the Russian state Duma, the draft law for the creation of an "Autonomous Internet" was discussed, held the deputies of the government party United Russia, Alyona Arschinowa, on the other hand: "It is not any isolation of the Russian Internet. And certainly not to his transformation in a closed System," she said.

The draft law was only to "guarantee the continuous functioning of our economy and other areas of social life and, most importantly, the legal protection of our citizens, accompany your life is digital."

The draft law provides that the Russian communications developed the Ministry in cooperation with the Supervisory authority, Roskomnadzor guidelines for a new digital infrastructure. Among other things, a private national Domain should be created in the System and new routes for the data transfer.

The goal: independence from foreign servers. Would be affected by these new guidelines, all located in Russia Internet providers and operators of cross-border communication channels. You would be required to install not-yet-unspecified "technical means" to transfer to the state in case of an emergency the control of the provided channels.

unwanted content will be blocked and on the other hand, the authorised channels of communication can be monitored.