State Duma Deputy Anna Goryacheva, in her Telegram channel, analyzed in detail the controversial points of the amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, introducing fines for accessing prohibited materials, which www1.ru reported earlier.
The first important point concerns the contradiction with constitutional rights. Goryacheva emphasizes:
A fine for the very fact of gaining access to information - without the purpose of dissemination or public use - risks directly contradicting the basic freedoms of citizens.
The second problematic aspect is the lack of clear legal definitions. This puts journalists, researchers and IT specialists at risk, who need access to various sources for their work.
The wording "gaining access" without clear boundaries creates room for arbitrary interpretation. Where is the line between research interest, professional necessity and "intentional search"?
The third serious problem, according to the deputy, is the threat to privacy. Goryacheva draws attention:
Fixing the fact of reading will require monitoring user actions on the Internet. This inevitably affects the right to privacy and the confidentiality of correspondence.
The impact of the amendments on the technology sector is of particular concern. Without these tools, Russian developers will lose access to neural networks, cloud platforms and software updates. The deputy explains:
This is not just a fight against shadow services. This is the deprivation of tools without which it is impossible to maintain access for Russian IT specialists, engineers and developers to neural networks and ML platforms (OpenAI, Hugging Face, Anthropic), cloud admin panels and CI/CD systems, SDK updates, libraries, and secure development tools. VPN today is not a luxury, but a professional standard. Without it, we lag behind. From the world. From reality.
Goryacheva also emphasizes the unusual way of making changes. The amendments are being introduced to the law on transport logistics, which is not related to the topic of digital rights of citizens:
Once again... Changes that affect the digital rights of millions of Russians are being made to the law on transport logistics - in a completely unrelated topic. Amendments appear between the first and second readings, without broad publicity or discussion.
Deputy Anna Goryacheva believes that it is necessary to properly discuss the innovations and proposes:
- Make exceptions for professional activities (for researchers, journalists, lawyers, teachers, students and technical specialists)
- Differentiate between illegal actions and work needs
- Introduce liability only in case of illegal actions
The purpose of the law - the fight against extremism - is justified. But the methods must be proportionate to the threat. Responsibility should arise for socially dangerous behavior, and not for the fact of interest or obtaining information. Freedom of access to information is not a threat, but a basic condition for a sustainable and legal state. Support for security - yes. But only within the framework of law and balance of interests. Otherwise, under the pretext of fighting the threat, we risk undermining the foundation - citizens' trust in legal institutions, politicians.
Goryacheva summarizes, calling for a more balanced approach.
Earlier, www1.ru reported on the introduction of fines for advertising means of circumventing blocking.
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