State Duma considers banning Russians with access to state secrets from travel abroad
Russia’s State Duma has passed in first reading a bill on restricting the right to foreign travel for people with access to state secrets.
New amendments to the federal state secrets and foreign travel legislation contain provisions about denying security clearances to people who have either bank accounts or real estate abroad. Family members of people who have foreign assets may also become ineligible for security clearance.
People who might be potentially barred from foreign travel are not just those with active security clearances. They may also include, for example, attorneys litigating cases that involve state secrets.
The draft legislation provides some exceptions from travel restrictions in situations involving medical treatment abroad or the death of a close relative in a foreign country.
According to Vasily Piskarev, chairman of the State Duma Security Committee, more than 16,000 Russians with security clearances have foreign assets, or else have family members who do. Piskarev also says that, lately, foreign intelligence services have “practically doubled up” on engaging Russians with access to state secrets.
Espionage concerns flare up in Russia
On May 23, the State Duma passed, in the final reading, a related law that will require people drafted into the Russian military to turn in their passports to the Interior Ministry’s migration authority or to one of the “multifunctional centers” of the state bureaucracy.