Russia to use its pension funds to finance new anti-terror laws

Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade has asked Vladimir Putin to consider granting National Informatics Center, a subsidiary of the state-owned Rostech corporation, the responsibility to store telephone conversations and Internet correspondence, as stipulated by Russia’s new anti-terror legislation.

According to newspaper Vedemosti, Rostech head Vladimir Artyakov sent Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov a letter describing the creation of a single investment body which would “use market-based tools” to fund the project. These tools, the letter read, could very well be “the reliable and profitable investment of [funds from] the Russian Federation’s Pension Fund.”

The exact costs of the project have yet to be determined.

Russia's new anti-terror law, spearheaded by Duma deputy Irina Yarovaya and Federation Council member Viktor Ozerov, grants the government sweeping new powers to combat broadly-defined terrorism and extremism, and saddles Russia's telecoms industry with onerous new regulations that include storing copies of all telephone and Internet conversations.

Last week, Ozerov said that expenses could amount to 3 billion rubles (roughly $46 million), a projection he was based on calculations made by government experts, who previously estimated that it could cost as much as 287 million rubles (more than $4 million) annually to operate the new surveillance technology.