The KGB’s Successor Is Expanding Its Power in Putin’s Russia
A handout photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, of Russian President Vladimir Putin with FSB’s Director Alexander Bortnikov at an FSB meeting in Moscow on Feb. 24.
Photographer: Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images
Russia’s main security agency is expanding its sweeping surveillance powers, deepening the state’s reach into economic and social life to suppress any risk of dissent to President Vladimir Putin.
The Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is getting wide-ranging access to corporate databases, telecommunications networks, financial communications and even information on international contacts by scientists under a spate of legal changes.