Russian Federation Council disconnected from the internet on the day of voting on the sovereign Internet law
The Russian Federation Council members were left without access to the internet on the day they were supposed to vote on the law “on sovereign internet (Runet)”, which provides for the possibility of isolating Russia from the worldwide network and tightening control over internet traffic within the country.
According to TASS, at about 9.30am the Federation Council, due to technical problems, lost electricity in several rooms of the upper house of parliament.
Although after 10 minutes the electricity supply was restored, a number of systems malfunctioned, and the start of the plenary session had to be delayed by 20 minutes.
As the senators themselves said, after a power outage, the server did not start up immediately, and the equipment in the meeting room did not work.
In addition, the internet still does not work. According to Senator Oleg Morozov, monitors and microphones did not work in the meeting room either. “Neither the majority of the staff of the apparatus nor many senators have the Internet. Until it was restored, “Kommersant quoted Morozov.
The law on the sovereign Internet, introduced late last year by senators Andrei Klishas and Lyudmila Bokova, and the deputy Andrey Lugovoy, was approved by the Russian State Duma on April 16.
It requires for an autonomous root domain name server (DNS) system be created in Russia by 2021, allowing, if necessary, to transfer the country to a fully autonomous, internal Internet, which is an analogue of North Korean system.
At the end of 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered to develop such a system stressing the need to protect Russian users from “targeted attacks”.
The key provisions of the law, however, will come into force earlier, from November 1, 2019. Telecom operators will be required to create conditions to minimize the transfer of Russian users’ data abroad, as well as install the equipment of the Russian media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, on their networks that will allow the agency to monitor the internet traffic and block prohibited resources.
In addition, operators and owners of the networks will be required to provide Roskomnadzor with a complete map of lines crossing the Russian Federation borders.
For state and municipal information systems operators as well as company’s information systems making purchases in accordance with the relevant federal law, the government introduced a “ban on the use of databases and technical equipment located outside the Russian Federation for the operation of information systems”.