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Russia Federal Security Service (FSB)
The FSK was replaced by the Federal Security Service (Federal'naya sluzhba bezopasnosti--FSB) in April 1995. The new Law on Organs of the Federal Security Service outlined the FSB's mission in detail. The FSB regained a number of the functions that had
been eliminated in earlier post-KGB reorganizations. Investigative authority was fully restored by the law, although the FSK had already been conducting criminal investigations on the basis of a presidential decree issued months before. Russia's fourteen
investigative detention prisons and several special troop detachments also returned to the control of the security service.
The 1995 law authorizes security police to enter private residences if "there is sufficient reason to suppose that a crime is being or has been perpetrated there . . . or if pursuing persons suspected of committing a crime." In such cases, related laws
require the officer in charge only to inform the procurator within twenty-four hours after entering a residence. Like the FSK statute, the new law gave the president direction of the activities of the security service, which has the status of a federal e
xecutive organ. Article 23 of the law stipulated that the president, the Federal Assembly (parliament), and the judicial organs monitor the security service. But the only right given deputies of the State Duma (the assembly's more powerful lower house) in
this regard was a vague stipulation that deputies could obtain information regarding the activity of FSB organs in accordance with procedures laid down by legislation. The imprecision of actual oversight functions was compounded by the security law's pro
vision that unpublished "normative acts" would govern much of the FSB's operations.
The law gave the FSB the right to conduct intelligence operations both within the country and abroad for the purpose of "enhancing the economic, scientific-technical and defense potential" of Russia. Although FSB intelligence operations abroad are to b
e carried out in collaboration with the Foreign Intelligence Service, the specifics of the collaboration were not spelled out. The liberal press reacted with great skepticism to the new law's potential for human rights violations and for reincarnation of
the KGB.
Although the FSB is more powerful than its predecessor, FSB chief Stepashin operated under a political cloud because of his support for the botched Chechnya invasion. In July 1995, pressured by the State Duma and members of his administration, Yeltsin
replaced Stepashin with the head of the Main Guard Directorate, General Mikhail Barsukov (see Main Guard Directorate (GUO), this ch.). Barsukov was closely linked to the director of Yeltsin's personal bodyguard organization (the Presidential Security Serv
ice), Aleksandr Korzhakov, who had acquired powerful political influence in the Kremlin.
Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI)
The KGB's Eighth Chief Directorate, which oversaw government communications and cipher systems, and another technical directorate, the sixteenth, were combined as the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (Federal'noye agentstvo
pravitel'stvennykh svyazi i informatsii--FAPSI), of which the former head of the Eighth Chief Directorate, Aleksandr Starovoytov, was named director. FAPSI has unlimited technical capabilities for monitoring communications and gathering intelligence. When
the Law on Federal Organs of Government Communications and Information was published in February 1993, Russia's liberal press protested loudly. The newspaper Nezavisimaya gazeta
called it the "law of Big Brother," pointing out that it not only gives the executive organs of government a monopoly over government communications and information but permits unwarranted interference in the communications networks of private banks and
firms.
The communications and information law authorized FAPSI to issue licenses for the export and import of information technology, as well as for the telecommunications of all private financial institutions. Equipped with a body of special communications t
roops (authorized by the 1996 budget to number 54,000), FAPSI was given the right to monitor encoded communications of both government agencies and nonstate enterprises. This means that the agency can penetrate all private information systems. The law sti
pulated little parliamentary supervision of FAPSI aside from a vague statement that agency officials were to give reports to the legislative branch. The president, by contrast, was given specific power to monitor the execution of basic tasks assigned to F
APSI and to "sanction their operations."
Some of the functions of FAPSI overlap those of the FSB. The FSB's enabling law mandated that it detect signals from radio-electronic transmitters, carry out cipher work within its own agency, and protect coded information in other state organizations
and even private enterprises. No specific boundary between the ciphering and communications functions of the two agencies was delineated in their enabling legislation, and there was even speculation that FAPSI would be merged into the FSB. A presidential
decree of April 1995 defined agency responsibilities in the area of telecommunications licensing.
A critical area of overlap--and competition--is protection of data of crucial economic and strategic significance. By mid-1995 FAPSI director Starovoytov was pushing for a larger role for FAPSI in this area. He began issuing warnings about the intensif
ied threat to secret economic data (including that of the Russian Central Bank) from Western special services, which he said required his agency to take more stringent security measures.
Data as of July 1996
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