Questions are different, the result is one
The newspaper Military Industrial Courier publishes these materials to familiarize readers with the presentations made at the general meeting (military science conference) of the Academy of Military Sciences at the Cultural Center of the Armed Forces 28 in January 2012 of the Year (MIC, No. 3, 6, 8 ). Today we are talking about one of the most complicated problems of recent times - cyber threats, as well as measures to ensure the internal security of the country. Is it possible to interact in these areas of Russia and the United States?
How to avoid ethnic tension
Russians fears
I want to stress right away that in the Russian reality there is a huge distance between the declared guarantees of security and the feeling that people are protected. Moreover, here lies one of the most important contradictions, without eliminating which it is impossible to talk about any results in resolving this issue. It is due not only to the low efficiency of state structures, but also to the peculiarities of our mentality. Research suggests that Russians value more personal security and personal freedom. Thus, the priority of personal safety during the survey indicated 52 percent of respondents, personal freedom - 27.
Monitoring covered those problems that are most typical for the Republic of Bashkortostan. They (in descending order) look like this: loss of work and livelihood, illness of an incurable disease, criminal violence, alcoholism, environmental disaster, man-made disasters, terrorism, extremism, corruption. In the country as a whole, the sequence of assessing the severity of problems is as follows: economic crisis, alcoholism and drug addiction, military threats, corruption. For some reason, the threat of corruption in our region manifested itself less than at the level of the entire Russian Federation. A military threat is not considered at all. That is, it is also about objectively informing the population about these problems.
A serious threat to many regions has been migration. Regulated, latent and spontaneous, potential and real - both in Russia and out of it. According to sociologists, the percent of respondents would like to leave the RF 13 forever (two times more than 10 years ago), 35 percent would leave only for work. In general, about 50 percent of Russians for various reasons would like to leave their home country.
In reality, migration to Russia with its positive influence on the labor market also carries with it problems. Thus, over the past 10 years, out of every thousand migrants, more than half have remained here - 566 people. The appearance in different territories of a large mass of visitors from outside the borders of the Russian Federation was reflected in interethnic relations, the structure of crime. Our research allowed us to establish a paradoxical situation. Against the background, it would seem, productive work with crime among the population is not diminishing, but on the contrary - a growing sense of their insecurity from possible criminal encroachments.
The problem of interethnic relations and attitudes towards migrants require prompt and effective resolution. According to surveys of the Levada Center, at the end of 2010, 80 percent of Muscovites, for example, responded that on this basis there is tension in interethnic relations. In general, in Russia, the majority of the population noted an increase in such tension, and only 40 percent said that its level remains the same.
According to sociologists, 55,6 percent of respondents are convinced that interethnic conflicts pose a great danger to Russia. And only 13 percent tend to assume that there is no such danger. 62,2 percent of respondents confirmed the idea: interethnic conflicts can lead to the disintegration of the state.
The opinion that inter-ethnic conflicts are provoked by local politicians, and the officials themselves, even those belonging to different national groups, may well live peacefully, share the 51,1 percentage of the respondents. Opinion about provoking conflicts by the central authorities support 19 percent. If these figures are combined, it turns out that the majority of the population is inclined to see the causes of interethnic conflicts in the actions of the local and central political elite. However, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this in the article “Russia. The National Question ”(“ Nezavisimaya Gazeta ”, January 23).
An interesting fact. Researchers in our republic believe that the collapse of the USSR not only did not solve national problems (which the organizers of the destruction of the Soviet Union made one of their main messages), but also led to a narrowing of the ethnic space of the peoples living in the country, primarily Russian. In a number of republics, then excesses in national politics led to the violation of the rights of Russians. Paradoxically, but true: the Russian population in different regions of the Russian Federation still has a different amount of rights. Until recently, in a number of republics, including Bashkortostan, a lot was said about independence and advantages of life in a single region, serious distortions were allowed in the formation and regulation of the national composition of legislative and executive bodies. All this, of course, did not contribute to the harmonization of interethnic relations, strengthening the security of citizens. This situation was seriously affected by the authority of local authorities.
“When it comes to what is in Russia, and especially in historical In Russian territories, the rights of Russians are infringed, this suggests that state structures do not fulfill their direct tasks, do not protect the life, rights and safety of citizens, - Vladimir Putin writes in his article. - And since the majority of these citizens are Russian, it becomes possible to parasitize on the topic of national oppression of Russians and clothe a well-founded public protest in the most primitive, vulgar form of interethnic riots. And at the same time to voice about Russian fascism on every occasion. "
Restore the rule of law
Everything is correct. However, to our great regret, such assessments of the actions of officials are given, as a rule, after the events have taken place and have little effect on increasing the efficiency and competence of the authorities, and resolving conflicts. This means that we need preventive measures, special training of officials, and an increase in their moral responsibility. Therefore, now it is more important for the preservation of interethnic harmony to define common national goals and values that unite and strengthen the Russian nation, prepare a decree on the moral foundations of our society, a civilizational and cultural code, the dominant feature of which is the Russian language, culture, history, traditional religious values and folk ideals.
All our forces should be concentrated on this, including the forces of the scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences. Only in this way can the National Policy Strategy be developed and successfully implemented by new institutional, state and public mechanisms. And of course, along with social imbalances, it is necessary to eliminate injustice, especially corruption. It is extremely important to restore the rule of law, confidence in the authorities and public confidence in the ability of the state to protect the security, honor and dignity of the Russian citizen.
According to Russians recently caught in a catastrophe on the ship Concordia, Russian diplomats, unlike their foreign colleagues, were inactive and appeared only when their help was no longer needed. I will quote one of the passengers: “There were people from completely god-forgotten countries, but their governments were so happy that they escaped, that they sent planes for them, met like heroes. They were immediately taken home. And we were not needed by anyone. So scary when there is a struggle for life ... We were saved, we were picked up. However, after that they turned out to be useless to no one, second-rate people. I don't want to be a citizen of the Russian Federation anymore. ”
Without a fundamental change in the attitude of the authorities towards a person, without raising the status and role of a citizen, the influence of civil society on all spheres of public life, it is difficult to expect serious results in implementing the planned strategy of national policy based on civil patriotism. We consider it our duty to contribute to the scientific support of this problem, we are planning to hold a conference “Russian citizenship. Relationship of a person, state, society and the problems of strengthening patriotism ”.
Alas, the situation in Russian education is also becoming a clear threat to national security. In August-September 2011, a referendum showed: 45 percent of Russian citizens are not satisfied with the country's existing education system. 37 percent of respondents believe that the quality of education has only deteriorated over the past year. As is known, education and science determine economic, military, technological and other forms of security, the provision of which is impossible without the training of highly qualified personnel, technology and scientific developments. But recently there have been calls to reduce the number of institutions of higher education, the figure is called 150 universities, which should remain from 1090. This kind of optimization has already touched on military education. And this happens under the slogan to adjust education to the needs of today's reformed labor market, a ruined economy and, most importantly, the needs of the current owners of jobs.
Russia's main hope is a high level of youth education. No less important is the associated lower level of crime, antisocial behavior. After Putin’s article, there was hope for a radical change in educational policy. But we still have to make these changes. As the prime minister said, not people should adapt to the appropriate structure of the economy and the labor market, as the oligarchs call for us, and the economy should become such that citizens with higher education and high demands can find a worthy place in it.
It’s time for the Academy of Military Sciences to initiate a public discussion of the problems of reorganizing military education. Develop practical recommendations for enhancing the role and importance of this sphere in strengthening the Armed Forces of Russia and the country's national security. Education should be directed not only to the formation of professional qualities, but also to the education of moral responsibility, spiritual qualities of servicemen and Russian youth.
And the last. In the information space of Russia in the last decade there has been a genuine war for the soul of man. Information technologies used, including by the Russian media, manipulations on the Internet of Western intelligence services have become real weapons mass destruction, the object of which is every person with his ideas about the world order and its place in it, the ideals of good and evil, honor and duty, justice. With the help of TV, the Internet, the whole mentality and way of life are programmed and changed, an increasing majority of people, especially young people, are subjected to zombies, losing the ability to protect their national interests. So, it requires emergency government intervention, the immediate cessation of all types of destructive activities in the spiritual sphere, before our society has passed the point of no return.
In our opinion, there is a need to create a state body that would coordinate activities in this area. This requires political will, real state and public mechanisms for the protection of national, spiritual, moral values and the formation of a worldview that strengthens the Russian nation. As for the AVN, a special section should be organized in the academy to develop measures to counter information wars against Russia.
Evgeny Minibaev, Head of the Bashkir Regional Department of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Doctor of History, Professor
Ensuring international information security
We are primarily interested in the military-political aspects of this very difficult problem. After all, it, given its expansively growing importance and the dynamics of events taking place in the world, directly affects everything that is transformed into the military potential of states, blocs, alliances in the future. That is why it is difficult to overestimate the role of the foreign ministry in shaping Russia's position, defining the political and diplomatic process in this area and its final results. But I stress, this is not the main thing.
Russian initiative
It is important that our military, in particular military scientists, call goal setting points, which should be determined as a result of political and diplomatic negotiations. This will best provide the conditions for solving specific professional tasks that the military itself will set itself in this area.
At the same time, the entire complex of international information security cannot be reduced only to the military-political aspect. Currently, this issue has acquired particular relevance and is being discussed at various venues. The problem of international information security (IIB) and information and communication technologies (ICT) is considered doctrinally by us as a triad of threats of a military-political, terrorist and criminal nature. We consider the most dangerous of them in the information sphere to be the hostile use of ICT for military-political purposes. Corresponding technologies can be gradually transformed into fundamentally powerful new means of confrontation, the object of which today is (as Vice-Premier, Chairman of the Military Industrial Commission Dmitry Rogozin said) the key infrastructure of the countries.
Russia was among the first to realize the existence of such threats and in the 1998 year, it took the initiative (few people spoke about it then) of raising the issue of integrated support for the IIB at the international level. We traditionally advocate that the problems in the field of IIB and ICT, which are global in nature, are not solved in private, selfishly, closed, but in a fairly understandable, transparent discussion with wide participation of the international community and involving public-private partnership. Today, we cannot ignore the role of business in the development of relevant technologies and, frankly, controllability of the most important segments of the Internet and other supporting infrastructure structures to private companies and international corporations.
Cooperation in this area is developing quite successfully within the framework of the United Nations. The effectiveness of such interaction is evidenced by the adoption by the UN General Assembly over the past 10 years of the Russian resolution “Advances in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security”. Reading this document may give different impressions, but the main conclusion is the same. The resolution submitted by the Russian Federation is a reflection of how controversial the approaches of the international community to the problem are. Finding a common denominator is extremely difficult here. But if it is still groped, then, in our opinion, only on the basis of our document.
For example, the updated Russian draft, adopted by the last session of the United Nations General Assembly, specifies the legal content of the mandate, which will be prepared in 2012 by a group of UN government experts on international information security. The competence of the group will include, in particular, the study and development of norms, rules and principles of responsible behavior of states, as well as confidence-building measures in the information space.
We came up with the idea of developing a Code of Conduct in the global information space, through which we can regulate the actions of states in this area.
Let's say frankly: not all countries support this yet. In order to stimulate a broad international discussion of this problem, we have spread the joint initiative of Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan - Draft rules of conduct in the relevant field. With the same purpose, the Russian Federation developed and submitted in September 2011 of the year in Yekaterinburg (during the second meeting of representatives of interested states) the Convention on ensuring international information security. It takes into account all international achievements and requirements in this area. It is assumed that the document will help to expand the discussion and the unifying basis for working in the necessary vein.
Do I need censorship?
Unfortunately, there are no breakthroughs in promoting the idea of forming a system for ensuring international information security in full scale. There are some local successes. For example, within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 2, June 2011, the Agreement between the governments of the SCO member states on cooperation in the provision of IIB came into force. It was signed back in 2009 during the organization’s summit in Yekaterinburg.
Many countries agree with us that there is a need to develop the idea of universal conventions against cybercrime. So far in this area there is only one convention (Budapest), which is flawed, because it does not take into account the key concept for us - the sovereignty of the state. With regard to the discussion of the problems of the IIB in the framework of international organizations and forums, the most heated discussion, apparently, can turn around several issues.
In particular, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting in Deauville stressed the importance of the topic of intellectual property protection and 3 on November 2011 sent a message to the leaders of the G8 member states about the new concept of using and protecting the results of creative activity in the Global Network.
Growing interest in this issue is associated with the US-developed bill to protect American intellectual property on the Internet. In accordance with it, any participant in the activities of the Network is obliged to virtually stop any provision of services to a resource accused of piracy, and to stop interaction with it, on any request from the copyright holder. You understand that under such rubber formulations it is possible to pull up a lot. This bill can not only negatively affect the development of the Internet as a business space, but also become a tool of censorship. This, by the way, contradicts many of the tenets of the policy of the United States of America itself, defending absolutely uncontrollable freedom in social networks.
The second problem is the hypertrophied attention paid by the United States and its closest allies to the problem of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the information space. The one-sidedness and tendentiousness of this approach was demonstrated by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the OSCE 6 – 7 December 2011 OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Vilnius. Then, due to the excessive ideological approach of the United States, a number of documents on the problems of the Internet were not adopted, which could be useful for us.
We consider it important to balance the reflection in international documents of the issues of human rights and freedoms with provisions on the inadmissibility of using information and communication technologies to interfere in the internal affairs of states. And also to the detriment of state sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity, public safety, moral principles and for the disclosure of sensitive information. It is these considerations that guide the activities at all the sites I have mentioned. We also proceed from the importance of securing the principle of not using the Internet for military-political, criminal and terrorist purposes.
Coming back to the above-mentioned development by the United States of a new bill on the protection of American intellectual property on the Internet, I would like to note that this step once again proves the validity of raising the question of managing the World Wide Web resources at the international level. Therefore, we support the position of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications of Russia, which calls for the internationalization of Internet governance and the enhancement of the role of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - a solid, authoritative, democratic organization.
Sergey Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
How to avoid ethnic tension
Russians fears
I want to stress right away that in the Russian reality there is a huge distance between the declared guarantees of security and the feeling that people are protected. Moreover, here lies one of the most important contradictions, without eliminating which it is impossible to talk about any results in resolving this issue. It is due not only to the low efficiency of state structures, but also to the peculiarities of our mentality. Research suggests that Russians value more personal security and personal freedom. Thus, the priority of personal safety during the survey indicated 52 percent of respondents, personal freedom - 27.
Monitoring covered those problems that are most typical for the Republic of Bashkortostan. They (in descending order) look like this: loss of work and livelihood, illness of an incurable disease, criminal violence, alcoholism, environmental disaster, man-made disasters, terrorism, extremism, corruption. In the country as a whole, the sequence of assessing the severity of problems is as follows: economic crisis, alcoholism and drug addiction, military threats, corruption. For some reason, the threat of corruption in our region manifested itself less than at the level of the entire Russian Federation. A military threat is not considered at all. That is, it is also about objectively informing the population about these problems.A serious threat to many regions has been migration. Regulated, latent and spontaneous, potential and real - both in Russia and out of it. According to sociologists, the percent of respondents would like to leave the RF 13 forever (two times more than 10 years ago), 35 percent would leave only for work. In general, about 50 percent of Russians for various reasons would like to leave their home country.
In reality, migration to Russia with its positive influence on the labor market also carries with it problems. Thus, over the past 10 years, out of every thousand migrants, more than half have remained here - 566 people. The appearance in different territories of a large mass of visitors from outside the borders of the Russian Federation was reflected in interethnic relations, the structure of crime. Our research allowed us to establish a paradoxical situation. Against the background, it would seem, productive work with crime among the population is not diminishing, but on the contrary - a growing sense of their insecurity from possible criminal encroachments.
The problem of interethnic relations and attitudes towards migrants require prompt and effective resolution. According to surveys of the Levada Center, at the end of 2010, 80 percent of Muscovites, for example, responded that on this basis there is tension in interethnic relations. In general, in Russia, the majority of the population noted an increase in such tension, and only 40 percent said that its level remains the same.
According to sociologists, 55,6 percent of respondents are convinced that interethnic conflicts pose a great danger to Russia. And only 13 percent tend to assume that there is no such danger. 62,2 percent of respondents confirmed the idea: interethnic conflicts can lead to the disintegration of the state.
The opinion that inter-ethnic conflicts are provoked by local politicians, and the officials themselves, even those belonging to different national groups, may well live peacefully, share the 51,1 percentage of the respondents. Opinion about provoking conflicts by the central authorities support 19 percent. If these figures are combined, it turns out that the majority of the population is inclined to see the causes of interethnic conflicts in the actions of the local and central political elite. However, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this in the article “Russia. The National Question ”(“ Nezavisimaya Gazeta ”, January 23).An interesting fact. Researchers in our republic believe that the collapse of the USSR not only did not solve national problems (which the organizers of the destruction of the Soviet Union made one of their main messages), but also led to a narrowing of the ethnic space of the peoples living in the country, primarily Russian. In a number of republics, then excesses in national politics led to the violation of the rights of Russians. Paradoxically, but true: the Russian population in different regions of the Russian Federation still has a different amount of rights. Until recently, in a number of republics, including Bashkortostan, a lot was said about independence and advantages of life in a single region, serious distortions were allowed in the formation and regulation of the national composition of legislative and executive bodies. All this, of course, did not contribute to the harmonization of interethnic relations, strengthening the security of citizens. This situation was seriously affected by the authority of local authorities.
“When it comes to what is in Russia, and especially in historical In Russian territories, the rights of Russians are infringed, this suggests that state structures do not fulfill their direct tasks, do not protect the life, rights and safety of citizens, - Vladimir Putin writes in his article. - And since the majority of these citizens are Russian, it becomes possible to parasitize on the topic of national oppression of Russians and clothe a well-founded public protest in the most primitive, vulgar form of interethnic riots. And at the same time to voice about Russian fascism on every occasion. "
Restore the rule of law
Everything is correct. However, to our great regret, such assessments of the actions of officials are given, as a rule, after the events have taken place and have little effect on increasing the efficiency and competence of the authorities, and resolving conflicts. This means that we need preventive measures, special training of officials, and an increase in their moral responsibility. Therefore, now it is more important for the preservation of interethnic harmony to define common national goals and values that unite and strengthen the Russian nation, prepare a decree on the moral foundations of our society, a civilizational and cultural code, the dominant feature of which is the Russian language, culture, history, traditional religious values and folk ideals.
All our forces should be concentrated on this, including the forces of the scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences. Only in this way can the National Policy Strategy be developed and successfully implemented by new institutional, state and public mechanisms. And of course, along with social imbalances, it is necessary to eliminate injustice, especially corruption. It is extremely important to restore the rule of law, confidence in the authorities and public confidence in the ability of the state to protect the security, honor and dignity of the Russian citizen.
According to Russians recently caught in a catastrophe on the ship Concordia, Russian diplomats, unlike their foreign colleagues, were inactive and appeared only when their help was no longer needed. I will quote one of the passengers: “There were people from completely god-forgotten countries, but their governments were so happy that they escaped, that they sent planes for them, met like heroes. They were immediately taken home. And we were not needed by anyone. So scary when there is a struggle for life ... We were saved, we were picked up. However, after that they turned out to be useless to no one, second-rate people. I don't want to be a citizen of the Russian Federation anymore. ”
Without a fundamental change in the attitude of the authorities towards a person, without raising the status and role of a citizen, the influence of civil society on all spheres of public life, it is difficult to expect serious results in implementing the planned strategy of national policy based on civil patriotism. We consider it our duty to contribute to the scientific support of this problem, we are planning to hold a conference “Russian citizenship. Relationship of a person, state, society and the problems of strengthening patriotism ”.
Alas, the situation in Russian education is also becoming a clear threat to national security. In August-September 2011, a referendum showed: 45 percent of Russian citizens are not satisfied with the country's existing education system. 37 percent of respondents believe that the quality of education has only deteriorated over the past year. As is known, education and science determine economic, military, technological and other forms of security, the provision of which is impossible without the training of highly qualified personnel, technology and scientific developments. But recently there have been calls to reduce the number of institutions of higher education, the figure is called 150 universities, which should remain from 1090. This kind of optimization has already touched on military education. And this happens under the slogan to adjust education to the needs of today's reformed labor market, a ruined economy and, most importantly, the needs of the current owners of jobs.
Russia's main hope is a high level of youth education. No less important is the associated lower level of crime, antisocial behavior. After Putin’s article, there was hope for a radical change in educational policy. But we still have to make these changes. As the prime minister said, not people should adapt to the appropriate structure of the economy and the labor market, as the oligarchs call for us, and the economy should become such that citizens with higher education and high demands can find a worthy place in it.
It’s time for the Academy of Military Sciences to initiate a public discussion of the problems of reorganizing military education. Develop practical recommendations for enhancing the role and importance of this sphere in strengthening the Armed Forces of Russia and the country's national security. Education should be directed not only to the formation of professional qualities, but also to the education of moral responsibility, spiritual qualities of servicemen and Russian youth.
And the last. In the information space of Russia in the last decade there has been a genuine war for the soul of man. Information technologies used, including by the Russian media, manipulations on the Internet of Western intelligence services have become real weapons mass destruction, the object of which is every person with his ideas about the world order and its place in it, the ideals of good and evil, honor and duty, justice. With the help of TV, the Internet, the whole mentality and way of life are programmed and changed, an increasing majority of people, especially young people, are subjected to zombies, losing the ability to protect their national interests. So, it requires emergency government intervention, the immediate cessation of all types of destructive activities in the spiritual sphere, before our society has passed the point of no return.
In our opinion, there is a need to create a state body that would coordinate activities in this area. This requires political will, real state and public mechanisms for the protection of national, spiritual, moral values and the formation of a worldview that strengthens the Russian nation. As for the AVN, a special section should be organized in the academy to develop measures to counter information wars against Russia.
Evgeny Minibaev, Head of the Bashkir Regional Department of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Doctor of History, Professor
Ensuring international information security
We are primarily interested in the military-political aspects of this very difficult problem. After all, it, given its expansively growing importance and the dynamics of events taking place in the world, directly affects everything that is transformed into the military potential of states, blocs, alliances in the future. That is why it is difficult to overestimate the role of the foreign ministry in shaping Russia's position, defining the political and diplomatic process in this area and its final results. But I stress, this is not the main thing.
Russian initiative
It is important that our military, in particular military scientists, call goal setting points, which should be determined as a result of political and diplomatic negotiations. This will best provide the conditions for solving specific professional tasks that the military itself will set itself in this area.
At the same time, the entire complex of international information security cannot be reduced only to the military-political aspect. Currently, this issue has acquired particular relevance and is being discussed at various venues. The problem of international information security (IIB) and information and communication technologies (ICT) is considered doctrinally by us as a triad of threats of a military-political, terrorist and criminal nature. We consider the most dangerous of them in the information sphere to be the hostile use of ICT for military-political purposes. Corresponding technologies can be gradually transformed into fundamentally powerful new means of confrontation, the object of which today is (as Vice-Premier, Chairman of the Military Industrial Commission Dmitry Rogozin said) the key infrastructure of the countries.Russia was among the first to realize the existence of such threats and in the 1998 year, it took the initiative (few people spoke about it then) of raising the issue of integrated support for the IIB at the international level. We traditionally advocate that the problems in the field of IIB and ICT, which are global in nature, are not solved in private, selfishly, closed, but in a fairly understandable, transparent discussion with wide participation of the international community and involving public-private partnership. Today, we cannot ignore the role of business in the development of relevant technologies and, frankly, controllability of the most important segments of the Internet and other supporting infrastructure structures to private companies and international corporations.
Cooperation in this area is developing quite successfully within the framework of the United Nations. The effectiveness of such interaction is evidenced by the adoption by the UN General Assembly over the past 10 years of the Russian resolution “Advances in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security”. Reading this document may give different impressions, but the main conclusion is the same. The resolution submitted by the Russian Federation is a reflection of how controversial the approaches of the international community to the problem are. Finding a common denominator is extremely difficult here. But if it is still groped, then, in our opinion, only on the basis of our document.
For example, the updated Russian draft, adopted by the last session of the United Nations General Assembly, specifies the legal content of the mandate, which will be prepared in 2012 by a group of UN government experts on international information security. The competence of the group will include, in particular, the study and development of norms, rules and principles of responsible behavior of states, as well as confidence-building measures in the information space.
We came up with the idea of developing a Code of Conduct in the global information space, through which we can regulate the actions of states in this area.
Let's say frankly: not all countries support this yet. In order to stimulate a broad international discussion of this problem, we have spread the joint initiative of Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan - Draft rules of conduct in the relevant field. With the same purpose, the Russian Federation developed and submitted in September 2011 of the year in Yekaterinburg (during the second meeting of representatives of interested states) the Convention on ensuring international information security. It takes into account all international achievements and requirements in this area. It is assumed that the document will help to expand the discussion and the unifying basis for working in the necessary vein.
Do I need censorship?
Unfortunately, there are no breakthroughs in promoting the idea of forming a system for ensuring international information security in full scale. There are some local successes. For example, within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 2, June 2011, the Agreement between the governments of the SCO member states on cooperation in the provision of IIB came into force. It was signed back in 2009 during the organization’s summit in Yekaterinburg.
Many countries agree with us that there is a need to develop the idea of universal conventions against cybercrime. So far in this area there is only one convention (Budapest), which is flawed, because it does not take into account the key concept for us - the sovereignty of the state. With regard to the discussion of the problems of the IIB in the framework of international organizations and forums, the most heated discussion, apparently, can turn around several issues.
In particular, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting in Deauville stressed the importance of the topic of intellectual property protection and 3 on November 2011 sent a message to the leaders of the G8 member states about the new concept of using and protecting the results of creative activity in the Global Network.
Growing interest in this issue is associated with the US-developed bill to protect American intellectual property on the Internet. In accordance with it, any participant in the activities of the Network is obliged to virtually stop any provision of services to a resource accused of piracy, and to stop interaction with it, on any request from the copyright holder. You understand that under such rubber formulations it is possible to pull up a lot. This bill can not only negatively affect the development of the Internet as a business space, but also become a tool of censorship. This, by the way, contradicts many of the tenets of the policy of the United States of America itself, defending absolutely uncontrollable freedom in social networks.
The second problem is the hypertrophied attention paid by the United States and its closest allies to the problem of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the information space. The one-sidedness and tendentiousness of this approach was demonstrated by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the OSCE 6 – 7 December 2011 OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Vilnius. Then, due to the excessive ideological approach of the United States, a number of documents on the problems of the Internet were not adopted, which could be useful for us.
We consider it important to balance the reflection in international documents of the issues of human rights and freedoms with provisions on the inadmissibility of using information and communication technologies to interfere in the internal affairs of states. And also to the detriment of state sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity, public safety, moral principles and for the disclosure of sensitive information. It is these considerations that guide the activities at all the sites I have mentioned. We also proceed from the importance of securing the principle of not using the Internet for military-political, criminal and terrorist purposes.
Coming back to the above-mentioned development by the United States of a new bill on the protection of American intellectual property on the Internet, I would like to note that this step once again proves the validity of raising the question of managing the World Wide Web resources at the international level. Therefore, we support the position of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications of Russia, which calls for the internationalization of Internet governance and the enhancement of the role of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - a solid, authoritative, democratic organization.
Sergey Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Information