The State Duma in the first reading adopted a bill according to which Russians and their close relatives who have property and accounts in foreign banks abroad will be denied access to state secrets. The document was published on the website of the lower house of parliament.
The head of the security committee, Vasily Piskarev, said that more than 16,000 Russians with access to state secrets own property abroad or have close relatives there. “The number of actions by foreign intelligence agencies in relation to secret carriers has recently almost doubled,” the deputy says.
The bill proposes to transfer to the government the authority to establish regulations on access to state secrets. The regulation itself can be changed in cases of martial law or mobilization, and not only in case of a state of emergency.
Members of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Proposed to take away passports for storage from those who have access to information with stamps “top secret” and “of special importance”.
In addition, the document touches upon the rules on traveling abroad for people with access to state secrets. If the amendments are adopted, lawyers working on cases with state secrets will be banned from leaving the country.
At the same time, they want to allow citizens who are restricted in their right to leave because of access to state secrets to temporarily leave the country on humanitarian reasons — in connection with the death of close relatives or the need for emergency treatment.
The amendments suggest that military personnel will not need to give voluntary consent to access to state secrets. The explanatory note states that many citizens entering the military service refuse to issue such an admission, because they do not want them to have problems traveling abroad in the future.
According to the lawyer of the «First Department» Yevgeny Smirnov, the innovation is necessary so that conscripts have fewer opportunities to refuse service in certain positions. The day before, the State Duma had already adopted in the third reading amendments that oblige conscripts to hand over their passports for the duration of their service to the migration department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the MFC.