The agency has announced a contest for designs for software that would automatically monitor online media and locate signs of violations of federal legislation that prohibits extremism. The contest deadline is August 15, 2011, with a second deadline of December 15, 2011 for testing and bug fixes.

Officials estimated the cost of the system at 15 million rubles – about half a million USD.

Roskomnadzor hopes to use the system to monitor materials posted on internet media websites issuing public calls to commit acts of terrorism, justifying terrorism, demonstrating Nazi symbols or attributes, calling for the violent overthrow of constitutional order, violating the “unity of Russia,” or inciting social, racial, national, or religious strife.

The system would also monitor public accusations against civil servants of having committed crimes.

Officials also want the system to locate “pornography propaganda” and organizations that have been banned by Russian courts, as well as “hidden inserts and other technical means and ways of distributing information that would act on people’s subconscious or have a harmful influence on their health.”

The software will be comprised of a media database, dictionaries of words and expressions that could constitute extremism as defined by Russian law, and “a repository of controversial materials.”

Agency representative Mikhail Vorobyov said Roskomnadzor currently monitors internet media manually with search engines. He noted that the number of registered electronic media outlets is constantly on the rise, topping 5,300 resources today compared to 555 in 2008.

According to Vorobyov, the decision to create an automatic monitoring system was influenced by a June 2010 Supreme Court decision that only requires media outlets to delete or edit “unlawful reader comments” in response to an official request from Roskomnadzor.

Wanton charges of extremism are commonly used by Russian law enforcement agencies to apply pressure to opposition groups that carry out activities deemed undesirable by the state. Federal officials routinely harass protesters, conduct raids of homes and offices, hinder legal forms of protest, and in some cases block opposition websites. Amnesty International has accused federal Russian agencies of using extremism as an excuse to torture criminal suspects.

The latest example comes from “The Daily Beast,” a major new news site, with a short piece on how various despot foreign leaders have responded to Barack Obama’s ascension to the US presidency.

The Daily Beast: Putin keeping good company

Man of the Year?

By GARRY KASPAROV — December 22, 2007; Page A11

Ever since President Vladimir Putin took office eight long years ago, the political and media leadership of the West have had a full-time job trying to look on the bright side of Russia’s rapid turn from democracy.

The free press has been demolished, elections are canceled and rigged, and then we hear how popular Mr. Putin is. Opposition marches are crushed, and we’re told — over and over — how much better off we are today than in the days of the Soviet Union. This week Time magazine named Mr. Putin its 2007 “Person of the Year.” [Vladimir Putin] Vladimir Putin

Unfortunately, there is no silver lining to Russia’s descent into dictatorship. If anything there is a look of iron to it.

Condoleezza Rice, hardly a Putin critic, said recently that Russia “is not an environment in which you can talk about free and fair elections.” A good start, but this comment was not made where one would imagine — perhaps at a press conference insisting that Putin’s Russia be removed from the G-7 for making a mockery of democratic practices. No, her remark came as a side note to her very early endorsement of Mr. Putin’s handpicked heir to the throne, Dmitry Medvedev.

The most revealing moment in Ms. Rice’s comments came when the topic of Mr. Medvedev as the next president was first broached. The official transcript reads: “SECRETARY RICE: Well, I guess, they’re still going to have an election in March. <Laughter.>”

Perhaps my sense of humor was dulled during the five days I spent in a Moscow jail last month for protesting against these sham elections. Or maybe it was reading about the constant persecution of my fellow activists across the country that did it. Madam Secretary went on to speak approvingly of Mr. Medvedev, making the undemocratic nature of his selection sound like a minor annoyance. The last remaining element of democracy in Russia, the transition of power, will be destroyed. Will Mr. Putin and his successor still be welcomed with open arms in the club of leading democracies?

In the early days of our opposition activities last year, when members of Other Russia were harassed and arrested, the “bright siders” in the West said it could be worse. Later, when our marchers were badly beaten in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Mr. Putin’s fans in the West said at least the police weren’t killing us in the streets.

Last week, 22-year-old opposition activist Yury Chervochkin died in hospital after several weeks in a coma. He had been beaten nearly to death an hour after making an anxious cellphone call to our offices saying he was being followed by members of the organized-crime task force known as UBOP, which has become the vanguard of the Kremlin’s war on political opposition. A witness saw him clubbed repeatedly by men with baseball bats.

Yury’s sin was not chanting Nazi slogans or praising the deeds of Josef Stalin, activities that regularly go unremarked in Russia these days. No, he had been caught throwing leaflets that read “The elections are a farce!” That was enough to make him a marked man. Now, for agitating for real democracy in Russia, he is dead.

The stakes have been raised to the highest level, and what bright side will be found now? Where is the line that cannot be crossed without a serious response from the West? So far Mr. Putin hasn’t found it — and he has good reason to suspect such a line simply does not exist. It is for the leaders in Washington, D.C., Paris and Berlin to decide what it means to denounce the Russian elections as fraudulent, only to then embrace the winners as democratic partners.

Lesser tragedies than that of Yury Chervochkin are occurring on a regular basis in Russia today. Last week journalist Natalya Morar was denied entry into the country on secret orders of the FSB security force, after writing investigative articles on financial deals with Kremlin connections. Lyudmila Kharlamova, a political organizer for Other Russia, was arrested after heroin was planted among her possessions in Orenburg. Activist Andrei Grekhov suffered a similar fate in Rostov, though the police chose to plant bullets instead of drugs in his pockets.

This is a good opportunity to remember Anna Politkovskaya, the investigative journalist who was murdered on Oct. 7, 2006, Putin’s birthday. The police investigation into this infamous assassination has stalled and talk of it has died down. The Kremlin is counting on the same thing happening with “minor” cases like that of Yury Chervochkin.

In a recent speech, Mr. Putin said “the enemies of the state must be wiped out!” It has been made quite clear that by “enemies” he means anyone who opposes his total authority. It is no surprise that his words are taken at face value across the country, and acted on by security forces eager to prove their loyalty and enthusiasm.

The presidents and prime ministers of the West seem just as eager to bow down to the Kremlin and the great god of business as usual. Nicolas Sarkozy raced to congratulate Mr. Putin on his party’s election victory, despite the overwhelming evidence of massive fraud at the polls. A few days later France’s Renault picked up a 25% share in Russian automaker AvtoVaz, a purchase made from Sergei Chemezov and his arms-dealing company Rosoboronexport. Why should Mr. Putin and his oligarchs worry about democracy as long as the money keeps rolling in?

Time magazine, of course, took obvious pains to explain that its award to Mr. Putin is “not an endorsement” and that it goes to the person who made the most news “for better or for worse.” Nonetheless the article praises Mr. Putin for restoring his country to prominence in the international arena, dispelling “anarchy” and recovering national pride. The magazine does express concern about his “troubling” record on human rights.

The same things could have been said about Adolf Hitler in 1938, when he took his turn as Time’s Man of the Year. “Fascism,” Time wrote then, “has discovered that freedom — of press, speech, assembly — is a potential danger to its own security.” Again these words apply equally well to this year’s winner.

Most of the criticism leveled against Mr. Putin regards “alleged” abuses or comes directly from known critics. This abdicates the journalist’s role to report the facts as facts.

Consider the timing of this announcement, right after the counterfeit parliamentary elections that added to Mr. Putin’s record of eradicating democracy across Russia. The Time article will be trumpeted by Kremlin propaganda as an endorsement of Mr. Putin’s policies. The man on the street will be told that even America, constantly blasted by the Kremlin as an enemy, has been forced to recognize the president’s greatness.

Internationally, the focus will be on the myth that Mr. Putin has built a “strong Russia.” In fact he and his cronies have hollowed out the state from within. Most of the power now resides in the super-corporations like Gazprom and Rosneft, and among the small group of loyalists who run them.

The Putin regime has taken Russia from a frail democracy to an efficient mafia state. It was an impressive balancing act — behaving like a tyrant while at the same time staying in the good graces of the West.

After each crackdown, with no significant international reaction forthcoming, Mr. Putin knew it was safe to take another step. As ever, appeasement in the name of realpolitik only encourages would-be dictators. And such moral weakness inevitably leads to very real costs in human life.

Mr. Kasparov is a former world chess champion and a leader of The Other Russia, a pro-democracy coalition. He is the author of “How Life Imitates Chess,” recently published by Bloomsbury USA.

First let there be no misunderstanding about what this award is supposed to represent. According to TIME, it is for the person who “has done the most to change the news, for better or for worse.” Obviously Putin has been in the news a great deal in 2007, and it’s clear that the direction he has moved my country has been “for worse” both for Russians and for the international community.

Putin’s regime has crushed dissent, rigged elections, and systematically destroyed democratic institutions and civil liberties, processes that only accelerated in 2007. Despite record oil and gas prices that sent the Russian GDP skyrocketing, the vast majority of Russians outside the major capital cities have seen little or no improvement in their standard of living, largely due to runaway food prices and a decaying infrastructure. With most of the corporate and state revenues leaving Russia for western real estate and personal bank accounts, the gap between rich and poor here has reached staggering levels.

The TIME announcement praises their selection for restoring his country to prominence in the international arena, dispelling “anarchy”, and recovering national pride. The magazine does express concern about his “troubling” record on human rights. The same things could have been said about Adolf Hitler in 1938, when he took his turn as TIME’s Man of the Year. “Fascism,” TIME wrote then, “has discovered that freedom – of press, speech, assembly – is a potential danger to its own security.” Again these words apply equally well to this year’s winner.

In 1938 there was no doubt that Hitler was a force for evil and TIME made that very clear. But with Putin they perpetuate elements of Kremlin propaganda into the story and often present Putin’s mythology uncritically. Yes, there was epic corruption in the Yeltsin years, but have things improved under Putin or just become more efficient and quieter? Are Putin’s pet oligarchs less rich, less rapacious, less influential? The main difference is that because there was still a free press under Yeltsin, the people found out what was going on. Putin eliminated that possibility – along with many of his critics – soon after taking power.

That Putin has created a “strong Russia” is the biggest fallacy of them all. In fact he and his cronies have hollowed the state out from within. Power now resides with the giant corporations like Gazprom and the small group of loyalists who run them. Putin has managed to bully Europe with Russia’s energy wealth and to damage global stability by entertaining and defending the likes of Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Intimidation and provocation, however, should not be misconstrued as real strength. The Tsar’s new clothes are woven entirely from oil and gas.

I understand that this award is not intended to be a beauty contest. But for all of Putin’s attacks on the West, this will be promoted widely within Russia and around the world as a victory and an endorsement by the West of Putin’s policies and practices of dictatorship. It’s an early Christmas present to the Kremlin when what they really deserved was a lump of coal.

I will add a brief response to Putin’s jibe in the TIME article about my speaking English to reporters after my arrest last month. First, I also spoke in Russian, which oddly enough never makes the Kremlin-controlled newscasts. Second, since opposition statements are almost completely banned in the Russian media the foreign press usually makes up 90% of attending media at opposition events. Lastly, I would be delighted to show Mr. Putin which of us speaks and writes better Russian. Perhaps he will accept my challenge to a debate on national television or allow an editorial of mine to appear in a major newspaper.