The State Duma introduced the concept of official secrets in the field of defense
The Russian parliament passed in the first reading a bill introducing the concept of official secrets in the field of defense and prohibiting the disclosure and dissemination of some strictly unclassified information, such as the performance characteristics of the latest weapons.
The corresponding decision was made during a plenary meeting of the State Duma, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The document classifies some unclassified information in the field of defense as confidential information and prohibits its disclosure to outsiders and publication. State Duma deputy Nikolai Pankov spoke about its essence.
“The Law of the Russian Federation on State Secrets establishes the procedure for classifying information as a state secret and effective mechanisms for its protection. At the same time, the procedure for protecting proprietary information of limited access is not defined by law, while the legislation of foreign countries establishes such restrictions.
The bill proposes that information generated during the implementation of measures in the field of defense, which does not constitute a state secret and is not publicly available, be classified as confidential.
The bill introduces the concept of “official secret”, provides for the establishment of categories of information classified as confidential, the procedure and conditions for classifying information as official secret, the formation of a list of such information, and the obligation to maintain confidentiality,” he said.
In turn, deputy Andrei Krasnov spoke about the relevance of the bill. According to him, the day before one of the American media published information about the newest Russian laser complex “Peresvet”.
Among other things, enterprises involved in production, the names of specialists, and much more were made public. Krasnov emphasized that such information can be found in other open sources.
“This information is often published in a number of Russian media as reports from state corporations on successes in the field of state defense orders. And sometimes there are certain performance characteristics of weapons and military equipment that are not found in any army in the world,” he noted.
The parliamentarian also said that the bill provides for administrative and disciplinary liability for the disclosure of relevant information.
“If a person disseminates this confidential information, if his actions do not fall under criminal liability, then administrative or disciplinary punishment is provided,” Krasnov concluded.
After which, during the voting, the document was supported by 385 deputies out of 385 present, the bill was adopted in the first reading and sent for further refinement.
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