Back in early February 2012, Vladimir Putin published the fourth op-ed of his presidential campaign: a lengthy treatise titled “Democracy and the Quality of Government” [ru]. About 1,500 words deep into that article, Putin proposed that the Russian parliament should automatically consider the legislative applications of any online petition successful in gathering more than one-hundred thousand signatures. A few weeks later, Putin published the final installment of his platform, titled “Russia and the Changing World” [ru], where he wrote the following: The distinction should be clear between free speech and normal political activity, on the one hand, and illegal instruments of ‘soft power,’ on the other. […] [T]he activity of ‘pseudo-NGOs’ and other structures operating on external support, pursuing the destabilization of one or another country, is unacceptable. […] We believe that influence on domestic politics and the public mood in other countries should be conducted only in the open — allowing actors to take full responsibility for their actions. From words to deeds Screenshot of podkontrol.ru In late March, less than three weeks after Putin's re-election to the Russian presidency, an online petition emerged, calling for stricter controls on foreign-funded Russian NGOs. Hosted at www.podkontrol.ru [ru], the petition calls on the government to adopt “the Law on the Foreign Financing of NGOs,” and has collected over 20,000 signatures in a little over one week (with more still pouring in). Endorsed by 13 “affiliate organizations,” the initiative enjoys the support of pro-regime political groups like the Anti-Orange Committee, Dmitri Rogozin's ‘Congress of Russian Communities,’ and Alexander Dugin's ‘International Eurasian Movement.’ Podkontrol.ru argues that it is proposing nothing more than a Russian version of Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), an American law requiring the registration of all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign interests. Borrowing the same language Putin used in February, the site warns that Russia is the target of foreign “soft power,” and that “billions of dollars are spent [on soft power efforts] to undermine the integrity of [Russia], and the stability of its political foundations.” To support such a claim, the authors cite Assistant Secretary Philip Gordon of the United States State Department, who said publicly in March 2012 that the United States had spent over $200 million in Russia since 2009 “to promote democracy, human rights, and civil society,” and that the White House has asked Congress for $50 million of additional funding. Podkontrol.ru's proposed legislation is described as follows: Staff members of organizations that receive money from foreign funds and agencies should be obligated to register with the Justice Ministry of the Russian Federation, as well as be subjected to a special audit by the tax authorities. There should be obligatory procedures for making information about the receipt of foreign funds and the sources of NGO staff earnings available to any citizen of the country, and published on the Justice Ministry's website. In turn, all materials published by such organizations (regardless of the place they are published, whether on their own websites or in third-party media outlets) should be marked by special distinct signs. In the Russian blogosphere, one of the petition's greatest advocates has been longtime anti-oppositionist blogger Stanislav Apet'ian (LJ user politrash_ru). In a March 26 post [ru] (roughly four days after the site appeared), Apet'ian first introduced his readers to Podkontrol.ru. Shortly thereafter, he followed up with a longer defense of the petition in an article [ru] for the online Public Chamber Tribune, where he argued that existing transparency and reporting norms for Russian NGOs are too weak: […] The mere fact that these reports are transmitted to the Justice Ministry clearly doesn't mean that citizens can easily and understandably get informed, let alone ascertain by surname all the beneficiaries of foreign grants. […] Apetian also addressed comments by a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and Agency for Social Information (ASI) Director Elena Topoleva-Soldunova [ru], who charged [ru] the petition's authors with having proposed redundant legislation that reproduces controls on Russian NGOs already in place.