Russia has taken an unfortunate step into its police-state past with a new law that grants the state's security service broad powers to jail people simply on suspicion that they may be about to engage in illegal activity.

The FSB has now regained a power that its feared predecessor agency, the KGB, had under the Soviet Union. This has been a consistent pattern under Vladimir Putin, who, first as president, then as prime minister, has steadily restored the power and prestige of the security agencies, at the expense, many say, of Russia's fragile democracy.