Criminal law counteraction to crimes with signs of extremist activity committed with the use of information and telecommunications networks, including the Internet

Introduction: the article presents the course on public policies in combating the criminal use of information technology. The author presents his own understanding of the criminal law counteraction to crimes with signs of extremist activity, and the classification of the studied acts. The author gives briefly crime trends in the studied area, which include misuse of new information and communications technologies. Materials and Methods: doctrinal and empirical basis for the study were scientific developments, national sector policy documents of the Russian Federation and court statistics. Results: the study presents the author’s classification of crimes with signs of extremism committed through the use of public telecommunications networks including the Internet basing on Art. 1 of the Federal Law dated 25 June 2002 No 114 “On Combating Extremist Activity”. Discussion and Conclusions: the author confirms the increase of public danger of extremism, and, as a consequence, rise in constitutional and national security threats which require symmetrical political and legal response including through the development and advancement of criminal mechanism in countering the group of acts under study including new information and communications technologies and the Internet.