It is customary for the head of the Russian FSB to give a year-end press conference on the agency’s successes in fighting enemies of the state.  The fact that they skipped it this year might mean that 1) 2009 was a very bad year for the agency, or 2) they no longer feel accountable to the public.  At least those are some of the recent views of the analyst Andrey Soldatov, as summed up at Paul Goble’s Window on Eurasia.

The bit about FSB accountability to the public is a total non sequitur, but maybe these guys are underestimating the achievements of the spy agency – after all, they did get into a big fight over fragments of Hitler’s skull this year, didn’t they?  And that fake YouTube video attack on the State Dept. guy with the prostitute was fairly creative, complete with synth saxophones and all.  The CIA on the other hand can’t even stop a 23-year-old bomber from Nigeria who pays for a cash ticket to Detroit whose own father had reported him to the authorities, so maybe nobody should be bragging this year…

Anyway – an excerpt from Goble below.