Details: How Rica failed to protect the public, journalists
The practice of state institutions spying on journalists 'is a serious abuse of power and has grave implications for the protection of whistleblowers'.
Jacques Pauw talks at Brooklyn Mall during the launch of his book, ‘The President’s Keepers’, in Pretoria in November. Picture: Jacques Nelles
South Africa’s surveillance law Rica (Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act) has failed to protect journalists and the public at large, according to the latest report by human rights organisation Right2Know.
Entitled Spooked, the report launched in Johannesburg yesterday includes several accounts of how journalists have been detected working under major surveillance, mainly by state intelligence agencies.
Among those whose chilling accounts have been sketched in the report are journalists Sam Sole, Jacques Pauw, Stephan Hofstatter, Mzilikazi wa Afrika, Athandiwe Saba, Peter Bruce, Rob Rose, Tom Nkosi, Sipho Masondo and the SABC 8.
Despite pushing government for surveillance reform by tabling a set of demands, co-signed by 40 civil society organisations two years ago and delivered to the department of justice, Right2Know maintains that state intelligence agencies are still keeping a close watch on journalists.
The report calls on government to rebuild its intelligence structures “from ground up, in particular the state security agency and the police’s crime intelligence division”.
With President Cyril Ramaphosa having announced in May a panel to review the structures and activities of intelligence organisations, the Right2Know report has pointed to a road-map already in existence, a report by the Matthews Commission which found far-reaching problems with intelligence structures.
The recommendations were never implemented by the government under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki.
Adds the report: “It is clear that in several cases, intelligence structures have targeted journalists for surveillance in order to identify their sources.
“In the case of Sam Sole and possibly Jacques Pauw this appears to have been the declared objective of the operation, which the Rica judge has signed off on, knowingly.
“This practice is a serious abuse of power and has grave implications for the protection of whistleblowers. It must end immediately.
“It is clear that journalists will always be at risk of being spied on until state security structures stop thinking that spying on them is part of the job.”
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