Earlier this year, Parliament’s ad hoc committee on National Intelligence published a draft bill which deals with such cloak-and-dagger things as protecting state information, or 007-like things such as how certain information might be protected from destruction or disclosure.

If the Cambridge Five had played their games in the modern day South Africa, they would, in terms of the new Act, have been branded with very popular Hollywood-offences such as espionage distributing false information to the state, which could have secured them visit to Polsmoor Prison for up to 25 years…

In the modern area of access to information (see Act 2 of 2000) and constitutional transparency, this new bill comes across quite strangely as very restrictive. A number of commentators have worriedly pointed out that the very wide definition of “state information” (currently defined as “information generated, acquired or received by organs of state or in the possession or control of organs of state”) could inhibit Mr John Doe’s access to government information.

Mr Doe should be very worried because he could suddenly find that some of his records can now be withheld from him in terms of the suggested act and it would now become Mr Doe’s problem to prove that he is otherwise entitled to this information whilst government departments dream up all kinds of excuses in terms of this bill as to why Mr Doe would NOT be entitled to the information. The Bill also allows for the protection of certain commercial information and if one takes that the government is in effect the big daddy of some very large corporation in our country (think Telkom, Eskom, Transnet and the likes), this could make for difficult times for the competition commission and other players in those markets.

It would be interesting to see how the modern technologies play up against very old-fashioned tools such the bill under discussion. The recently launched Wikileaks service provides a platform for private citizens to expose and publish dishonest, corrupt or otherwise sensitive information online about any government or corporation. The purpose of the Wikileaks site is to provide a safe haven where documents can be anonymously uploaded and then afterwards discussed online for verification purposes.

Interestingly enough, this Bill also criminalises the conduct of any South African citizen who contravenes the provisions, irrespective of where in the world this happens.

As Wikileaks so succinctly sums it up:

”
The first ingredient of civil society is the people’s right to know, because without such understanding no human being can meaningfully choose to support anything, much less a political system. Knowledge is the creator of every political process, every constitution, every law and every regulation. The communication of knowledge is without salient analogue. It demands recognition as the founding guide of civilization.
“

It seems as if this Bill tries to swim against the tide of freedom of information, despite the advances in technology and the way in which society is working with information.

Submissions on the Bill have already closed and the Parliamentary Committee is currently considering the submissions.

The Protection of Information Bill is available online at: http://www.info.gov.za/gazette/notices/2008/30885_376.pdf.

The South African section of the Wikileaks page can be found here: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:South_Africa

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