Government’s increasingly less subtle overtures towards controlling the free flow of information and monitoring of personal communication should be a red flag for all South Africans who espouse the values of democracy.

In addition to the controversial Protection of State Information Bill, or so-called Secrecy Bill, designed to regulate the classifi cation, protection and dissemination of state information, president Jacob Zuma" rel=tag>Jacob Zuma is about to sign the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill.

This piece of legislation, commonly known as the Spy Bill, has raised worries about giving government the power to monitor and intercept foreign communications.

In essence, the Spy Bill seeks to merge the National Intelligence Agency, the South African Secret Service and other intelligence organisations into a centralised entity, the State Security Agency. This, say pundits, will have the efect of giving the country’s spook agencies unbridled powers to spy on the public.

Those opposing the ANC-backed Bill have raised fears that it would ultimately decrease the accountability of intelligence agencies, as it is questionable whether the activities of these bodies would, or could, be sufficiently regulated.

The amended version of the Spy Bill, as adopted by the Nationa lAssembly and the National Council of Provinces, no longer contains the definition of foreign signals intelligence. This is apparently due to the fact that classified regulations exist that govern the interception and monitoring of foreign communications.

But legal experts, such as Kathleen Rice, director of Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr’s technology, media and telecommunications practice, warn that “in the absence of any express legislative requirement, subjecting the interception and monitoring of foreign communications to the provisions of RICA, it seems foreign signals will continue to be intercepted by the state security structures without any form of judicial oversight for the foreseeable future”.

Now, the monitoring of foreign communications is indeed a very frightening prospect, when one considers the practical implications of what is proposed by the Bill.

Says Rice: “The definition of foreign signals intelligence in the earlier version of the Bill was wide enough to incorporate all electronic communications that takes place using applications running on servers outside of South Africa, such as Gmail, Yahoo, Skype, Twitter and Facebook to mention but a few.”

I don’t think it’s necessary to point out that such a wide-sweeping defi nition, coupled with practically no regulatory oversight, would be a massive blow to our Constitutionally-protected rights and would send us well on our way to becoming an oppressive police state.

It also goes without saying that this scenario should be all too familiar to those who fought against the pre-1994 regime – let’s not allow South Africa to slip back to those “good ole days”, shall we?

Happy reading!

Martin Czernowalow