WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2001-08-31 Time: 13:27:14 Posted By: Jan
SOURCE: WWW.CensorBugBear.com
AUGUST 29, 2001 — New legislation allowing the SA government to monitor and
intercept all private electronic and postal communications among all
residents — is being readied for parliamentary rubberstamping. However the
ANC-majority government’s cabinet had already approved this “draconian,
police-state legislation” and had given the public exactly four weeks in
which to formally object to it.
Raymond Louw, editor and publisher of the weekly newsletter Southern African
Report, warns that this new law can turn SA into a police state.
(published in Beeld newspaper’s print-edition only, Jhb, Aug 26,2001- article
was not published on their internet webpage)
“The SA government’s limited success in fighting the terrible crime wave has
had the South African government decide to impliment new Interception and
Monitoring legislation.
“This will extend the power of the government considerably — allowing
monitoring of all private discussions via cellphone, landline telephones and
the internet, and allow its intercepting our Mail.
“These new added powers, the government believes, will extend the ability of
the policy to fight crime. The proposed Bill for Interception and Monitoring
has created concern among the media, among legal experts and among
non-government organisations such as the Freedom of Speech Institute (FSI).
“They fear that the proposed Bill is being described so widely, the
terminology so losely described, that the security mechanism could be easily
transgressed.
“Some observers believe that if the Intercept and Monitoring Bill is accepted
in its present form, it will in fact turn South Africa into a police state.
“The South African legal firm Webber Wentzel Bowens, with its long history of
protecting press freedom, believes that this proposed legislation will have
serious implications for the constitutional rights on privacy and freedom of
speech.
“The proposed legislation includes a portion of the existing legislation of
1992 which allows the monitoring of conventional telephone calls — but this
has a justicial security mechanism built in to prevent abuse. This security
mechanism requires police officials to obtain authorisation from a judge of
the supreme court to monitor telephone calls.
This legislation was accepted in 1992 even though there was concern about its
abuse even back then.
“The new proposed law has several new draconian additions which especially
has the news media fear that their sources of information would dry up and
allow the government to intervene in publication of the contents of
newspapers.
“One of these (new draconian additions) is the withdrawal of the 1992
requirement for a Supreme Court order by a judge and allow “certain appointed
persons” — described as police officers with the rank of assistant
commissioner or a similar rank, or a major-general of the defence force —
the right to demand of a communications service provider to provide
“call-related” information about a user of communications.
“Such “appointed persons” would also include members of the National
Intelligence Agency and members of the Scorpion elite police investigation
unit. “Call-related information” means all the information pertaining to the
origin and destination of any communication, the time and length, the
identification of the equipment used, and the physical siting of the user
within the communication system.
“This would therefore provide other information about a call besides its
contents. Legal experts are of the opinion that the police would have no
difficulty to obtain the contents of any such communication.
“This proposed law is the most serious invasion of privacy, media freedom and
the free flow of information since the country installed its first democratic
government.
“Webber Wentzel Bowens pointed out the serious side-effects of the proposed
legislation. They said media probes into government corruption and
maladministration would end because the police would have the total power to
intercept all communications of the media’s sources and to stop
communications of this nature inside media service provider companies.
Internet targeted:
“Also targeted are the users of the internet. They will be subjected to
monitoring and interception of their communications by mechanisms which will
have to be provided and paid for at costs which still have to be determined.
“The extra costs will have to be carried by the communication service
provider companies. This means that these costs will be passed along by
increasing their charges to the public.
multi-million extra costs for cellphone providers:
“Cellphone providers will suffer the greatest cost implications. Of them, it
will be expected to have to spend millions to install, among other items,
equipment which would allow a central monitoring centre.
“Cellphone companies objected to this — estimating extra costs of between
R50-million to R100-million — money which will have to be recovered from
clients.
“Cellphone companies are not against the principle of monitoring for crime
detection purposes, which is being undertaken worldwide with certain security
mechanisms in place.
“However these costs would have to be carried by the government — or the
companies’ licensing fees will have to be reduced considerably.
“Service providers are defined as persons/organisations which provide
telecommunications services under licences issued by the independent
communication authority of South Africa. (Icasa).
“This includes cellphone operators, cellphone-networkproviders, internet
communications providers and even satellite operators.
“This proposed legislation places heavy burdens on service providers to
provide information about clients — not only cellphone users with contracts,
but also pre-paid cellphone users and short-term contractors.
“The most serious flaw in the proposed Intercept and Monitoring law is the
vagueness of the description pertaining to “urgent national interest” or
“national security” under which the government would be allowed to operate.
“The proposal simply reads “where reasonable grounds exist to suspect that a
serious crime has been committed or is about to be committed, or where the
security of the state or other urgent national interest of the Republic is
being threatened.”
Vague wording leaves “wide-open door”:
“The authorities must apply for monitoring to a justice of the Supreme Court.
However the wording in this proposed legislation is so vague that it
practically is a wide-open door. The legislation goes even further by
allowing monitoring in cases which apparently have nothing whatsoever to do
with security concerns.
“Companies and individuals may record their private communications with
others at the moment but under the existing old legislation, the fact that
these are being recorded has to be made known to the persons being
communicated with — but under the new legislation, this requirement is being
dropped completely.
“Any communication could also be monitored irregardless of which
communication system is being used. This creates the opportunity for
authorities to carry out raids on homes and other sites to monitor
communications even before they have been sent.
Encrypted communications banned:
“And provision will also be put into place to ban all (encrypted or
secret-code) communications which cannot be monitored.
Freedom of Speech infringed:
“Besides the fact that this interferes with freedom of speech, Webber Wentzel
Bowens also points out that such a ban on encrypted communications would have
a extremely negative effect on the growth of Internet technology and its
service industry.
“Fines for service providers which do not comply, involve penalties of
R1-million with an additional R50,000 for each additional day of
non-compliance — and with the removal of licensing the most severe
punishment for non-compliance.
Undue haste to rush Bill through parliament:
“This proposed legislation is being rushed through parliament. It was
publkished on 17 July — although many people were only able to obtain copies
much later than that — and the deadline for comment on it was 13 August
2001.
“At least three organisations — the FXI, the national editors forum and the
Media Institute of Southern Africa’s South African division — asked for
postponements so that objections may be properly drawn up.”
Raymond Louw.
August 2001 – Beeld