{"id":101510,"date":"2015-10-18T14:05:04","date_gmt":"2015-10-18T12:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=101510"},"modified":"2015-10-18T14:05:04","modified_gmt":"2015-10-18T12:05:04","slug":"state-security-wants-to-spy-on-whatsapp-and-email-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/101510\/state-security-wants-to-spy-on-whatsapp-and-email-report\/","title":{"rendered":"State Security wants to spy on WhatsApp and email: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sundaytimes\/stnews\/2015\/10\/18\/Parliament-in-fear-as-spooks-move-in\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The Sunday Times reported that<\/strong><\/a> the State Security Agency threatened to screen communications on WhatsApp, SMS, and email to root out \u201cspies and whistle-blowers\u201d in Parliament.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, Parliament has launched an \u201caggressive onslaught against its own staff in an attempt to root out spies and whistle blowers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The article stated\u00a0SSA officials have warned Parliamentary staff that \u201ccertain NGOs, specifically Right2Know (R2K), were known to be agents working for foreign governments\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParliamentary staff were also discouraged from being whistle-blowers as this, they were told, would undermine the institution,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n<p>Right2Know responded to the allegations, saying it \u201cwholeheartedly condemns this latest sign of the securitisation of Parliament\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cR2K is a movement made up of ordinary people across South Africa who are in service to the constitutionally-protected rights to freedom of expression and access to information,\u201d the organisation said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are outraged, but not surprised, by the paranoia and utter disdain that the securocrats show for ordinary people and their organisations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>R2K said\u00a0its audited financial statements are <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.r2k.org.za\/\" target=\"_blank\">published on its website<\/a><\/strong>, as are their funders and all key organisational documents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe demand that State Security comes forward to explain itself \u2013 how exactly does R2K pose a threat to national security?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It said\u00a0that organisations which\u00a0demand openness and accountability are only a threat to the legitimacy of the corrupt, the insecure, and the authoritarian.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Right2Know<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/93288\/sabc-boss-in-racist-rant\/\">SABC boss in racist rant<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/87034\/the-secrecy-bill-is-back\/\">The \u2018Secrecy Bill\u2019 is back<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Sunday Times reported that the State Security Agency threatened to screen communications on WhatsApp, SMS, and email to root out \u201cspies and whistle-blowers\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":80741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,8516,4161],"class_list":["post-101510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-right2know","tag-spy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101512,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101510\/revisions\/101512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}