The amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism has instituted Constitutional action against the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (Rica) bill which it says \u00a0has given government unfettered levels of access to private information.<\/p>\n
In an opinion article for the Mail & Guardian<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>amaBhungane\u00a0journalist Sam Sole confirmed that an application <\/strong>had been brought to the Constitutional court and that he himself had been a victim of spying as proved by leaked transcripts used by then\u00a0acting national director of public prosecutions, Mokotedi Mpshe, to revoke president Zuma’s corruption\u00a0charges.<\/p>\n Worse still, Sole acknowledged that the current Rica law meant that the interception of his communications was completely lawful due to how outdated \u00a0and vague the 2002 legislation currently is.<\/p>\n “The core issue is that legislation governing legal interception, the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (Rica), was conceived when most people thought of monitoring communications as being a rare right granted by a judge to officer Koekemoer or agent Sithole to tape and listen in on the conversations of criminals and terrorists,” said Sole.<\/p>\n “This conception was outdated even when the law was passed in 2002 \u00a0\u2013 and now it is light years away from the reality of modern signals intelligence. The law\u2019s safeguards, inadequate then, are dangerously weak now.”<\/p>\n Sole and\u00a0amaBhungane’s application seeks to remedy Rica’s inconsistencies by firstly\u00a0addressing where Rica\u00a0fails to regulate certain activities and secondly to address issues where the legislation does apply, but does so inconsistently.<\/p>\n In addition Sole set out a number of specific grievances he had with law in his Mail & Guardian article including:<\/p>\n You can read the full court application here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n You can read the full Mail and Guardian here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
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