{"id":86052,"date":"2015-04-28T13:32:16","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T11:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=86052"},"modified":"2015-04-28T13:55:47","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T11:55:47","slug":"sa-government-spying-on-its-citizens-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/86052\/sa-government-spying-on-its-citizens-report\/","title":{"rendered":"SA government spying on its citizens: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Right2Know Campaign has launched its <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/bigbrother.r2k.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/Big-Brother-Exposed-R2K-handbook-on-surveillance-web.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Big Brother Exposed report<\/a><\/strong>, which details how activists and community leaders have been \u201cmonitored and harassed\u201d by\u00a0South Africa\u2019s intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n<p>According to Right2Know, the issue of \u201cBig Brother\u201d monitoring citizens\u00a0was brought to the fore when\u00a0Numsa announced it\u00a0would lay a complaint with\u00a0the Inspector General of Intelligence after intelligence officials approached several Numsa members and United Front activists to get information on their activities.<\/p>\n<p>This type of monitoring has been a concern to South African activists for years, though, the report states.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis report draws on interviews with 16 people who have encountered some form of harassment from one of South Africa\u2019s intelligence structures or people who are suspected of being intelligence agents,\u201d said Right2Know.<\/p>\n<p>One of the interviewed civil servants, \u201cThemba\u201d, said he received a call from the State Security Agency agent towards the end of 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Themba was told the agency needed to speak to him about a conversation he had with the\u00a0director of the Alternative Information Development Centre, Brain Ashley.<\/p>\n<p>Two men in suits then showed up at Themba\u2019s office, and proceeded to ask him questions about phone conversations between him and Ashley regarding\u00a0possible strike action. Conversations they had recorded.<\/p>\n<p>When asked why State Security was interested in Ashely, an agent said he is \u201can activist who wants\u00a0regime change\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Right2Know raised\u00a0the following concerns on the incident:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How did the State Security Agency come to view a particular\u00a0political activist as a threat to national security?<\/li>\n<li>Why is the SSA investigating lawful political action at all?<\/li>\n<li>What does this mean for the Constitutional rights of privacy,\u00a0freedom of expression and freedom of association?<\/li>\n<li>On what grounds could the SSA have intercepted a phone call?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Another incident cited was one between Right2Know activist \u201cMiriam\u201d and alleged members of the \u201cintelligence structures\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In January 2015 Miriam reported being approached during an anti-crime march by three men in a white sedan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey asked what the protest was about and who I am, and am I the convenor\u00a0of this march,\u201d said. Miriam.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy name is Miriam,\u201d she answered.\u00a0He said, \u201cOh, you\u2019re <em>the<\/em> Miriam?\u201d He turned to the guy in the passenger seat\u00a0and said, as if they already knew about her, \u201cThis is Miriam, have a good look<br \/>\nat her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She later discovered her house was under surveillance by the men, and was subsequently approached on two more occasions by the suspected intelligence agents.<\/p>\n<p>The full report is available on Right2Know\u2019s website, as linked in the beginning of the article, and contains more alleged encounters between activists and civil servants, and the country\u2019s intelligence structures.<\/p>\n<p>Right2Know said it wanted to equip people with the knowledge they needed to \u201cfight back\u201d against this type of monitoring.<\/p>\n<p>This article was <a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/125144-big-brother-spying-in-south-africa-exposed.html\" target=\"_blank\">republished with permission from MyBroadband<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on spying<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Rogue Sars unit used malware to spy on South Africans: report\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/international\/80489\/rogue-sars-unit-used-malware-to-spy-on-south-africans-report\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Rogue Sars unit used malware to spy on South Africans: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Secret Russian spy satellite to launch in SA?\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/76240\/secret-russian-satellite-to-launch-in-sa\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Secret Russian spy satellite to launch in SA?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Fake towers spy on and collect cellphone data\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/73432\/fake-towers-spy-on-and-collect-cellphone-data\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Fake towers spy on and collect cellphone data<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Public Protector a CIA spy: deputy minister\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/67832\/public-protector-a-cia-spy-deputy-minister\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Public Protector a CIA spy: deputy minister<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report details how government security agencies are allegedly spying, monitoring and harassing citizens in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":9105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,8516,5610],"class_list":["post-86052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-right2know","tag-spying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86052","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\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86054,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86052\/revisions\/86054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}