Why the final version of the Secrecy Bill is a problem for South Africa

Journalism has traditionally operated under a “publish-and-be-damned” ethic which means that journalists have a responsibility to publish a story only when they are reasonably sure of the facts and confident that disclosure would be in the public interest.
 
However, section 41 of the Secrecy Bill provides that any person who discloses or possesses classified state information is liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 5 years except where such disclosure reveals criminal activity.

An investigative journalist can’t investigate crime and corruption without first coming into possession of what might be classified information.  So the new bill shifts the risk of damnation back to the pre-publication stage.  It’s a case of “investigate-at-your-peril” because if you don’t uncover something criminal, you will have committed a crime yourself.

Compare this with the landmark case of New York Times v. United States (1971),in which the Nixon administration sought to ban the publication of classified documents about the Vietnam War secretly copied by Daniel Ellsberg. The US Supreme Court held that only proof that publication "must inevitably, directly, and immediately cause the occurrence of an evil kindred to imperiling the safety of a transport already at sea can support even the issuance of an interim restraining order."

ANC veteran MP Professor Ben Turok, criticised by his party for taking an initially principled stand against the Secrecy Bill, voted in favour of the final version of the Bill yesterday saying that he had been briefed by colleagues on the changes to the bill and was “assured that they are qualitative, not superficial”.

So said Professor Turok: “Because of the tortuous passage of the bill… I’ve been unable to track all the changes. This is no excuse, as I have a responsibility to know what I vote for, but there are limits to how much ground one can cover.”

Seriously, Ben?  You didn't even read the final draft before voting in favour of it? It’s a whole 28 pages. You could digest it faster than a Weetbix.

Props must go to “Super Mario” of the IFP who discharged himself from hospital to deliver this impassioned plea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcTlG9PeA9Q 

 

 

In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve

The death of Margaret Thatcher has unleashed a torrent of criticism and protests in Britain.  But for all the criticism levelled at Thatcher in the wake of her death, it is worth remembering how she came to hold the position of prime minister for 12 years.

She was democratically elected to parliament by the local residents of the Finchley parliamentary ward. She was later democratically elected to lead the Conservative party by the members of that party and she held the position of Prime Minister from 1979 - 1990 by virtue of the fact that the Conservative Party won three successive democratic elections, securing more than 13 million adult votes in each election. 

It is not as though Britain suffered under an authoritarian autocratic government between 1979 – 1990 in which political criticism was oppressed. The 80's is in fact a decade marked by strong awakenings to human rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression, led by the West where even the harshest of criticism was tolerated and, (as in the case of Diana Gould below), even publicly broadcast.

My point is not that the policies now known as "Thatcherism" should escape critical review but that the British public democratically endorsed those policies at the time.

The outpouring of criticism against Thatcher is therefore as much a criticism of an era as it is of its actors. Our current era might be destined for a similar fate because, as Joseph de Maistre wrote in 1811, "In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve".