Spooks shouldn't control cyber security
The State Security Agency should not have control over cyber security, the Right2Know (R2K) Campaign said in Parliament this week, according to a News24 report. R2K was among several organisations that made submissions to the Justice and Correctional Services Committee on the Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Bill. ‘In its current form it will potentially censor freedom of speech,’ said R2K's Karabo Rajuili.
The group is also concerned that corporates and the state could infringe on Internet freedom and asked for much stronger safeguards in the Bill to keep the state at bay. Rajuili also said a clause dealing with fake news should be removed from the Bill as it could be open to abuse. ‘It can give the state the power to control the truth,’ she said. Murray Hunter, also of R2K, said the Bill gave too much power to the State Security Agency to manage cyber security. He said the problem was that it was the nature of an intelligence agency to view things in terms of threats.
‘The Internet is so much more than threats,’ he said. ANC MP Loyiso Mpumlwana complained about ’liberalism’. ‘This liberal view, I don't know what you are... who you are protecting,’ he said, adding that he was not happy with the freedom currently enjoyed by users of the Internet. He said there were ‘agents inside the country that want to destabilise it’.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
