STOPPINGTHE SPIES
STOPPINGTHE SPIES
Constructing and resisting the
surveillance state in South Africa
JANE DUNCAN
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
Copyright © Jane Duncan 2018
Published edition © Wits University Press 2018
First published 2018
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/12018052156
978-1-77614-215-6 (Print)
978-1-77614-216-3 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-217-0 (EPUB)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Copy-editor: Russell Martin
Proofreader: Inga Norenius
Indexer: Marlene Burger
Cover design: Fire and Lion
Typesetter: Integra
Typeset in 10 point MinionPro-Regular
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 Theorising the surveillance state
CHAPTER 2 Is privacy dead? Resistance to surveillance after the Snowden disclosures
CHAPTER 3 The context of surveillance and social control in South Africa
CHAPTER 4 Lawful interception in South Africa
CHAPTER 5 State mass surveillance, tactical surveillance and hacking in South Africa
CHAPTER 6 Privacy, surveillance and public spaces in South Africa
CHAPTER 7 Privacy, surveillance and population management: the turn to biometrics
CHAPTER 8 Stopping the spies: resisting unaccountable surveillance in South Africa
CHAPTER 9 Conclusion
NOTES
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
I would like to thank my colleagues and comrades in the MPDP, especially Julie Reid and Viola Milton, for their unstinting support of the work that led to this book. The Department of Journalism, Film and Television at UJ acted as a host for the project, and for that I would like to thank the former head of department, Ylva Rodny-Gumede, and the current head, Dumisani Moyo, as well as the departmental administrator, Amy Maphagela, and her predecessor, Emmerentia Breytenbach. The OSF-SA provided funding for the research project that informs this book, and I thank them profusely for that. The OSF-SA continues to be an unstinting supporter of work that seeks to strengthen the quality of our democracy, even if this work puts them on the wrong side of power, and I thank them for their courageousness and their foresight. In particular, I would like to single out the following OSF staffers for their support: Fatima Hassan, Allan Wallis and Leonie Sampson. Although they have now left the OSF-SA, Vinayak Bhardwaj and Michael Moss were instrumental in ensuring that the OSF-SA supported the project, and I thank them for that too.
My thanks to the Mail & Guardian, Daily Maverick, Sunday Times and open-Democracy for having carried opinion pieces I have written on surveillance and privacy in South Africa. I remain indebted to Fazila Farouk, former owner and publisher of the South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS), which provided a platform for my early writings on these issues; these opinion pieces formed the basis of this manuscript. I must also acknowledge the contribution of Ronnie Kasrils, a former Minister of Intelligence, who acted as a respondent to my inaugural lecture, which is incorporated into this manuscript. I thank the APC’s executive director, Anriette Esterhuysen, for the opportunity to undertake a research project into journalists and communications surveillance, and to allow me to incorporate some of this research material into this manuscript, as well as Stephan Hofstatter and Mzilikazi wa Afrika, for having contributed as interviewees to this research.
Avani Singh, Dale McKinley and Nora Ní Loideain conducted research for the MPDP for the Privacy International project on privacy in South Africa. The Privacy International team were unwavering in their assistance when I asked for it during the writing of this book (and that was often). The Legal Resources Centre also assisted with information on aspects of the book. I would also like to thank the following people for agreeing to be interviewed for the book, or for providing information in response to requests: Gus Hosein, Scarlet Kim, Tomaso Falchetta and Caroline Wilson Palow, Claire Lauterbach, Matthew Rice, Edin Omanovic and Alexandrine Pirlot de Corbion from Privacy International; Eric King and Javier Ruiz from Don’t Spy on Us; James Welch from Liberty; former RICA judge Yvonne Mokgoro; Sam Sole, Stefaans Brümmer and Karabo Rajuili from the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, Ant Brooks, special advisor to the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), Thulani Mavuso from the Department of Home Affairs, Charles Nqakula, the chairperson of the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence; Stephan Hofstatter from the Sunday Times; and Wayne Minnaar and Gert van der Berg from the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD), who took me on a guided tour of the JMPD closed-circuit television (CCTV) control centre. I have also included previously unused interview material with Dennis Dlomo, then co-ordinator for government intelligence and head of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, conducted at the end of 2013 at the SSA offices. There are also many interviewees who contributed to the research and journalism through agreeing to semi-structured interviews or focus groups, and who cannot be acknowledged by name as they were granted confidentiality as part of the interview process. They know who they are. I thank them for their courage in speaking out, and hope that in time to come, it will become easier for people to speak out about the issues touched on in this book, without fear of retribution. Only once they can do so, can we really say that we live in a robust democracy.
I would also like to thank SAHA for filing information requests to the City of Johannesburg, the South African Parliament and the Civil Aviation Authority. The records these bodies released in response to these requests are useful, although they were not as comprehensive