MPs deadlock again on info bill

The following article was published online by Times Live:

Parliament’s committee on the Protection of Information Bill has deadlocked on proposed 25-year jail terms for “hostile activity” against the republic.

State law adviser Carin Booyse produced a new draft of the controversial bill, setting out three options for “offences and penalties”, all including 15 to 25 years in jail for anyone involved in “espionage” or “hostile activity”.

Hostile activity is defined in the latest draft as “aggression against the state, sabotage or terrorism aimed at the people of the state or a strategic asset of the state”.

“Foreign or hostile intelligence operations” and the use of violence to overthrow the state were also defined as hostile activities.

It would be an offence, punishable by 15 to 25 years, to give “top secret” information to anyone, knowing that this would benefit a foreign state or “non-state actor”.

Opposition parties called for “hostile activity” to be deleted. They said they supported punishment only for espionage between states, not where information was given to “non-state actors”.

IFP MP Mario Oriani-Ambrosini said: “A non-state actor could very well be a newspaper and the disclosure of a document to a newspaper would be hostile activity. But espionage is giving classified information to a foreign enemy. That is the way it has always been.”

DA MP Dene Smuts said she had argued previously that “this whole hostile activity thing was just nonsense” and that it should be done away with.

The ACDP’s Steve Swart said: “We have got to separate the citizen who comes into possession of a top-secret document, but not to benefit [with the aim of benefiting] another country.”

The ANC’s Luwellyn Landers said even a “non-state actor” who received top-secret information should face charges. “If you want to argue that a non-state actor could be a newspaper, I would want to insist the receiving of top secret information as being an offence as well. It is top-secret information. It is espionage,” said Landers.

DA MP David Maynier said if he put a secret document in Landers’s briefcase, it would be ridiculous to charge Landers with espionage.

Committee chairman Cecil Burgess ruled that a bigger debate was needed before removing the concept of hostile activity. “Let’s not make that decision now,” he said, putting the discussion on hold.

Source: Times Live