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WikiLeaks backfires in SA?

Nicola Mawson
By Nicola Mawson
Johannesburg, 09 Sept 2011

WikiLeaks' recent publication of thousands of cables, some of which contain potentially damaging information about local politicians, will fan government's urgency to bring in a law to protect state information.

The Protection of State Information Bill, which criminalises the release of classified state information, will shortly be sent to Parliament for consideration before being signed into law by president Jacob Zuma.

The controversial piece of legislation has been slammed by opposition parties and civil rights movements as being unconstitutional.

Dene Smuts, MP and Democratic Alliance shadow minister of justice and constitutional development, says the party will take legal advice “with a view to petitioning the president...to send the Bill back to the National Assembly in order to correct its unconstitutional aspects”.

However, WikiLeaks' publication of the information could ironically push government into a stronger position to get the law enacted in its current format. Recently, members of Parliament voted against a public interest clause being included, which has raised concerns the law may limit freedom of speech.

WikiLeaks' recently released cables, the largest ever set of confidential material published by the non-profit organisation, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies across the globe and the US State Department. Some 15 652 cables are classified as 'secret'.

The online entity started publishing 251 287 leaked US embassy cables in November last year. The confidential documents, spanning the period between 1966 to February last year, caused a flurry of media reports in SA, as several revealed damning news about SA's leadership.

Naming names

Among the cables that made headlines in SA was one detailing how ANC Youth League officials had told the US about leadership battles within the ruling party, indicating there were tensions between current president Zuma and then head of state Kgalema Motlanthe.

Another reveals how a US legal adviser to the National Prosecuting Authority felt there was enough evidence to find Zuma guilty of corruption after Schabir Shaik was found guilty of trying to solicit bribes for Zuma from Thomson CSF to secure arms contracts.

WikiLeaks also details how AT&T, Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Qualcomm argued leadership shortfalls within the Department of Communications hurt the sector as other ministries jumped in, confusing the issues, and creating more bureaucracy.

However, WikiLeaks has come under fire for including the names of diplomatic officials in its latest set of published cables. The site, which usually strips out this information, has been accused of putting sources in jeopardy.

Counter-productive

Attorney Paul Jacobson says the release of the cables may raise state secrecy concerns and could fuel the flames for the Protection of State Information Bill to become law. “It fuels that whole debate.”

WikiLeaks, officially launched in 2007, aims to bring important news and information to the public. It has an electronic drop-box that enables sources to send it information.

“One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth,” it says on its Web site. It says its work is based on the defence of freedom of speech and media, and the “improvement of our common historical record”.

Founder Julian Assange has said the association's publication of confidential information has had positive outcomes. The release of a private intelligence report by Kroll into where Daniel arap Moi, Kenyan president between 1978 and 2002, and his cronies stashed money, changed the predicted outcome of the elections, he said.

Assange explains WikiLeaks' publication of the information changed people's minds about who to vote into power. “It entered the minds of many people, and caused them to act. The result was a change in the Kenyan election, which then went on to produce many other changes.”

Jacobson says the irony is that WikiLeaks was set up to improve transparency, yet it will achieve the opposite as the state will clamp down on more information. “It will strengthen the will for more control over sensitive state information; we could wind up with legislation that does anything except improve transparency.”

State security minister Siyabonga Cwele said recently the latest version of the Bill “includes a plethora of provisions that allows for lawful and procedural access to classified information”. He says the pending legislation has a provision to allow access to information that reveals a contravention of the law.

Cwele rubbishes concerns about the lack of a public interest clause. “We fail to see why members of the public, including media practitioners and whistle-blowers, would require such a defence when the committee has worked tirelessly to align this Bill with the Promotion of Access to Information, the Protected Disclosures Act and the Companies Act.”

The minister argues that to include such a defence would be “to shred the Bill even before it becomes law”.