Information flow on the net makes a mockery of bill

There is no doubt that those behind the proposed Protection of State Information Bill have little knowledge of history and no grasp of how news and information flows instantaneously and constantly in our cyberworld.

Millions of confidential items such as, for example, secret briefings to Washington from the US ambassador in South Africa have appeared via WikiLeaks on the internet and then been distributed far and wide by conventional and social media.

WikiLeaks says its mission is to be "of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and institutions. We aim for maximum political impact."

Exactly how does the government propose that the new bill address this reality?

Anyone can go into an internet café and anonymously circulate state secrets or send them to WikiLeaks and he or she will be untraceable.

In many respects our government reminds one of the Nats. Like them, the ANC seeks to impose on the media the draconian threat of imprisonment - not just for publishing what the state determines is classified but for simply being in possession of such information.

One can quite unwittingly come into possession of classified information while being ignorant of the fact that it is classified. Then one is exposed to punitive sanctions.

This is akin to the National Key Points Act which prohibited publication of information or pictures of such "key points". The Nats were faced with the conundrum of dealing with those who unwittingly published about key points because no one was supposed to know what a key point was.

Now it's the ANC's turn. The country was embarrassed in December when Reuters and Associated Press were criminally charged by the police for having set up cameras at the home of former president Nelson Mandela in Qunu, Eastern Cape. Unbeknown to the news agencies, the homes of former presidents are designated as national key points.

Kafka would have had fun with these folk.

In emulating the Nats, the ANC will encounter insoluble problems that are not new. Years ago, before the internet (and even television in South Africa), the military forces were active in what was South West Africa and Angola.

Publication of this information was prohibited in SA. However, it was quite simple to trot over to the CNA and pick up The Times (of London) or The Telegraph or any foreign publication where one could read all about it.

The BBC, the Voice of America and other radio sources covered and reported on our military adventures. Television in a limited form was introduced only in 1976 and under strict supervision .

Today, of course, it is all much more complicated with the world wide web apparently beyond any jurisdiction. Recently, a Conservative UK politician, Payam Tamiz, attempted to sue Google for highly defamatory remarks about him on Google's Blogger.com platform.

Lloydlaw in London reports that, in finding the UK court didn't have jurisdiction, the judge decided that Google should not be regarded as a "publisher of the offending words" simply because it controlled and operated Blogger.com. Google's stance is that it has no control over any of its content. It is not a publisher but "merely a neutral service provider".

It is impossible to police the web. Even China's iron-fisted bureaucrats struggle with it. But still our government threatens us with dire consequences if we access, receive, obtain or possess classified information even if we don't know we are doing it.

Of course, the sole purpose of this heinous bill is to enable our rulers to hide embarrassing matters of corruption, incompetence, abuse of state resources and a long litany of other sins which have become the hallmark of this administration.