President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill into law, which he says will form a foundation for reforms to South Africa’s intelligence services.
The amendment Act amends the National Strategic Intelligence Act of 1994, the Intelligence Services Act of 2002, and the Intelligence Services Oversight Act of 1994.
Among other reforms, the new law disestablishes the current State Security Agency as a national government department and replaces it with two separate departments.
The new departments are:
The Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) which shall be responsible for foreign intelligence gathering to identify opportunities and threats to National Security; and,
The Domestic Intelligence Agency (DIA) which shall be responsible for counter-intelligence as well as the gathering of domestic intelligence in order to identify threats to National Security.
The laws make provisions that both the departments will be accompanied by improved oversight and accountability, the president said.
The amendment Act also re-establishes the South African National Academy of Intelligence (SANAI) and Intelligence Training Institute for both domestic and foreign intelligence capacities.
The wide-ranging amendments implement the recommendations of the 2018 Presidential High-Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency (SSA) and the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption, and Fraud in the Public Sector—also known as the Zondo Commission.
The law also addresses concerns about bulk interception by intelligence services of internet traffic entering or leaving South Africa by introducing new measures, including authorisation within the intelligence services and court reviews of such interception.
The law provides for the administration, financial management, and expenditure of intelligence service entities to be within the ambit of the oversight of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence
The committee is a multiparty committee of Parliament that processes public complaints about the intelligence services and monitors their finances and operations.
The newly enacted amendments also provide greater autonomy for the Inspector-General of Intelligence and the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (NICOC) to make administrative and functional decisions.
While many have welcomed the signing of the new laws, they have not been without controversy and opposition.
Several civil society groups have raised concerns about potential overreach and giving the government too much power to spy on and invade the privacy of citizens.
There have also been worries about vague or broad definitions in the laws, which would ostensibly give the state extensive powers to subject anyone to invasive surveillance in the name of “national security.”
