Sennadar Forums

Hi every one
We need some help here. They are probosing a new Law where fredom of Information Writing etc will be SENSORED
Please help us to oppose this. It will include Lit. News Paper etc.

Lady Minx

Can you give us some details, news reports, etc talking about it?

To quote one of my favorite authors (I might be paraphrasing):

A little bit of censorship is semantically equal to a little bit pregnant.

Draconian is a word that comes to mind.

Here is the September 2010 newsletter of the Law Society of Sth Africa:
http://www.myvirtualpaper.com/doc/dereb ... 010082601/
Their Editorial on the story starts on page 4 of the newsletter.

This law, if passed, would allow the 'state' to determine the classification of any information under such ambiguous terms as 'the national interest' and 'harmful'. The law proposes being able to classify commercial dealings of the government such that impropriety could be concealed from public view. And with all of this power there isn't any provision for independent assessment of the information being classified so the state officials could get away with blocking just about anything they set their sights on, literally anything.

Most legislation of this type includes provision for information to be published if it can be shown to be in the 'public interest'. This law has no such option therefore publishing information that might lead to disclosure of 'classified' information would be likely to get a jail term from 5 to 25 years! So much for Freedom of the Press. Imagine if the world had never heard of the clandestine goings on that led to Watergate. Or the Contra actions. If this Bill was in place in the USA you would never have learnt of it.

If I was a South African I would be very concerned about such legislation being passed. It seems to erode the universal right of access to information.