This week the Mail & Guardian suffered the indignity of a conviction in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on charges of crimen injuria for attempting to place under electronic surveillance a meeting attended by the former Civil Co-operation Bureau commander Staal Burger in 1992. The magistrate fined us R3 000 and the editor an additional R1 000, acknowledging that we committed the offence in the belief we were acting in the national interest.
The circumstances of the bugging incident are fairly well known. We believed at the time that there was a conspiracy in the security forces to reduce the country to civil war. We were tipped off that Burger was engaged in suspicious meetings at a Johannesburg hotel. Assuming that as a leading member of the CCB — a state-sponsored murder squad which, among other things, had tried to assassinate a member of our staff — he might be involved in the conspiracy, we hired a private detective to try and record the conversations. We were caught.
Bugging is tolerated and, in some circumstances, applauded in countries which consider themselves civilised, including the new South Africa. There is not much criticism when arms smugglers, drug dealers, spies, or organised crime are targeted by electronic surveillance. The moral arguments turn on control, rather than the act. The potential for abuse —- for prurient interests, for example — prompts society to limit its use as far as possible to state agencies subject to ministerial responsibility and parliamentary and judicial oversight.
But what of a society in which the “responsible” state agencies were made up of men like Burger; in which ministers had shown themselves to be parties to murderous conspiracy? If ever there was a criminal activity which warranted electronic surveillance it is treason. But who is to take these measures when those charged with defence of the nation are seemingly involved in the treason? We stepped into the vacuum.
In retrospect we still contend we were fully justified. Our only regret is that we were not more efficient; who knows, perhaps we could have saved lives. But it should be said the vacuum no longer exists. Our security agencies, while leaving much to be desired by way of efficiency, are now answerable to a democratically elected government and Parliament. It is with relief that we say our days as buggers are over.