Internet service providers in Zimbabwe have warned they will be driven out of business if the government goes ahead with proposed bugging laws that will necessitate the purchase of expensive surveillance equipment, reports said on Thursday.
President Robert Mugabe’s government wants to bring in new laws that will allow for the tapping of phones, e-mail and internet communications as well as the monitoring of private mail in a bid to protect national interest and security.
But rights groups told a public hearing on Wednesday on the Interception of Communications Bill that the proposed new laws contravened freedom of information and expression, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported.
And a board member of the Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association warned that the new laws would be open to abuse, said the paper.
Jim Holland told the hearing that service providers would find it too expensive to install the bugging equipment and this would drive them out of business, the report said.
The proposed new laws, which will allow the police, tax authorities and the president’s security staff to order that an individual be placed under surveillance, have alarmed NGOs and the media who fear they will be targeted for surveillance if perceived to be critical of government.
The powerful head of the state-appointed Media and Information Commission, Tafataona Mahoso, defended the regulations, saying they were in line with a United Nations directive for countries to put in place surveillance mechanisms in the wake of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, the Herald reported.
A legal officer from the Media Institute of Southern Africa told the hearing that the Bill contained provisions similar to those in an earlier Post and Telecommunications Act that were nullified by the Supreme Court because they contravened freedom of information, according to the paper. – Sapa-DPA