I+prefer+the+bunglers,+Anton+Harber,+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 29 March 2006
=When it comes to state spies, I prefer the bunglers=


 * Anton Harber**

I HAVE tried all weekend to work up a sense of indignation over the news that the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) had me under illegal surveillance for a week last September.

I used to be quite good at moral righteousness over the misbehaviour of state security agencies. It was part of my job as editor of a newspaper constantly under surveillance, threat and attack, and I had a fair amount of practice at it. Even when I knew they were just being ham-handed and stupid, and doing things that would help us raise money and give us publicity, I could spit and sputter with all the appropriate anger.

But this weekend I couldn’t do it. When Die Burger phoned me on Friday, I tried my best and said I was upset about the abuse of state resources, the invasion of my personal privacy and the threat to media freedom if journalists could be subjected to this sort of treatment. When the Cape Times phoned the next day, the best I could say was that I was half-angry and half-bemused at the foolishness of it all.

I know that what the NIA did was outrageous and needs to be stopped. I know that there should be a full and independent inquiry. I tried to put together phrases about a return to the bad old days and the importance of the rule of law.

By, try as I might, I couldn’t muster much indignation. I had to admit in my heart of hearts I knew that if the NIA was spending its time trailing me, then at least they were not doing the really bad things spies are capable of doing (in the national interest, of course).

That they should think I was involved in internal African National Congress shenanigans around the leadership of the party was so laughable that it is hard to get angry about it. E-mails purporting to come from me could not even spell my name right. They quoted me using the phraseology of Eugene Terreblanche. That’s how amateurish the whole thing was.

All the same, I am not sure why President Thabo Mbeki fired the chief spy, citing a “loss of trust”. It would have been one thing to fire him for incompetence, but who trusts spies anyway? They are paid to be crooked and dishonest, for heaven’s sake.

I am tempted to campaign for the reinstatement of Billy Masetlha as chief spymaster. I suspect our spies are likely to do less harm if they are bumbling and incompetent than if they are sharp, smart and on-the-ball. If they were effective, they might have interfered with those who really do meet to find ways to stop Jacob Zuma becoming president — and then we would be in real trouble.

The NIA is one area of the state bureaucracy where we might encourage the useless, unskilled and foolish. We might discourage delivery.

All of this did, however, get me wondering at what you would learn about me if you listened in on my phone.

Did they make notes about my extensive discussions with Fred the Handyman about those things around the house I had avoided fixing for weeks and was getting him in to do? Did they realise that all this stuff about changing locks and fixing broken windows was coded instructions? Did they track all the arrangements with my kids — about being picked up and dropped off, and realise that these were covert meetings with Saki Macozoma?

Did they hear me complain about endless university committees and frustrating administration? Proof of my disdain for state institutions, my lack of loyalty, perhaps? Most worrying of all, are they on to my poker school, where we spend more time speaking about matters like the Zuma trial than actually playing the game? What did they make of talk about suicide kings and red deuces mixed in with gossip from the court room?

They probably stumbled on my great weakness — a fondness for Islay single malt — and were one step away from realising they could use this to compromise me. Anyone who listens in to my conversation will know that this is the way to get me to sell my soul.

If they dip into their vast slush funds for a bottle of 30-year-old, I could be in real trouble.


 * Harber is Caxton Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, University of Witswatersrand.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A177102