Unfair, unreasonable and ludicrous

I’ll be away most of this week, chairing some conference sessions. I have a few months’ worth of Brainstorm and Maverick columns stored up, though, so I’ll post a few of these for your reading pleasure when I get a chance.

• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm magazine, December 2007. Brainstorm pays for these, so if you’d consider subscribing, I (and the magazine) would be in your debt.

Unfair, unreasonable and ludicrous

Those aren’t my words. Those are the words of members of the Security and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee in the National Council of Provinces.

Stupid. Imbecilic. Naïve. Batty. Those would be among the words I’d choose. Half-baked. Dim. Preposterous. Simple-minded. Goofy. Witless.

I’m talking about the recent amendment to the Regulation of Interception and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act, pushed through parliament by the Justice Department.

Let’s just call it the spy law, since that’s what it is, and many people must be familiar with the hoohah in the United States over similar “domestic wiretapping” provisions in anti-terrorism laws.

According to market researchers BMI TechKnowledge, there are somewhere north of 40 million cellular telephone users in South Africa. The majority of those are prepaid customers, who prefer, whether for creditworthiness or other reasons, to buy SIM cards and airtime as and when they need them.

This amendment requires everyone who uses a cellphone SIM card in South Africa to register their identity and residential details with their operators.

It’s loco. Pointless. Dense. Harebrained. Illogical. Bonkers.

The primary reason cited for the requirement is fighting crime. Organised crime, in particular.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to commit a crime, I’d go to some lengths not to identify myself to authorities. I’ll get an untraceable phone, or make it so. And if I can’t get a phone that’s untraceable, I’ll – I hope I’m not giving away any crime secrets here – meet my accomplices in person.

Criminals aren’t the sort of considerate people who obey the law. I’d have thought the definition of criminal would make this clear. This won’t curb any but the most petty crime, committed by the most incompetent criminals, against which I’d have thought the police don’t need all that much help.

Futile. Brainless. Ridiculous. Potty. Derisory. Lunatic.

This requirement is going to be tremendously impractical. It will create reams of data, most of it probably wrong. Many cellphone users don’t even have formal addresses, or they move regularly, or don’t have proper identity documents because Home Affairs hasn’t had its home affairs in order for years.

How are mobile operators supposed to ensure the information is accurate in the first place, and stays up to date in the second? I’ll bet that more than half of the information so gathered will be useless to law enforcement, and the other half won’t be needed.

It’s feebleminded. Doltish. Mindless. Dumb. Flaky. Absurd.

The cost of recording and maintaining all this data will be borne by whom? Mobile operators? You have to be kidding me. It will be passed on to consumers. Instead of reducing the cost of telecommunications, as the president mandated in a state of the nation speech some years ago now, this domestic spy law will significantly raise it.

Wacky. Foolish. Moronic. Dippy. Nonsensical. Dopy. Nuts.

It will undermine the spectacular success of low-cost prepaid telephony in South Africa. If cutting off half the people who’ve gained access to telephony thanks to prepaid is the government’s intention, the spy law is great.

Insane. Kooky. Irresponsible. Laughable. Half-witted. Ludicrous. (Oh, scratch that; the NCOP has that covered.) Retarded.

A government that has easy access to reams of private data is sure to abuse it. Even assuming that we trust the government in general, can we extend this trust to the bad apples within government? Can we trust private organisations that have no inherent need for the data, because they’re not, for example, providing us with credit? This extends the circle of organisations whose intent and competence we need to trust with private data even further. It’s a fundamental infringement on privacy and individual liberty. It’s how a police state operates.

Ill-advised. Nutty. Fruity. Fruity-and-nutty. Obtuse. Short-sighted. Barmy.

This law also requires all foreigners to register their cellphones when they’re in South Africa. Never mind the annoying impracticality of that, or that it doesn’t exactly say, “Welcome to the free South Africa”. If even one refuses, the measure is unenforceable, unless all international roaming is blocked. And if we do that, South Africans won’t be able to use their own phones internationally either. We’ll cut ourselves off from the global village. It’s that simple.

Rash. Mindless. Idiotic. Unthinking. Cockeyed. Thick. Irrational. Senseless. Ludicrous. Loony. Daft.

I’ve run out of words. Oh wait, no, I haven’t. There’s still cretinous. But I’ll save that word for a future column on the subject.

No synonyms were harmed in the production of this column.