SECTOR 1 court rulings against the presidency about making certain information available. However he has refused to abide by all of these rulings, claiming these were opposition plots designed to destroy him. In addition, once journalists or civilians have access even to non-controversial information, they are told it is proprietary information and is not to be used commercially, and may only be used in the form in which it has been given. Also, this raw data is often presented in an unusable way that cannot be properly analysed – i.e. it is in PDF form, not in Excel spreadsheet form - which limits how citizens or members of the public can use it. An example was made of the South African National Census of 2011, which was paid for with taxpayers’ money, but which is not provided to people in a form in which they can use it for practical research purposes. There are steps being taken to try to improve the situation of accessing publicly held data. A local version of the international organisation ‘Hacks/Hackers’, a forum for journalists and information technology developers, holds training sessions related to accessing data and learning how to ‘torture’ it for required information. The University of Cape Town’s ‘Datafirst’ project enables people to search for data from various African socioeconomic surveys, and which is looking at improving access to the National Census. It is also involved in training African data managers to enable better data curation on the continent. The South African History Archives, an independent human rights archive, offers a little-known free service to access publicly held information. This is done as a public service and requests can be made for various types of information, although it can take time for such information to become available. Whistle-blowers are legally protected by the Protected Disclosures Act.22 However, if the Protection of State Information Bill is passed it its current form, whistleblowers who disclose classified documents to reveal corruption, for example, could be prosecuted for espionage. the tapes with the registrar of the court within five days. Lawyers representing the President have appealed the High Court decision. 22 South Africa. Protected Disclosures, Act 26 of 2000. 22 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER SOUTH AFRICA 2013