The legal defects of the ICA clauses
ICA is defective in several ways, especially in treating journalists and lawyers in Zimbabwe.
These two communities of practice are mentioned because they are integral to any democracy
or to any efforts to build a democratic dispensation through their professions.
In this regard, the Act is defective in the following ways.
(a). Dragnet surveillance: The problem with dragnet surveillance is that it targets people under
suspicion and those who are not suspected of any wrong-doing. The overall effect of this is
that it turns everyone into a potential criminal.
Dragnet surveillance has been justified in several ways by its advocates. By throwing the net
out on everyone, the state/surveillers claim that they are making it hard for rogue criminal or
terrorist elements to escape but engage in an egregious violation of privacy. There is also the
unproven claim that law enforcement will generally not do anything with your data not unless
you do something wrong. This is not true as the intention of dragnet surveillance is not
always to fight crime, especially in regimes where political opponents have been persecuted,
and where law enforcement are partisan.
(b). Absence of explicit protection for vulnerable communities of practice. The ICA should
offer explicit protection for vulnerable communities of practice like journalists and lawyers.
The question that should be asked about ICA, which it does not answer include: how are
journalists’ sources protected from surveillance? How is journalism itself as a central practice
in the enjoyment of democracy, protected from intrusive surveillance? How are lawyers as
well, protected? ICA is silent about these protections. When a law is silent about how it
protects the vulnerable, it actually targets them by its silence.
(c). Absence of jurisdictional boundaries: The fact that dragnet surveillance allows law
enforcement to run data queries and information would always be there should worry people
about both accessibility and post-use storage. Without a corresponding capability to store
the data, citizens run the serious risk of data exposures and criminal-masterminded hacks.

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