John Matisonn of the Sunday Independent reports in an article titled, “Spooks probe sex lives of presidential press.” Excerpt:
The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has been questioning journalists on details of their sex lives, as part of a security clearance process for membership of a proposed new presidential press corps.
Colleagues of the journalists who have been given as references have also been asked to provide whatever information they have about the applicants’ sex lives, including whether or not they had ever practised homosexual sex.
The questions have raised fierce objections among legal experts, who said they were unconstitutional, and the Foreign Correspondents’ Association in South Africa, which said it was “impossible to see how they could be necessary or appropriate”.
The questions are being put to journalists who have applied for membership of a new presidential press corps along the lines of the White House press corps, which has privileged access to the president and travels with him on occasions.
No expert contacted by The Sunday Independent was able to give an example of any other country that asks journalists such questions.
Among the questions asked are who the journalist has slept with, whether that is a full list of names, and whether he or she has slept with members of the same sex.
Other questions include what the reporter would do if he or she were asked to sleep with someone in return for information, and what the reporter would do if he or she caught the president having sex.
Married journalists are asked about the state of their marriages.
Media colleagues given as references are also interviewed by the NIA and investigated to confirm whether the list of sexual partners is accurate and a lack of same-sex experience is true, or whether sexual encounters have been omitted.
Applicants have also been asked to supply copies of their bank statements, and for information about any psychotherapy undergone and the diagnosis of the therapist.
Lindiwe Sisulu, the minister of intelligence, pledged to investigate the matter, and said an instruction ordering the removal of some of the questions concerning sex was drafted on Friday. Later, however, Lorna Daniels, the ministry’s spokesperson, after consulting director-general Vusi Mavimbela and the minister, said the questions would remain.
“On the surface it seems quite offensive, but you’ve got to understand the reason is to test people during that phase, and then ask the same questions when they are being polygraphed,” Daniels said. “It is aimed at seeing if there is consistency in answers; to test that you are not hiding anything. You ask these heart-thumping, reflexive questions to make the heart beat faster.
“If you don’t want to answer the questions you don’t have to, but it will affect the outcome.”