The SSA's surveillance of civil society organisations represents the most chilling manifestation of intelligence abuse under the Zuma regime: the state's most powerful surveillance apparatus turned against citizens exercising their constitutional rights to protest, organise, and hold power accountable.
**Targets**
The SSA's Special Operations Unit, operating through the CDSO under Thulani Dlomo, targeted organisations that were critical of the Zuma government:
- **Right2Know Campaign**: A civil society movement advocating for transparency and access to information - **Greenpeace Africa**: The environmental organisation, targeted in the context of its opposition to nuclear energy (which the Zuma government was pursuing) - **#ZumaMustFall**: The anti-Zuma protest movement - **Fees Must Fall**: The student movement demanding affordable higher education, surveilled through **Project Academia** - **Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution (CASAC)**: A constitutional watchdog organisation
**Methods**
The SSA did not merely monitor these organisations from a distance. Agents were planted inside organisations, masquerading as activists. They attended meetings, built relationships with genuine activists, and reported back to their SSA handlers. This deep infiltration went far beyond any legitimate intelligence-gathering purpose.
**The Boast Report**
In July 2022, following the Zondo Commission findings, civil society organisations obtained and released a declassified internal SSA document known as the "Boast Report." This was an internal document in which the Special Operations Unit detailed its claimed successes in infiltrating civil society. The document essentially served as a performance report — the unit boasting about how effectively it had penetrated the organisations it was tasked to surveil.
The release of the Boast Report was significant because it provided documentary proof from the SSA's own records of the scope and intent of the surveillance operations.
**Inspector-General Obstructed**
When Inspector-General Setlhomamaru Dintwe investigated the civil society surveillance operations, he was systematically obstructed: - The IGI office was forced to share the SSA's IT infrastructure, meaning the SSA could observe all IGI investigations in real time - Officials refused to hand over evidence, claiming classification - Dintwe was threatened and intimidated - His investigations were actively derailed by Fraser and then-Minister Bongani Bongo - Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence was "missing in action"
Dintwe told the Zondo Commission: "Lots and lots of money was stolen from the SSA" while politicians failed their oversight role.
**Constitutional Violation**
The Mufamadi Panel found there was "almost complete disregard for the Constitution, policy, legislation and other prescripts." The surveillance of lawful civil society organisations violated Section 16 (freedom of expression), Section 17 (assembly, demonstration, picket, and petition), Section 18 (freedom of association), and Section 32 (access to information) of the Constitution.
The SSA was designed to protect the nation from genuine security threats — not to spy on students demanding affordable education or activists demanding government transparency.