MADLANGA J to withhold the identity of sources can be truly effective only if journalists are protected from being spied on, subject to extreme circumstances that warrant spying. [21] The High Court then held that RICA is unconstitutional to the extent that it fails “to address expressly the circumstances where a subject of surveillance is either a practising lawyer or a journalist”.39 It made a fairly extensive interim reading-in order to fill the identified gap.40 [22] Finally, the applicants contended that the bulk interception currently undertaken by the National Communication Centre is not authorised by RICA or any other law. The High Court upheld the argument. It declared the National Communication Centre’s bulk surveillance activities unlawful and invalid.41 Constitutionality of RICA [23] The interception and surveillance of an individual’s communications under RICA is performed clandestinely. By nature, human beings are wont – in their private communications – to share their innermost hearts’ desires or personal confidences, to speak or write when under different circumstances they would never dare do so, to bare themselves on what they truly think or believe. And they do all this in the belief that the only hearers of what they are saying or the only readers of what they have written are those they are communicating with. It is that belief that gives them a sense of comfort – a sense of comfort either to communicate at all; to share confidences of a certain nature or to communicate in a particular manner. Imagine how an individual in that situation would feel if she or he were to know that throughout those intimate communications someone was listening in or reading them. 39 High Court judgment above n 8 at order 5. 40 Id. 41 Id at order 6. 19