Chapter Two: Intelligence-driven digital surveillance and public oversight success in an anocracy: Angola and the 15+2 case

This chapter focuses on an example of successful public oversight in the anocratic political context of Angola. It assesses how public oversight of intelligence-driven digital surveillance can stop a government from abusing its capabilities and argues that in specific situations international pressure can compensate for limited opportunities for national mobilisation, with positive implications for sustaining national public oversight. It displays a famous case, known as the 15+2 case, or the Luanda Reading Club. Three elements came into play in this case: the security services overreach, namely by the abuse of digital surveillance, the instrumentalization of courts, and public oversight. In fact, it was public oversight that forced the resolution of the problem, which had been created by the disastrous performance of the courts and security services, through the hasty approval by parliament of an amnesty law after a massive international outcry over a number of convictions. The 15+2 case demonstrates that intense national and international public uproar can, sometimes, constitute effective public oversight, which can lead to political power restraining itself and modifying oppressive decisions. The aim of this chapter is to understand whether it is possible for a specific public reaction to contribute to an oversight model of the security services overreach involving the abuse of digital surveillance in an anocratic regime.