The SSA’s focus on state security is significant and is best understood in the context of the evolution of South African politics since 1961. During the
B. J. Vorster regime, state security was seen to be paramount by virtue of the fact that the state was the referent object simply because it represented an ethnic minority and was thus contested. The referent object is that which needs to be secured. This gave rise to the
Bureau of State Security (BOSS), which came to an end after the
Info Scandal, which involved the use of secret funds and covert capabilities to manipulate public opinion via the media, was revealed. Emerging from this was the
P. W. Botha regime, which saw the rise of the
State Security Council (SSC) as the premier decision-making organ. This organisation was hawkish and favoured the military, and was formed as a direct result of the emergence of paramilitary police units. While this process was unfolding, the
National Intelligence Service (NIS) was created but remained in the shadow under the leadership of Dr
Niel Barnard. Central to the creation of the NIS was the burning question about what the referent object is and how it should be secured. Within the NIS, the view was that the only way to secure the state was to create a legitimate government representative of the majority of its citizens. This discourse was known as "National Security" and the focus of security was the nation. The idea being that if the nation is secured, then a legitimate government would emerge so state security would become irrelevant as a concept. When the
F. W. de Klerk regime took over, it inherited a security force in crisis arising from the actions of the paramilitary police. This created space for the National Security discourse to take its rightful place in underpinning the transition to democracy by creating the climate for negotiations to end the Armed Struggle. This saw the concept of "national security" dominate the intelligence community, at least during the transition to democracy and the decade thereafter. It was only when the state started to perceive that it was under threat, that the old thinking about "state security" again emerged. This drove the creation of the State Security Agency (with the security of the state as its primary objective) out of the remnants of what had evolved from the NIS (with the security of the nation as its primary objective). ==Functions and mandate==