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Introduction

After reviewing the draft law on national intelligence, Human Rights Watch has numerous concerns about the ambiguous language of the proposed bill, the expansive powers it grants, and the potential for conflict with both Indonesian criminal law and international human rights law.  Human Rights Watch hopes that legislators will find these comments helpful in their evaluation of the draft bill, and if the bill is to be passed by the parliament in some form, that legislators consider amending the current draft to take into account human rights concerns.

The draft law on national intelligence is poorly drafted and based on a vague and overbroad definition of a “threat to the nation” that could have serious consequences for civil liberties.¹  The draft governs the activities of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and a wider “intelligence community,” which is defined to include numerous government and possibly non-government entities under the direction of the BIN Director.  The draft law generally blurs the line between criminal investigation and intelligence activity and conflates the role of the military, police, and intelligence operatives.   The draft’s empowerment of such an amorphous and unregulated body could undermine efforts to make both the police and military more accountable to civilian leaders since the separation of the two bodies in 1999. 

Among the draft’s most troubling provisions are those allowing intelligence operatives to: