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I. Vague and Overbroad Definitions of National Security

The draft is based on an overbroad and alarmist understanding of national security, or “threats to the nation” (ancaman nasional).  Identifying and preventing these threats provides the justification for the bill itself, and the phrase is repeated in many of the bill’s provisions.

Article 1(1) defines “threat to the nation” very broadly as “efforts taken conceptually through various sectors of life and/or transnational criminal acts calculated to endanger the order and interests of the state and the nation.”³  Article 2 defines the “vision” of the intelligence regime in a similarly broad fashion, including the protection of national integrity, the state ideology (Pancasila) and the Constitution from “various domestic and international threats.”⁴

The general provisions of the Elucidation⁵ elaborate on the purpose of the bill, recapitulating a common theme in Indonesian state rhetoric––the image of external forces provoking internal unrest.  For instance, the Elucidation speaks of the increasingly fluid nature of international borders,⁶ and how the presence of foreigners within national borders can create the conditions from which threats to national unity can emerge.⁷  

Human Rights Watch is particularly concerned that the definition of “threat to the nation” (“ancaman nasional”) is overbroad and susceptible to abuse by overzealous intelligence agents without proper mechanisms for oversight and accountability.  The term must be specifically defined to cover only acts or planned acts of a criminal nature.  It should not cover peaceful political or expressive activity, such as meetings of opposition parties or groups, grass-roots activists, and indigenous groups.