Text your say: Spying on social networking sites

Your comments on a proposed intelligence bill that could authorize the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) to closely monitor people’s activities including through accounts of the social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter:

If you are on the right track there’s nothing to worry about. But the same thing should be in effect on BIN too.

E Nurdin
Jakarta

Indonesia is a democratic country. Monitoring (not controlling!) Facebook by BIN is normal.

There is peace at home when no one is secretive.

Moeljoeno Adikoesoemo
Jakarta

I don’t think people are comforted at all with BIN having the ability to spy on them at will.

Gatotkaca
Surakarta, Central Java

In Indonesia, subversion is treason and a very serious crime.

Indonesian Constitution: Article 16-18 states that a citizen’s duty to the state is to protect it from any enemy to the unitary republic. Thus subversion is a crime against the people and the nation.

It is comforting to the people that BIN is operating at its normal exceptionally high standards of operation: Protecting the state and people.

I suggest BIN monitor any Internet activities. China has had excellent success and learned good lessons in fending off an external colonial-NGO revolution.

Mangkusubroto
Jakarta

It looks like Indonesia has learned from Egypt, Syria and Libya. But don’t they have to respect
the freedom of speech and other human rights?

How dangerous can free speech via the Internet be? They not only talk about terrorism. They mention subversion in the same sentence, allowing them to act against everyone not content with their regime.

Markus Hagenauer
Surheim, Germany

The state’s proposal to authorize BIN to monitor accounts on social networking sites is not a bad idea, but it would be preferable if it were more serious and more focused in handling other crucial state problems, such as prevalent terrorism cases, than to monitor accounts on Twitter or Facebook.

Febina Wahyudi
Jakarta

Please go ahead and monitor us, but please let us monitor you too. If the intelligence agency finds any potential threats, please reveal the truth and reveal it to the public as soon as possible.

This is not an era when people go missing without any clear explanation, nor a time when a family cries over a corpse-less coffin.

Transparency is not a one-way commitment. Both sides must share a common commitment.

Happy Indriyono
Yogyakarta

If the tweets of a certain minister were monitored more closely by BIN, perhaps he would have been asked to step down long ago.

Deddy
Jakarta

Next topic

Former National Police chief detective
Comr. Gen Susno Duadji was sentenced Thursday to three years and six months
in prison for corruption.

What will Susno’s disclosures concerning
graft mean to the police institution?

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