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View all search resultsPolicing state surveillance
When rogue police operators can secretly tap the President’s phone and wipe the logs, state surveillance isn't protecting democracy—it's quietly dismantling it.
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National Police Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) chief Comr. Gen. Asep Safrudin (center), National Police Inspector General Comr. Gen. Asep Edi (right) and National Police Public Information Division head Insp. Gen. Johnny Eddizon Isir (left) address a news conference at the National Police headquarters in Jakarta on Nov. 3, 2026, following the designation of three suspects in an alleged illegal wiretapping case.
Bareskrim has named three police officers, identified only by their initials LSP, ASN and EH, as suspects in an alleged case involving illegal wiretapping, the deletion of electronic data and unauthorized access. (Antara/Galih Pradipta)
P
resident Prabowo Subianto and the public would do well to recall the late former president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid’s timeless quip. He once joked that Indonesia had only three honest cops: former police chief Hoegeng Iman Santoso, the Police Statue and speed bumps, known locally as polisi tidur, or “sleeping police”.
On Tuesday, the National Police announced the arrest of three generals, including its former chief, Listyo Sigit Prabowo, on charges of illegally bugging the phones of the President, cabinet ministers, tycoons, activists and journalists. On Wednesday, State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi noted the offenses could amount to treason, even though Coordinating Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra had earlier told reporters that investigators had found no signs of sedition.
The high-profile case came to the fore just a month after the President dismissed Listyo as the police chief but reassigned him as presidential chief of staff.
Regardless of the motives behind the eavesdropping, the scandal raises a valid question: If someone inside the police force can secretly tap the President of Indonesia’s personal phone and get away with it for months, what chance does anyone else, especially ordinary folk like us, stand?
The case hitting the National Police sounds like the plot of a political thriller, but the implications for everyday Indonesian democracy are dead serious. Between 2025 and 2026, rogue operators slipped target after target, from state officials and politicians to investigative reporters and NGO activists, straight into the Lawful Interception Management System (LIMS). No warrants. No case files. Not even a routine supervisor sign-off. When things got too hot in October 2026, they simply wiped the recordings and deleted the server logs.
Leveling charges under the new Criminal Code might look decisive on paper, but it treats a structural crisis like an isolated bad-apple incident. An independent investigation is more just and fairer to find out whether the practice has been in place for many years, especially as the police admitted to buying the military-grade spyware Pegasus in 2018.
The blunt reality is that the state has quietly spent years building a formidable surveillance apparatus with almost zero democratic friction. According to watchdog research by ELSAM and Seknas FITRA, just four state bodies, the National Police, the Defense Ministry, the Attorney General’s Office and the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN), poured an eye-watering Rp 36.1 trillion (US$2 billion) into commercial surveillance tech between 2018 and 2024.
