Camelia Pasandaran – In the second phase of a judicial review of the 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction Law, the Constitutional Court heard plaintiffs argue that further regulation would hurt law-enforcement efforts.

The law, also known as ITE, allows law-enforcement agencies to conduct electronic surveillance, including wiretapping and monitoring of e-mail and other Internet communications, and is due for further government regulation.

"We deserve to live under the protection of the state and we deserve rights to use communication devices freely. All methods of correspondence must be protected by the government," Anggara, the director of the Institute of Criminal Justice Reform, one of the plaintiffs demanding the review, told the hearing. "Since [wiretapping] is already allowed by law, why should it be regulated via a government regulation?"

Anggara argued that if the government used regulations to control interception mechanisms, it would run contrary to the rights of the people, since the regulation would not be formulated by accommodating the aspirations of the public.

"If wiretapping were ruled simply by a law [not a regulation], then the public's opinions would be accommodated by the House of Representatives. We believe that in any case, interception violates our constitutional right to maintain confidentiality."

The government, through the Ministry of Information and Communication, plans to issue a regulation on wiretapping. Minister Tifatul Sembiring wants law enforcers to get approval for wiretaps from the court and ministry.

Andrinof Chaniago, a political expert at the University of Indonesia, said wiretapping was already regulated by existing legislation. A new regulation "will only lengthen the processing of cases and add more bureaucratic red tape into corruption-eradication efforts."

Emerson Yuntho, deputy head of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said requiring prior approval could lead to conflicts of interest. But Safri Nugraha, dean of the law faculty at UI, said in some instances it was appropriate that wiretapping be conducted under restricted conditions with a court-issued warrant.

"They should have to provide sufficient early evidence to the court that wiretapping is needed in the investigation," he said. "Otherwise, it might be abused."