Because of Documents Being Leaked
Wednesday, 26 April, 2006 | 17:05 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The government has acknowledged that at first the controversial State Secrets Draft Bill was aimed at only regulating the state’s intelligence coding.

The draft was originally limited to codes and then broadened in order to protect against numerous documents being leaked.

“In this reform era, many documents such as government letters are being leaked, even ones from the Presidential or Vice Presidential Palaces,” said Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono, yesterday (25/4).

He cited, as an example, leaks in correspondence between the Defense Department and its partners on determining weapons’ purchase prices.

“This becomes a problem because the documents are mostly confidential or restricted,” he said.

Other restricted documents that have been leaked and publicized by the press also include, for example, a letter regarding budget proposals from the Defense Department to the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission for Defense last year.

“That was actually a document restricted to the Defense Department and Commission I (Defense), but unfortunately it was leaked to the press,” said Juwono.

The Defense Minister went on to say that the problem of such documents being leaked to the public was said to be for the sake of reform and openness.

This has resulted in the spread of leaks.

A military observer from Propatria, Andi Widjajanto, said that the embryo of the draft bill which was firstly meant for the State Coding Institute’s interest had been discussed in the Working Group meeting in 1994.

“In the beginning it was probably only connected with the Coding Institute to keep information secret, but then it was broadened,” he said.

Dimas Adityo, Qaris and Fahmi