Minister of Twits Strikes Again

From the ‘You’ve gotta give him credit for moxie’ file, Communications and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring is again making headlines with a list of A-List untouchables who will be immune to electronic eavesdropping if his proposed new wiretapping bill is approved.
Grinchtour has delved into the story in past posts – including the fact the minister is a Twitter-enabled (@tifsembiring) FB slave – so there’s no need to review in detail.
Suffice to say the former chair of Indonesia’s Taliban-Lite party (PKS) has thrown off any pretext of respectable Hamas-inspired social responsible, grassroots activism, to aggressively push for measures that will emasculate the only reliable prosecutor of graft cases in the country. His proposed new bill will create a new super agency to oversee the approval of all wiretaps, including those of the corruption eradication commission (KPK) whose 100% success rate in prosecuting corruption cases has been credited in large part to their ability to listen-in without securing a judge’s approval.

This new agency, which will leak like a bus load of juvenile hockey brats after an overnight road trip, is expected to handle all requests for wiretaps from several law enforcement and spooky agencies, including BIN, the Indonesian equivalent of the CIA.

Whoever heads up or oversees its operations – gosh, now I wonder which tier-three Minister will assume that duty, huh? – will secure a lush new source of funding for future elections, harem expansion and overseas real estate acquisitions.
To no one’s surprise, the Twit reserves a place for himself on a list of people (President, Attorney General, National Police chief etc) who’ll be exempt from KPK wiretaps. And, in addition to protecting an A-list of potential/current corruptors, the Twit’s proposal will extend the security blanket to their “families and colleagues” (WTF does that mean?) Indonesia Corruption Watch’s Emerson Yuntho told journos recently.
So, to review: Minster Twit assumes responsibility for approving all wiretaps – and lush new sources of funding – while providing immunity to the most powerful people in the country and their inner circles. If it survives the current civil society outrage, this is one piece of legislation that’ll pass through the DPR approval process like shit through a goose.
Quite the ambitious power grab for the head of a ministry once tasked with spying on the local media, that was officially shuttered by Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000, but managed to linger like a bad smell all these years.

More on Indonesian Minister Blocking Blog Access

This story has kinda vanished - there's been little mention about it in 'mainstream' media struggling to do justice to news about the KPK, the Antasari trial, Bank Century investigation etc etc - and I've been too busy to spend a lot of time checking out the local blogosphere.
But from what I've been able to piece together, the Minister for Communications and Technology, Tifatul Sembiring, ordered his staff to issue a letter to Internet providers around the country to block access to a specific blog that was (re)publishing the controversial Dutch cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Good little Droogies that they are, the ring-kissers decided to impress the boss with a letter ordering access to all blogsites be blocked. As far as I know, the only company to comply was my provider, First Media.
By all accounts the Minister is wired. He has his own (dormant) website , a blog and Twitter account @tifsembiring (though who actually composes his tweets is unclear). You don't want a modern day Luddite in this position - PKS's ranks are swollen with urban professionals - so in that sense he might be the right pick. But....
This specific case appears to have been resolved now - I'll double check later at home to see if FM has turned the tap on again - but the larger questions will likely will remain - unaddressed:
- by what right does a Minister decide unilaterally what should and should not be accessible to the general public;
- what does it tell us about the Minister's likely agenda - Pak Tifatul is the co-founder and outgoing chairman of the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) - six weeks into a (potential) five year appointment that his first act of office is to restrict access to information;
- is a broader clampdown on how the Internet is used and information, disseminated, in the works and,
- what if any role should the private sector in Indonesia play in pushing back against government edicts of this type.