REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Tantowi Yahya, a member of the House of Representatives' Commission I, is of the opinion that the wire-tapping activities carried out by the United States and Australia against some Indonesian state officials cannot be attributed to the weaknesses of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN).
"I do not agree that the wire-tapping happened because our Intelligence agency was weak," Tantowi stated on Wednesday.
According to him, the acts of tapping carried out by America and Australia were very sophisticated and could not have been prevented by Indonesia's intelligence bodies, which even intelligence officials in some developed nations had been unable to prevent.
"We can see that even some European countries, such as France and Germany, which have far more advanced surveillance technology than Indonesia, were being wire-tapped by the United States," he noted.
"It means that to date there is no technology that can ward off any such tapping by the United States or Australia," he continued.
But Tantowi also urged the State Intelligence Agency to draw a lesson from the wire-tapping episode, and improve its capability and performance in maintaining state resilience and security.
"This tapping incident needs to be a lesson for the intelligence of Indonesia to improve the capacity of its technology," Tantowi said.
Meanwhile, another House's Commission-I member Hayono Isman was of the view that Indonesia's intelligence agencies should improve their performance and capabilities to prevent similar incidents from recurring.
Hayono noted that the House's Commission-I would also pay more attention to the problem of budgeting for the State Intelligence Agency in the future.
"We will fully support whatever budget is needed to ensure that our intelligence is able to improve its performance and capability to prevent similar things from happening again," he stated.
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