Milei allows intelligence agents to arrest people in new SIDE restructure |
President Javier Milei has carried out a widespread reform of Argentina’s intelligence system, granting spies more power and deepening the secrecy of their activities, via a decree published on Friday in the Official Gazette.
Intelligence agents will be allowed to arrest people on the spot — something that till now was reserved for police officers and military police only — and all their activities will be considered “covert.”
In addition, the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) will have the power to ask the armed forces to perform interior intelligence tasks.
Opposition members expressed concern over the reform, saying that with these changes, intelligence services could be used for political espionage.
They also argued such an important reform should have been debated in Congress, and accused the government of making changes when Parliament is on summer break.
“If the president wanted to reform a law, he could have and should have sent a bill to Congress. He didn’t,” said deputy Maximiliano Ferraro, from center party Coalición Cívica, in an X post on Thursday, after details of the decree were published by the press. “He doesn’t like governing according to the Constitution, because it is an obstacle for him, and he will always prefer a........