Key Points
- A New Year decree lets Argentina’s intelligence agents “apprehend” people, including without a judge’s order.
- The government says it is modernizing security for today’s threats, while critics warn of a secret-police drift.
- The real battle now shifts to Congress and the courts, where the decree’s limits will be stress-tested.
Argentina’s intelligence services began 2026 with a new job description: they can now physically seize people.
President Javier Milei signed Decree 941/2025 on December 31, 2025, and it entered into force when published on January 2, 2026.
The measure rewrites key parts of the country’s National Intelligence Law, keeps the SIDE (Secretaría de Inteligencia de Estado) under direct executive control, and creates new counterintelligence and cyberintelligence structures meant to match “21st-century” threats.
The flashpoint is a new clause stating that intelligence personnel may “aprehend” individuals in three situations: during intelligence activities, when assisting a judicial request, or when a crime is caught in the act.
Milei’s Intelligence Decree Blurs Lines Between Spies and Police
The text also says agents must immediately notify the relevant security or police forces. Until now, Argentina’s legal architecture tried to draw a bright line: intelligence bodies were not supposed to hold coercive powers or perform police functions.
Supporters argue the change mainly formalizes something every state needs in emergencies. Argentina’s criminal procedure already allows warrantless arrests in flagrante cases, and even recognizes citizen apprehension when someone is caught red-handed.
In that reading, the decree is less about building a new force than about closing operational gaps, then handing custody to police.
Opponents see something darker in the details. The decree describes intelligence work as inherently covert, expanding secrecy at the same moment it introduces a power that touches the most basic civil liberty: freedom of movement.
It also pushes counterintelligence duties across the federal public sector, making internal security practices a responsibility of top officials well beyond the spy agencies.
Internationally, most liberal democracies keep civilian intelligence services away from arrest powers, leaving detentions to police under clear judicial chains.
Some countries run hybrid internal-security services that can arrest, but typically under judicial-police frameworks. Where intelligence bodies gain broader detention authority, abuse risks rise fast.
Argentina now heads into a familiar test: whether oversight institutions can keep a sharp boundary when a decree deliberately blurs it.