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A revision of the Protection of Communication Secrets Act that would legalize the monitoring of cell phone conversations is a long-cherished dream of the National Intelligence Service. To permit mobile phone tapping since the 2005 eavesdropping scandal, the NIS has lobbied the legislature and the media as if its life depended on it. The service wants to do openly what it has been doing furtively. Unless cell phone conversations are monitored, the NIS claims, there are great big holes in counterterrorism and counter-espionage operations. In the investigation of the so-called 386 spy ring scandal last year, intelligence authorities complained of difficulties because they couldn¡¯t legally listen in to mobile phone conversations.
But civic organizations are allergic to the idea because the state has a long history of eavesdropping not only under authoritarian governments but also under the Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung administrations. Senior NIS officials lied to the National Assembly that it was technically impossible to bug cell phone conversations but secretly bugged over 1,800 influential figures. "Reports submitted to the president at the time were based on eavesdropping. Our superiors and the chief executive wanted these reports. Surely they must have known how the reports were compiled," a senior NIS official told this reporter a while ago.
Given the prevalence of cell phones, it's a fact that some monitoring of conversations is needed in the interest of national security and to investigate violence and kidnappings. The revision to the data protection act paving the way for monitoring cell phone conversations passed the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee on Saturday and is to be referred to the full parliamentary session early in July. It permits intelligence and investigation authorities to monitor cell phone conversations not by themselves but through telecom providers, a sort of last resort designed to prevent abuse and bugging for political purposes. It also reinforces parliamentary control.
Still there are fears of "Big Brother" with respect to provisions that would mandate storage of Internet communication records for a year and allow intelligence and investigation authorities to peruse them. People are concerned that cell phone conversation monitoring may be misused and overused under the cloak of legality when it suits the government. Following the wire-tapping scandal, the NIS claimed it dismantled all the equipment. So how come a considerable number of NIS staff use cell phones registered in the names of others? Even insiders don't believe that cell phone conversations can¡¯t be monitored. That is only fueling public suspicions. It is not unreasonable for the public to be concerned about abuse.
Can we assume that the state and the NIS have broken with the practice of illegal wiretapping? And are the control mechanisms sound enough to give them the right to do it? We need a definite answer to such doubts and trust in the answer before bugging of cell phone conversations is permitted. It is not too late for both ruling camp and opposition to shape the revision not according to the NIS and the Justice Ministry that have been pushing for it but by listening more carefully to the voice of the public. Because it is packaged as "public interest", we should not entrust our basic rights to private communication to intelligence and investigation agencies without a proper safety mechanism. The Protection of Communication Secrets Act does not exist to justify encroachment on communication secrets but to protect them.
This column was contributed by Lee Jin-dong from the Chosun Ilbo's National Desk.
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