hankyoreh

In investigations, there is a broad-mindedness that must be maintained and a line must not be crossed. Everything is not justifiable simply because of the objective of the investigation. The seizure of the Democratic Labor Party’s (DLP) server by police to investigate suspicions that members of the Korea Teachers and Educational Workers Union (KTU Jeon Gyo Jo) and the Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU) joined the DLP is, in our judgment, a typical example of an excessive investigation.

The reason cited by prosecutors for the search and seizure of the web server was to check the voting record of KTU members and others suspected of joining the DLP. The voting site, developed by the DLP itself, contains the personal information of some 100 thousand people who participated in an array of votes and surveys. For police investigators, this naturally means they can gather detailed personal information and even the voting records of about 100 thousand DLP members. This is something that gives you goosebumps just thinking about it. The DLP’s protest to the search and seizure, that it is an act of surveillance of an opposition party by police and political repression, is not unreasonable.

The investigation behavior exhibited by police investigators until now has also been problematic in a number of ways. The police reportedly use the resident registration numbers of teachers suspected of being DLP members and logged into the voting site to confirm their party membership. Perhaps the police are using their best investigative wits to survey the situation, but the controversy over the legality has become unavoidable. The majority of criminologists have agreed upon the fact that if somebody, including a member of an investigative body, uses someone else’s resident registration number to log-in to a website, it constitutes a violation of the law governing resident registration numbers. It appears that the search and seizure of the server was also a use of strength to bestow belatedly legality on evidence obtained illegally. This is because since police investigators say they have already acquired a list of government employees who paid dues to the DLP by tracing their bank accounts, there would be no need to carry out a search and seizure in order to punish them.

The investigation has from the start drawn large amounts of criticism for being a absurd investigation. The criticism has resulted from the all-too-clear intention to corner some teachers and government employees by nitpicking on their DLP activity after Jeonju District Court found teachers not guilty regarding their emergency declaration critical of governmental policies. The police investigators are conducting their investigation to suit a decided target, and they are overreaching. We hope the police put a stop to their shameful targeted investigation. Are they too busy conducting targeted investigations to pay attention to public order, which is springing leaks in a variety of places?

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]