hankyoreh

Members of the American Civil Liberties Union hold a protest in Washington DC calling on Congress to investigate the NSA’s mass surveillance programs

Revelations of US National Security Agency (NSA) activities by former contractor Edward Snowden are reawakening public fears about indiscriminate spying by state organizations. With Seoul and South Korean intelligence having yet to respond to Snowden‘s allegations, attention is turning to a recent partial court victory in a case connected with them.

Chief judge Park Hyeong-jun of Seoul Central District Court ruled in part for the plaintiffs on Nov. 16 in the civil case, which was filed against Google and its South Korean branch by six Gmail users, including Jinbo Network activist Oh Byeong-il, demanding the disclosure of their personal information provided to third parties and compensation of three million won (US$2,600).

In its ruling, the court demanded that Google disclose “all plaintiff personal and service usage information that had been provided to any third party, with the exception of anything it is bound by US law not to disclose.”

The court declined to award damages, arguing that failure to comply with the disclosure request did not constitute “the causing of mental distress.”

As significant as the ruling is, some hurdles remain before Google discloses just what personal information about South Korean citizens was provided to a third party. In its ruling, the court granted disclosure exceptions to “anything [Google] is bound by US law not to disclose.” According to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US intelligence organizations do not need a warrant to collect information about foreign nationals who communicate with US citizens, and are not bound to disclose the identities of those foreign nationals. During the trial, Google said US law prevented it from disclosing information subject to nondisclosure terms, and that it had not passed any other types of information to third parties.

“Google claims that it has to follow US law, but if it does we end up with the result that South Korean law is not upheld,” said attorney Yang Hong-seok, who represented the plaintiffs.

“We’re planning to fight the nondisclosure requirement in future trials,” Yang added.

Article 30-2 of South Korea‘s Information and Communications Network Act states that service providers are “required to disclose to a user at his or her request whether their personal and service usage information has been provided to a third party.”

While the response from civil society has been noticeable in English-speaking countries, those of East Asia have been comparatively quiet. Indeed, it is mainly Anglophone countries that are leading the charge in responding to indiscriminate monitoring by intelligence organizations. In June, the US Senate passed the USA Freedom Act, which prohibits the bulk collection of communication records without court permission. Katitza Rodriguez of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a US group working for information protection, described the act in an email to the Hankyoreh as the first example in the last thirty years of Congress placing practical limitations on indiscriminate monitoring by the NSA.

But The Guardian newspaper and other sources note, the debate is still raging, with the NSA issuing more requests for bulk information collection in the wake of the law’s passage. In Britain, the civic group Privacy International joined Jinbo Network and six other groups last year in filing suit in British intelligence court -- a special body tasked exclusively with intelligence organization monitoring issues -- to demand the disclosure of personal information acquired by Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). In Canada, anti-terrorism legislation that went into effect in June actually gives more surveillance powers to intelligence organizations in the wake of a 2014 shooting attack in Ottawa by an Arab-Canadian male. The issue is currently the subject of intense debate over possible civil liberty infringements.

One limitation is that most of the current legislative efforts are focused only on protecting citizens at home, without any practical restrictions on indiscriminate online monitoring overseas.

“There haven’t been any changes in legislation on foreign internet surveillance,” said Rodriguez. “We believe it is still happening.”

By Choi Hyun-june, Kwan Oh-sung and Steven Borowiec, staff reporters

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