hankyoreh

Despite strong outcry from civic and human rights groups, the National Assembly's Legislative and Judicial Committee on June 22 passed a revision to the law aimed at allowing the nation's intelligence and investigative authorities to eavesdrop on personal conversations via mobile phone and Internet use records.

Under the law, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), police, and prosecutors would be allowed to wiretap all communications in connection with their investigation into crimes with a court's warrant. It also obliges the nation's Internet and communications service providers to modify their networks in a way that allows for such monitoring.

Mobile service operators must make the changes within two years of the law revision going into effect, while Internet companies establish wiretapping equipment on their infrastructure within four years. If the law goes into effect during the parliamentary session scheduled for early July, after passing the plenary session of the National Assembly, the deadline for mobile and Internet operators to comply would be 2010 and 2012, respectively.

The revised law also stipulates all telephone conversations and Internet use records be kept for more than one year, obliging communications companies to provide such information to investigators upon request.

In addition, more information will be available to investigators than before, including when, where, and how long a person used his or her mobile phone, exchanged text messages, and logged onto the Internet.

The NIS and other investigators say that such moves are needed to cope with crimes and terrorist attempts becoming increasingly complicated and sophisticated. "You don't have to worry about abuse of the law, since we'll have to follow very strict steps before asking for personal information," an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

However, civic and human rights activists remain concerned that the revision law would eventually lay the ground for the emergence of the kind of "big brother" surveillance system predicted in George Orwell's book, 1984. "Under the revision law, all the people will be treated as potential criminals," they worried. Civic activists also claimed that if communications companies are taken over by foreign firms, all clients' private information could be leaked overseas.

Han Sang-hee, a professor of Konkuk University, said "The law which was supposed to 'protect communications secrets' could become one that prompts violations of communications privacy."