NIS demands permission to eavesdrop on foreigners

Posted on : 2009-03-04 12:23 KST Modified on : 2009-03-04 12:23 KST
A proposed law revision would allow the NIS to listen in on mobile telecommunications, the Internet, and all other communications services

It has been revealed that the National Intelligence Service has demanded that when the Communications Secrecy Protection Law (Tong bi beop) is revised it should have a provision allowing the intelligence agency to eavesdrop directly on foreigners instead of having to go through communications companies. In asking for permission to operate its own, separate eavesdropping equipment, it is contradicting the Lee Myung-bak administration and the ruling Grand National Party, which say they want to eliminate the possibility of abuse by changing the way communications eavesdropping is done and using the procedure of going through communications companies, as is done in advanced countries.

According to the Feb. 25 minutes of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee’s Legislation Examination Subcommittee 1 as reviewed on March 3, the NIS wants the law amended so that when the president gives his approval for eavesdropping for reasons of national security, it can do the eavesdropping directly, without asking communications companies to do the job.

A high-ranking NIS official told the subcommittee the NIS wants “to be able to listen to the needed portions of a communication by decoding the encryption once communications companies send us the whole signal” by having the law amended.

The NIS request is reflected intact in the bill to revise the Communications Secrecy Protection Act as proposed by lawmaker Lee Hansung and other members of the GNP. The bill before the Legislation and Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee would have the law changed to make it possible for the NIS to eavesdrop on all current communication formats like mobile telecommunications and the Internet, as well as all communications networks that take form in the future. It would also require communications companies to maintain records of all communications for at least one year keep user location information as part of those records.

In addition, the bill would allow the NIS to, with presidential approval and for reasons of national security, eavesdrop on foreigners and electronic communications by the military. All other actual eavesdropping procedures would be entrusted to communications companies. Authors of the bill want to see it voted on by the full National Assembly in April.

The NIS’s demand is to be the only body with the means to do communications eavesdropping directly, and to be able to operate equipment that can be used to eavesdrop on mobile telecommunications, the Internet, and all other communications services. It leaves much room for abuse, since only the NIS would know the foreigners who are being listened in on with presidential approval. According to statistics on the year 2007, some 98 percent of all eavesdropping actions by the Korean government were done by the NIS.

“Allowing the NIS to have its own eavesdropping equipment is like opening up the door for abuse,” said Jang Yeo-gyeong of the progressive portal site jinbo.net.

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