hankyoreh

Gyeonggi Province

Police investigators who are currently investigating suspicions that members of the Korea Teachers and Educational Workers Union (KTU, Jeon Gyo Jo) and Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU) have joined the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) seized a second server connected to the DLP homepage on Sunday. Since the search and seizures mark the first time the police have seized servers containing a variety of information belonging to a political party, it is sparking controversy that the search and seizure is a violation of a political party’s freedom of political activity. The Democratic Party (DP), DLP, New Progressive Party (NPP) and Creative Korea Party (CKP) agreed to hold a meeting Sunday morning to discuss countermeasures.

As DLP officials looked on, including DLP Deputy Secretary General Park Seung-woo, about 10 investigators from Seoul’s Yeongdeungpo Police Station conducted confirmations of the membership status of 303 KTU and KGEU members under investigation at the KT Internet Data Center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, where the DLP servers are stored. Police also carried out a server seizure on Feb. 4, but searched only part of the server due to protests from the DLP.

Police obtained a new warrant to conduct hard disk imaging, making a copy of the hard disk, on the DLP server on Saturday. By copying the data in its entirety, this allows the police to search for data on suspects without login IDs or passwords in the event that the DLP refuses to cooperate. In response, a DLP official said the danger exists that information about individuals other than those listed on the warrant could be leaked, so the party decided to provide the IDs and passwords allowing police to look at those targeted for the investigation.

Meanwhile, at around 6:00 a.m. Sunday, about 70 DLP officials got into an physical altercation with the roughly 700 police officers preparing to conduct the seizure. During the course of the physical altercation, four party officials, including Supreme Council member Choi Hyoung-gwon, were brought in by police and are currently undergoing questioning at the Bundang Police Station. Choi and the others have begun a hunger strike, stating that the police seizure of the servers is merely a cover to make it appear as if information previously acquired through illegal computer hacking had been obtained through a lawful search.

Opposition parties, including the DLP, are protesting strongly, calling the seizure political oppression. DP spokesman Roh Young-min said police investigators are using illegally-obtained data to repress the Constitutionally-guaranteed free activity of a political party and to incapacitate party politics. Roh questioned whether the ruling party, sensing defeat in the coming regional elections, is attempting to block the defeat ahead of time by oppressing the opposition.

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