By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter

Police, prosecutors and the National Intelligence Service inspected 141,928 telephone records in 2007 alone, up 38 percent from the previous year's 102,872, according to Rep. Jun Byung-hun of the main opposition Democratic Party, Monday. During the first half of the year, they inspected 78,530 phone records.

The lawmaker also said the three investigation bodies wiretapped 1,149 calls in 2007 alone, up 11 percent from 2006. During the first six months of the year, a total of 608 phone calls have been subject to authorized wiretapping by law enforcement.

The Korea Communications Commission, the nation's top decision body on communications and broadcasting policies, compiled the figures for the National Assembly's inspection of the government.

The Korean information and communications law mandates every investigator to win court approval before carrying out both bugging and telephone record inspection. But the inspection aimed to identify such personal information as social security numbers does not require court approval.

``It's relatively easier for investigators to win court approval to inspect telephone records rather than for wiretapping. That's the reason behind the notable increase in phone record inspections in recent years,'' the lawmaker said. The court limitedly allows bugging when investigators have extreme difficulty in collecting information in order to capture a suspect.

The government seeks to revise the communications law to widen opportunities for the intelligence service to overhear suspicious phone calls. The bill is pending in the National Assembly.

Human rights groups accuse such moves of violating the constitutional rights of one's private life.

``Although it was part of efforts to foil terrorist attacks against Korean society, if the law becomes more generous to such investigation tools, it would pose a threat to people's privacy rights protected under the Constitution,'' said an officer of the National Human Rights Commission.

pss@koreatimes.co.kr