Park must stop snowballing scandal before it's too late
The election-meddling scandal involving the state spy agency is showing signs of spinning out of control.
Prosecutors said on Thursday that they have found more than 1.2 million Twitter comments posted by National Intelligence Service agents that were part of a smear campaign which targeted opposition candidates in the lead up to the presidential election last year.
It has been surprising to see how the number of election-related posts and tweets ferreted out by the prosecution increase from 73, to 55,000 and now up to 1.21 million.
One can hardly equate the latest figure of prohibited cyber comments to the total gap of about 1 million votes between President Park Geun-hye and her rival, Moon Jae-in, on Dec. 19. But few in the ruling camp, including Park herself, can now say these were irregularities committed by a few bad apples, nor deny their influence on the election's outcome.
The ruling Saenuri Party says the figure is grossly exaggerated, claiming that the acts of reposting and re-tweeting inflated the ''original" 26,000 tweets exponentially. Yet, the fact that the NIS agents even used the automatic re-tweeting system only further indicates how eager they were to maximize the effect of the cyber campaign, and how carefully and systematically their unlawful interference in the election was carried out.
Prosecutorial sources say even this may prove to be the proverbial tip of an iceberg, depending on the reply the U.S. headquarters of the social-network service-provider gives in response to the Korean request to verify the number of IDs used and the contents of their posts. We are at a loss for words to explain how we feel about Korea, which realized both industrialization and democratization in one generation, making a request for judicial cooperation for such a shameful reason.
The prosecutors ― especially young, untainted ones ― deserve credit for pushing ahead with their independent probes and hitting an investigative jackpot like this. And their politicized superiors need to seriously reflect on their conscientiousness as law-enforcement officers. It is especially regretful ranking prosecutors reportedly tried to keep the investigators from adding the latest finding to their list of charges. Such unwarranted obstructions will only justify opposition calls for bringing in an independent counsel.
Most glaring of all are the suspicions the NIS has sent guidelines to the military Cyber Command with respect to the election maneuvers on the Internet, meaning the state spy agency's foremost duty during the campaign period was not to protect national interests from outside enemies but to help the conservative party remain in power. All this raises increasingly irrepressible questions to the legitimacy of President Park's election victory. If you have secured an additional five points through cheating, can you say it was a legitimate victory even if you won over the runner-up by six or seven points?
President Park should take it very seriously that some Koreans living in New York, Washington, D.C. and Paris have staged rallies with placards saying, ''Park Geun-hye is not a legitimate president of the Republic of Korea." The opposition Democratic Party, which took to the street again, denounced the NIS's systematic and across-the-board meddling in the election as worse than the March 15, 1960 election fraud, which led to the ouster of President Syngman Rhee. The Catholic priests in Jeonju Diocese called on President Park to step down, and take responsibility for the scandal, as well as efforts to cover it up and play down it.
Now is the time the nation's first female leader must apologize for the wrongs, punish violators and vow to reform the NIS. In another month or two, even that may not be enough to quell the scandal growing around her.
The election-meddling scandal involving the state spy agency is showing signs of spinning out of control.
Prosecutors said on Thursday that they have found more than 1.2 million Twitter comments posted by National Intelligence Service agents that were part of a smear campaign which targeted opposition candidates in the lead up to the presidential election last year.
It has been surprising to see how the number of election-related posts and tweets ferreted out by the prosecution increase from 73, to 55,000 and now up to 1.21 million.
One can hardly equate the latest figure of prohibited cyber comments to the total gap of about 1 million votes between President Park Geun-hye and her rival, Moon Jae-in, on Dec. 19. But few in the ruling camp, including Park herself, can now say these were irregularities committed by a few bad apples, nor deny their influence on the election's outcome.
The ruling Saenuri Party says the figure is grossly exaggerated, claiming that the acts of reposting and re-tweeting inflated the ''original" 26,000 tweets exponentially. Yet, the fact that the NIS agents even used the automatic re-tweeting system only further indicates how eager they were to maximize the effect of the cyber campaign, and how carefully and systematically their unlawful interference in the election was carried out.
Prosecutorial sources say even this may prove to be the proverbial tip of an iceberg, depending on the reply the U.S. headquarters of the social-network service-provider gives in response to the Korean request to verify the number of IDs used and the contents of their posts. We are at a loss for words to explain how we feel about Korea, which realized both industrialization and democratization in one generation, making a request for judicial cooperation for such a shameful reason.
The prosecutors ― especially young, untainted ones ― deserve credit for pushing ahead with their independent probes and hitting an investigative jackpot like this. And their politicized superiors need to seriously reflect on their conscientiousness as law-enforcement officers. It is especially regretful ranking prosecutors reportedly tried to keep the investigators from adding the latest finding to their list of charges. Such unwarranted obstructions will only justify opposition calls for bringing in an independent counsel.
Most glaring of all are the suspicions the NIS has sent guidelines to the military Cyber Command with respect to the election maneuvers on the Internet, meaning the state spy agency's foremost duty during the campaign period was not to protect national interests from outside enemies but to help the conservative party remain in power. All this raises increasingly irrepressible questions to the legitimacy of President Park's election victory. If you have secured an additional five points through cheating, can you say it was a legitimate victory even if you won over the runner-up by six or seven points?
President Park should take it very seriously that some Koreans living in New York, Washington, D.C. and Paris have staged rallies with placards saying, ''Park Geun-hye is not a legitimate president of the Republic of Korea." The opposition Democratic Party, which took to the street again, denounced the NIS's systematic and across-the-board meddling in the election as worse than the March 15, 1960 election fraud, which led to the ouster of President Syngman Rhee. The Catholic priests in Jeonju Diocese called on President Park to step down, and take responsibility for the scandal, as well as efforts to cover it up and play down it.
Now is the time the nation's first female leader must apologize for the wrongs, punish violators and vow to reform the NIS. In another month or two, even that may not be enough to quell the scandal growing around her.
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