The prosecution’s stepping up of “cyber surveillance” to prevent the spread of false rumors is emerging as a hot social and political issue.
According to revelations by opposition lawmakers Monday, prosecutors have decided to conduct "real-time” monitoring of mobile messenger services, and demand the deletion of problematic writings, such as "groundless defamation” of the government and political leaders.
The scheme, which completely ignores current legal systems and technological limitations, was decided on in an inter-agency meeting at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on Sept. 18. This was only two days after President Park Geun-hye expressed displeasure with "excessive insults” leveled at her in cyberspace.
This means the prosecutors have no excuse for the political opposition’s jeering that the law enforcement authorities have been reduced to "royal bodyguards.”
Currently, only the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) can request the deletion of false or defamatory information through in-house deliberation. Yet the prosecution is about to omit the regular process and directly demand the removal of contents or the cut-off of connections. It is beyond us how the prosecutors, not the victims of defamation, can have the right to censor the writings in question.
The prosecution’s encroachment on the privacy of service users has finally led to the public defiance of surveillance by the nation’s biggest messenger service Kakao Talk, faced with a mass desertion, or "cyber exile,” of its clients to foreign competitors. Lee Sirgoo, CEO of Kakao Talk, said he would not cooperate with the prosecution’s request for access to private conversations, and take responsibility for not abiding by legitimate law enforcement.
This demonstrates shows how a leader’s mistaken notion about governance and the prosecution’s blind following of political power can both smother the nation’s democracy and kill a promising business enterprise.
Korea boasts one of the fastest Internet broadband speeds, but the nation’s futuristic image fades when it comes to Internet "culture.” The nation has long prided itself as the only case of newly independent country in 1945, which has accomplished both industrialization and democratization in half a century. Actually, however, the nation’s consciousness, particularly that of political leaders, still falls far short of its economic development. The contrasting aspects of Internet technology and its culture is a sad reminder.
Under two successive conservative presidents, Korea’s freedom of speech has so regressed that Reporters Without Borders ranked Korea’s press as only "partly free.” Freedom House, a U.S. NGO, also placed Korea’s Internet on a list of countries ``under surveillance” along with Egypt and Russia.
All this shows why the prosecution should drop its controversial plan to turn Korea into a "cyber security state.” Law enforcement officers should minimize their Internet monitoring to cases that can seriously hurt national security and social stability ― not the top leader’s image. Park for her part needs to realize that a President who represents people is one who can allow them to criticize the leader freely.
"Without the right to privacy, there can be no genuine freedom of expressions and opinions ― and no real democracy,” said Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, whose email was spied upon by U.S. intelligence officers. President Park needs to listen.