Eavesdropping on Internet

Top Spy Agency Aims to Become Big Brother

Imagine an invisible person is behind you watching all you do on the Internet, like searching, chatting and file downloading. Horrible as it may sound, this was what the National Intelligence Service allegedly did to a pro-unification civic group leader.

As if that was not enough, the NIS agents wiretapped all communications in cyberspace, not just of the suspected violator of the anticommunist law but of his family members and coworkers who shared the same Internet lines with him, in what experts call ``packet eavesdropping." Could one brush it aside as just another shady aspect of ``IT Korea"?

Even more astonishing was nobody knew about the Internet bugging until the prosecution presented wiretapped contents as evidence during a trial. Most shocking of all, the top spy agency says its agents acted with court warrants and committed no legal violations, reaffirming the nation's far too porous legal system to protect communication secrecy and other privacy.

The NIS says all these activities are for the sake of defending the ``national interest," but it is also apparent the two words can't justify everything done by these government agencies ― all of which cite this term whenever they go beyond their legal bounds. Some kinds of wiretapping may have to be permitted for investigations related to national security, but it's time to restrict digging into private information, such as e-mails and Web surfing.

Many other countries are also allowing their spy agencies to eavesdrop on mobile phone calls and peek at e-mails to let them keep up with the post-Cold War, IT-dominating world, but only to a limited extent and under strict criteria. Japan, for instance, makes it obligatory for investigators to submit wiretapped contents to courts for after-the-fact screening. Korea has no such checks and surveillance, while the courts give the go-ahead to almost all would-be buggers' requests for warrants, with the rejection rate remaining below 5 percent.

One can't help but wonder whether it was a coincidence that the NIS's domestic spying activities have deepened and widened with the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration.

Particularly, NIS chief Won Se-hoon, one of the closest confidantes of President Lee since he was the Seoul mayor, has often tried to stretch the espionage agency's authority to an unreasonable extent, even including the gathering of ``political intelligence" and tracing of financial accounts without court approvals. Some civic groups claim the NIS has exerted pressure to cut government subsidies to organizations critical of government policies and even conducted surveys on academics opposing the government's major policies and programs, such as spending trillions of won on a river-refurbishing ― or ravaging ― project.

Nothing can be more dangerous than a technological leap-off unaccompanied by corresponding maturity of consciousness. This is why the just-opened National Assembly's regular session should do all it can to supplement the pending acts on communication secrets and the NIS's authority, to prevent the aspiring Big Brother from eroding civil liberties any further.