NIS chief denies spying allegations

Lee Byung-ho, the chief of Korea’s National Intelligence Service, waits for a meeting of the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee, Monday. Opposition lawmakers have vowed to look into allegations that the spy agency purchased a hacking spyware to monitor civilians. / Yonhap

By Kang Seung-woo

National Intelligence Service (NIS) chief Lee Byung-ho denied allegations Monday that the NIS spied on citizens ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

“There was no illegal monitoring of civilians. This is a fact,” Lee said, while speaking to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee.

He also noted that a surveillance program the spy agency bought from an Italian firm in 2012 was not used to intercept content sent through KakaoTalk, the nation’s most-popular mobile messenger.

Earlier this month, according to WikiLeaks, the NIS made inquiries to a foreign surveillance equipment firm last year to seek ways of accessing the messenger service.

Lee made the remarks at a plenary session of the parliamentary committee, which began a three week-long investigation into the surveillance scandal.

The spy agency retrieved deleted data linked to allegations of carrying out surveillance on civilians.

In the wake of the allegations that South Korean civilians were under surveillance by the NIS, a NIS employee committed suicide after deleting information that, according to his memo, could have created misunderstanding about the counterterrorism and covert operations conducted by the NIS against North Korea. The employee surnamed Lim purchased and ran the surveillance program that uses Remote Control System (RCS) technology.

Rep. Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party, a member of the committee, told reporters during the session that Lim deleted data on a total of 51 cases.

“Ten were about North Korea and anti-terrorism, 10 about failed attempts and 31 about local testing,” Lee said.

Commenting on the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD)’s claims last week that the NIS had attempted to eavesdrop on three smartphones using services provided by SK Telecom, Rep. Park Min-shik, another Saenuri lawmaker, said it was just “testing.”

“The smartphones were confirmed as those of the NIS and were used for a test,” Park said.

The NPAD has called for the NIS to reveal all log files to find the truth behind the spyware programs.

However, the NIS has said that the disclosure will lead to the nation’s surveillance network being neutralized and cause problems for intelligence activity.

According to the NIS, it used most of the programs for the purposes of strengthening cyber warfare capabilities against Pyongyang, adding that the system can simultaneously access content sent by 20 mobile phones.

The spy agency also said that 18 out of 20 digital surveillance programs were used to try and glean intelligence on the North, while two others were used for research purposes.

Separately, Science, ICT and Future Planning Minister Choi Yang-hee said that he does not see the RCS program as a monitoring device.

“I think the software is a material that is not a monitoring device,” he told lawmakers in a plenary session of the National Assembly Science, ICT, Future Planning, Broadcasting and Communications Committee.

Nanatech, which bought the hacking software program on behalf of the NIS, is accused of violating the Communication Privacy Protection Law because it did not obtain government approval before its purchase.

In response, the NPAD refuted the claim that the NIS has no track record of spying on citizens, while ramping up its attack on the scandal.

“Deleted data can be retrieved completely within a short time, but it is impossible after only one day,” said Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, a software mogul-turned-politician who heads the opposition party’s task force to investigate the scandal, in a radio interview.

“In this regard, a 100 percent restoration of deleted data by the NIS has no credibility.”

The Saenuri Party has called for the National Assembly committee to visit and inspect the NIS at the earliest possible time, while the NPAD wants to hold a parliamentary hearing.

“It took a week for the NIS to retrieve the deleted data, but it plans to assign only three or four hours for lawmakers to analyze them, which is absurd,” Ahn said.

NPAD floor leader Lee Jong-kul also said in a party meeting that surveillance specialists should be included to dissect the log file.