There are allegations that while Kim Young Sam was president the National Security Planning Agency (now the National Intelligence Service (NIS)) operated a highly secret eavesdropping team that listened in on conversations between politicians, business heavyweights, and members of the press while they dined. At the same time, the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) reported Thursday evening that there exists a tape of a conversation between a high-ranking executive at a major jaebeol and the top executive at a major daily newspaper meeting immediately before the 1997 presidential election to discuss making illegal campaign contributions. In other words, what exists is an opportunity to uncover the whole truth about illegal eavesdropping.
The country truly fears the activity. You shudder to think to think that an intelligence agency could be listening when you talk with someone else. It chills the spine to learn that it went beyond simply tapping phones and bugging rooms to include listening in on conversations over food and wine from rooms next door. It is alarming to know that a government that named itself the "Civilian Government" created something called the "Communications Secrecy Protection Law" on the one hand while never hesitating to engage in illegal electronic surveillance.
There is a lot that has to be ascertained. There has to be full disclosure of what the goal of the eavesdropping was, who received reports of what was learned in the course of that activity and how the information obtained was used, whether the small team that was behind it was really dismantled, and what was eventually done with the actual tape recordings. The truth has to be cleared up for sure all the more because there are rumors that when the 1997 presidential election was over many of the tapes made their way out of the intelligence agency and an officer who left the organization later tried to sell them to the people who had been listened to. The tape recording obtained by MBC is significant in that it provides an important link in reconstructing all that happened.
Depending on how you look at it the people who were listened to illegally are victims. They may, therefore, feel they have been wronged by having the conversation released to the public. Given the role and importance the jaebeol and media hold in our society, however, determining the contents of the conversation in question is very important in the context of social justice. It also presents an opportunity to uproot the collusive, secret triangle relationship between the jaebeol, the media, and politicians. The prosecution needs to examine ways to answer all of the many questions about what transpired.
The Hankyoreh, 22 July 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS
[Editorial] Truth About Eavesdropping Must Be Known |
