[EDITORIAL]Confession of bugging

To our dismay, the National Intelligence Service yesterday admitted it had systematically carried out illegal wiretapping under the Kim Dae-jung government. It has thus far asserted that no illegal eavesdropping had been conducted since the Kim government was inaugurated in 1998.

More shockingly, the spy agency also acknowledged that its wiretapping operations included interception of calls between mobile and fixed-line phones. Since the mid-1990s, the spy agency has been suspected of illegally listening in on cell phone conversations. However, each time such an allegation was raised, it consistently responded that although cell phone monitoring might be possible in theory, it is infeasible in practice given the high technological barriers. Yet the NIS admitted that it was technologically possible to eavesdrop on mobile-to-landline calls.

NIS Director Kim Seung-kyu, who was a justice minister before being appointed to the present post less than a month ago, confessed the spy agency`s past wrongdoing and begged for the public`s forgiveness. In an apology, Kim said that although it was painful to confess the agency`s blatant violations of human rights, it decided to do so to overcome the dark past and re-invent itself as a trustworthy intelligence organ.

It is disturbing to hear the spy agency`s confession. On the one hand, we cannot help feeling a sense of betrayal. After all, the confession discloses that the agency has kept lying to the public. People strongly suspected that the agency must have been involved in illegal wiretapping operations even after it changed its name from the Agency for National Security Planning in 1999 to make a fresh start. They also doubted its claim that intercepting cell phone conversations, especially on the code division multiple access network in Korea, was virtually infeasible.

But past wrongdoing is past wrongdoing. What is important now is to ensure that illegal wiretapping is completely rooted out in our society. The NIS director stressed that the agency has weaned itself from the bad practice since March 2002. But we believe institutional measures need to be implemented to prevent the NIS or other state agency from engaging in illegal bugging.

In this respect, the legislation plan disclosed by the opposition Grand National Party deserves attention. It proposed revising the laws on the NIS to allow its incumbent and former staff to blow the whistle on unwarranted wiretapping operations. The current laws prohibit the agency`s employees from leaking the information they obtained in the course of carrying out their duties during their active service and even after their retirement.

The party also plans to revise the Telecommunications Privacy Protection Act to reward citizens for whistle-blowing on illegal bugging activities by any state-run agency. These are only a few examples that lawmakers can do to eradicate the evil practice.

Since the so-called X-File scandal broke out, political parties have been maneuvering to use it for a political gain. But they should try to pool their wisdom to ensure that wiretapping is not practiced anymore in our society.