The National Intelligence Service (NIS) is facing scrutiny as high-ranking officials, including the NIS director, have been indicted over allegations of involvement in the December 3 martial law. Civil society groups have expressed strong concerns regarding proposed amendments to expand the NIS's surveillance powers.
The NIS Monitoring Network, composed of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society and the Participatory Budgeting Network, held an emergency press conference on August 26 in front of the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul. They urged, "The National Assembly must immediately halt the hasty legislative process and implement reform legislation to control the NIS's potential abuse of power."
The amendment, spearheaded by lawmakers Lee Seong-gwon of the People Power Party and Park Seon-won of the Democratic Party, aims to explicitly include 'economic security' in the NIS's duties, alongside counterintelligence, anti-terrorism, and international organized crime. It also broadens the scope of data collection from 'international and state-backed hacking organizations' to include cases suspected of being linked to such organizations.
The NIS Monitoring Network pointed out, "The concept of 'economic security' is inherently broad, and terms like 'economic security items,' 'economic security services,' 'supply chains,' 'national resource security,' and 'strategic materials' are vague. The inclusion of an open-ended phrase like 'etc.' effectively expands the scope of data collection to virtually unlimited levels."
They further explained, "The NIS could engage in operations through so-called response measures, such as verification, guidance, and blocking, regarding domestic and international activities related to economic security. This could allow the NIS to assume a control tower role over departments related to economic security under its planning and coordination authority."
Additionally, they warned, "The NIS could intervene in investigations of major domestic hacking incidents by claiming 'suspicion of activities by state-backed hacking organizations.' This effectively revives the NIS's domestic intelligence-gathering activities, which were abolished by the 2020 amendment to the NIS Law."
The group criticized the current government, stating, "Despite the NIS's deep involvement in the December 3 insurrection and its ongoing practices of fabricating espionage cases and surveilling civilians, the Lee Jae-myung administration and the Democratic Party are attempting to expand the NIS's powers as if it were a different entity. Even considering the importance of 'economic security,' expanding the NIS's scope of duties is directly linked to the agency's historical issues of domestic political interference and civilian surveillance."
Previously, former NIS director Cho Tae-yong was indicted by the special prosecutor's team for allegedly providing false answers regarding the martial law situation to the Constitutional Court. On August 19, he was sentenced to two years and six months in prison in an appeals court.
The second comprehensive special prosecutor's team has also indicted Cho on additional charges related to his involvement in insurrection. Other individuals, including former Deputy Director Hong Jang-won, Deputy Director Hwang Won-jin, and Planning and Coordination Director Kim Nam-woo, have also been included in the indictment. They are accused of justifying the martial law to foreign intelligence agencies and gathering domestic and international reactions to it.
The comprehensive special prosecutor's office stated, "There is no evidence that general NIS employees, aside from political appointees, were systematically involved in the insurrection." However, contradictory evidence continues to emerge.
Democratic Party lawmaker Yoon Geon-young raised suspicions last month that the NIS created a separate organization during the Yoon Suk-yeol administration to surveil politicians and reported this to the presidential office ahead of the 2024 general elections. On August 19, it was claimed that the NIS drafted a document on the potential exercise of counterintelligence authority in the event of a martial law situation in September 2024 and created another document outlining the roles various NIS departments would play following a declaration of martial law in December of that year.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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