The two communications surveillance centers at the heart of what critics call the government’s rampant abuse of wiretapping should be abolished immediately, the Judicial Reform Foundation said yesterday.
The centers, which were established in the 1990s, pose a threat to freedom of speech, foundation members said at a Taipei press conference held with National Chiao Tung University students.
“The severity of the government’s wiretapping abuse problem has been greatly underestimated. We believe the root cause of the problem is the government’s two communications surveillance centers and we plan to push for an amendment to the Communication Security and Surveillance Act [通訊保障及監察法] to disband them,” foundation executive director Lin Feng-jeng (林峰正) said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Citing government statistics, Lin said that prosecutors had on average applied for court approval for 15,000 wiretaps each year over the past five years, about 5.6 times the number of wiretap applications filed in the US and 520 times that seen in Japan.
Taking population sizes into account, the statistics showed that about 0.044 percent of the nation’s population of 23 million are monitored by the government annually, which is 50 times higher than the rate in the US and more than 1,900 times that in Japan, Lin said.
National Chiao Tung University electrical engineering professor Su Yu-ted (蘇育德) said the centers were founded “stealthily” by the government in 1992, with one affiliated to the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau and the other with the Ministry of the Interior’s National Police Agency.
Su said the wiretapping agencies had been deemed illegitimate in the past, but had been made legal.
“However, since 2000, all telecommunication operators have been required to set up transmission lines within the centers’ control rooms. This means that the communications of every citizen in this country go through the centers and are therefore subject to government surveillance,” Su said.
Greg Yo (尤伯祥), a member of the foundation’s executive committee, said the “September political strife” not only put the issue of the government’s wiretapping abuse on the table, but also proved that George Orwell’s “Big Brother” in his novel 1984 is not just a nightmare, but is alive now in Taiwan.
The strife Yo referred to erupted when it emerged that the Special Investigation Division of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office illegally tapped the cellphone of Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and the legislature’s switchboard. The division was probing Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) for allegedly improperly lobbying for Ker in a breach of trust case, claims which resulted in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Evaluation and Discipline Committee revoking the speaker’s membership.
“The wiretapping abuse has led to an unlimited expansion of the government’s powers. The existence of the two centers is unconstitutional because they are a threat to the public’s basic rights of freedom of speech,” Yo said.
Yo urged the public to dedicate more attention to the issue and join the foundation’s calls for the centers’ abolishment.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS