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Disband centers of
surveillance: judicial activists
ROOT OF RIGHTS ABUSE: Judicial Reform Foundation
members said the centers are the cause of wiretap abuse by the government and
violate the Constitution
By Lee Yu-hsin and Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Judicial Reform Foundation
members hold a press conference along with electrical and computer engineering
students from National Chiao Tung University at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei
yesterday, saying that two communications surveillance centers should be
abolished.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
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-cheng (林峰正) said.
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.
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