NIS: "Counterintelligence Investigation Authority Transferred Smoothly... Reborn as Specialized Intelligence Agency for North Korea and Overseas"

"To Leap Forward as a Future-Oriented Intelligence Agency"

Park Ji-won, Director of the National Intelligence Service, is attending the full meeting of the Intelligence Committee held at the National Assembly on the 30th of last month.

Regarding the passage of the 'National Intelligence Service Act Amendment,' which centers on transferring counterintelligence investigative authority to the police, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) stated on the 13th, "We will establish cooperation channels with related agencies such as the prosecution and police and create a dedicated organization to ensure the smooth transfer of counterintelligence investigative authority."

Immediately after the amendment was passed in the afternoon, the NIS released a statement saying, "We will focus on our core tasks such as intelligence on North Korea and overseas, industrial espionage, terrorism, and cyber threat response, and strengthen scientific intelligence capabilities to become the world's number one top intelligence agency."

The NIS expressed, "We feel a heavy responsibility to be reborn as a 'specialized intelligence agency for North Korea and overseas' as mandated by the people," and evaluated, "With this amendment, for the first time since the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1961, the NIS's 'duties to perform' and 'duties to refrain from' have become clear."

It added, "Domestic political intervention has been fundamentally blocked, the principle of separating counterintelligence 'intelligence' and 'investigation' has been realized, and the 'parliamentary control' by the people's representative institution has been strengthened. We will promptly prepare and revise enforcement ordinances, basic guidelines for intelligence activities, and various internal regulations to ensure follow-up measures proceed without delay."

Furthermore, the NIS stated, "We will reorganize the counterintelligence investigation-related organization into a specialized unit for collecting security crime intelligence to prevent any security gaps," and "We will restructure related organizations to match the status of a specialized intelligence agency for North Korea and overseas, strengthen cyber security and space intelligence, and leap forward as a future-oriented intelligence agency."

The NIS reiterated, "Although reform of the NIS through laws and systems has been completed, the NIS will continuously implement reforms without interruption and achieve greater results to become an intelligence agency loved and trusted by the people."

Earlier, on the 13th, the National Assembly held a plenary session and passed the amendment to the National Intelligence Service Act with 187 votes in favor out of 187 members present.

The core of the National Intelligence Service Act passed at the plenary session that day is to transfer the counterintelligence investigative authority, which the NIS had held, to the police. This means that the counterintelligence investigative authority, which was established 63 years ago alongside the founding of the Central Intelligence Agency, the predecessor of the NIS, will be relocated.

Additionally, concepts such as 'domestic security intelligence,' 'counterintelligence,' and 'government overthrow' were removed from the NIS's existing scope of duties. Instead, the duties were clarified as ▲ collection, preparation, and distribution of intelligence related to overseas and North Korea, counterespionage, counterterrorism, international criminal organizations, cyber security, and satellite asset information ▲ security tasks ▲ prevention and response to cyberattacks and threats.

Moreover, the NIS's operational principles now explicitly include 'maintaining political neutrality,' and a clause prohibiting political involvement activities was added.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.