Jinwook Kim: "Communication Inquiries Are Not 'Surveillance'... Prosecutors and Police Have Far More Cases..."

Kim Jin-wook, head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (right), attending the full meeting of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee on the 30th. / Photo by National Assembly Broadcasting System screenshot

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] Regarding the recent controversy over illegal wiretapping by the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Agency (Gongsa-cheo), Kim Jin-wook, the head of Gongsa-cheo, appeared before the National Assembly on the 30th and stated, "This is not surveillance."

Kim expressed his frustration, presenting statistics on communication inquiries from other investigative agencies such as the prosecution and police, saying, "I don't understand why only we (Gongsa-cheo) are being accused of surveillance."

The meeting, which began at 2 p.m. that day, included a discussion on the amendment bill to the Gongsa-cheo Act before addressing current issues.

There was criticism from opposition lawmakers regarding the newly added Article 31, Paragraph 4 of the amended law, which allows the head of Gongsa-cheo to request cooperation from other investigative agencies such as the prosecution for prosecution or maintenance of prosecution.

Kim appealed that this provision was unavoidable due to the shortage of personnel, with only 23 prosecutors at Gongsa-cheo, but opposition lawmakers pressured him by referring to the recent wiretapping controversy, questioning, "Given what Gongsa-cheo is doing now, will the public really agree to increase Gongsa-cheo's personnel?"

When People Power Party lawmaker Jo Soo-jin pointed out, "Does it make sense to conduct (wiretapping) with such insufficient personnel?" and added, "They are already acting like a regime protection unit...," Kim firmly stated, "I want to clearly say that this is not surveillance."

During the subsequent questioning on current issues, when People Power Party lawmaker Kwon Seong-dong asked if he was subject to a communication inquiry on October 1 and "what case it was related to," Kim replied, "Since it is an ongoing investigation, I cannot disclose details in principle, but due to public interest, I will tell you," adding, "I believe it is related to the alleged report solicitation case."

Kim strongly refuted the term "surveillance."

He said, "We only checked the phone number because we did not know who it belonged to; it was not surveillance targeting a specific individual," and added, "This was a (lawful) request under Article 83, Paragraph 3 of the Telecommunications Business Act."

In particular, Kim showed the actual materials received to the lawmakers, explaining, "We obtain communication details by receiving a warrant for confirmation of communication facts."

He explained, "For example, if we receive the call records of a person named A who talked with several people, only the numbers of the call counterparts appear. From the investigative agency's perspective, to determine relevance to the case, they first need to identify who was contacted. Therefore, requests are made to the three major mobile carriers and budget phone companies under Article 83, Paragraph 3 of the Telecommunications Business Act, and only five limited pieces of information?subscriber's name, address, resident registration number, phone number, and subscription date?are provided."

Kim emphasized, "If the name is unique, identification is immediate, but there are many people with the same name, and we cannot know their occupation, such as whether they are journalists. Rather, this is a procedure to exclude people unrelated to the investigation."

Kim also clarified, "The media often use the terms 'communication inquiry' or 'communication detail inquiry,' but this is not a communication detail inquiry. That requires a warrant. The legal term is 'provision of communication data,' which only confirms the subscriber's name, resident registration number, subscription date, etc." He further stated that according to the law, the requirement for communication inquiry is the 'connection with the user,' not the relevance to the case.

Kim expressed his grievance again by citing statistics on communication inquiries by the prosecution and police, saying, "I don't understand why only we (Gongsa-cheo) are accused of surveillance..."

He said, "Regarding presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl, we conducted three inquiries, the Central District Prosecutors' Office conducted four, and regarding his spouse Kim Geon-hee, we conducted one, and the prosecution conducted five inquiries. According to media reports, the Central District Prosecutors' Office and Incheon District Prosecutors' Office conducted 74 communication inquiries on opposition lawmakers this year."

Kim added, "I don't understand why only we are accused of surveillance."

He also stated, "Last year, the prosecution conducted 597,000 communication inquiries, the police conducted about 1.3 million, and Gongsa-cheo conducted 135," emphasizing, "Even by the number of cases, this is not surveillance."

However, People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Han-hong challenged, "The prosecution processed 3.3 million cases and handled 2.28 million, but Gongsa-cheo has only a few ongoing cases and yet conducted over 280 inquiries. Why did you reduce the number? Are you deceiving the public?" Kim responded, "The 135 cases are statistics for the first half of the year; the second half will be much higher." When asked about the second half statistics, he said, "I do not know the exact numbers." Regarding prosecution statistics, Kim said, "They are from the second half of 2019 to last year."

As of that day, Gongsa-cheo's communication data inquiries included hundreds of people, such as about 80 politicians including 78 People Power Party lawmakers, about 140 journalists including foreign correspondents, and representatives of civic groups. Presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl and his wife Kim Geon-hee were also included.

Considering that Gongsa-cheo initiated its first investigation in late April with the abuse of authority case against Seoul Education Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon as 'Gongje No. 1' and that the number of ongoing cases is not large, a considerable scope of communication data inquiries has been conducted within just eight months.

Gongsa-cheo obtained communication warrants and checked the communication data of lawmakers participating in the People Power Party's KakaoTalk group chat, and also checked the communication details of a TV Chosun reporter who reported on the 'emperor escort' case involving Prosecutor General Lee Seong-yoon, including the reporter's family's communication data. On this day, Asahi Shimbun publicly demanded an explanation, stating that Gongsa-cheo had inquired into the communication data of a Korean reporter affiliated with its Seoul bureau.

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