Let the NIS regain investigative authority

Yoon Bong-han
The author is a professor at the Graduate School of International Affairs and Information Security, Dongguk University.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) cannot investigate Communist activities anymore as of the start of the year after the former Moon Jae-in administration handed over its investigative authority to the police. Sadly, a majority of the people — more specifically, 73.9 percent of the general public in last year’s poll — are unaware of the drastic change in jurisdictions over the investigation on various types of spy activities for North Korea. The alarming transition represents a stark collapse of the national security habitat from purely political calculations by the liberal administration.

In the 1990s, Aldrich Ames, an American counterintelligence officer in the Central Investigation Agency (CIA), was convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia. While working as a double agent for the KGB, he leaked the names of more than 10 Russian collaborators in Moscow and helped botch over 200 secret U.S. intelligence operations in Russia. It was arguably the most disgraceful case in the history of the CIA, but the case ended up with reinforcement of overseas intelligence operations of the U.S. spy agency.

The Sept. 11 attacks led to the toughening of information-related laws and the installation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) aimed at overseeing all intelligence agencies in the U.S. That helped the CIA re-emerge as the world’s best intelligence agency. Certainly, the developments in the U.S. are in sharp contrast with Korea, where the National Assembly attacks the NIS for eruption of every possible controversy.

Baek Jong-wook, the third deputy director of the National Intelligence Service, speaks about North Korean cyberattacks in a press briefing at the National Cyber Cooperation Center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on Jan. 24.

Many Koreans are concerned about the police’s ability to investigate sensitive cases involving our national security. They wonder if the police really have the expertise needed to deal with clandestine activities related to North Korea. Could the police rebuild the NIS’s tight investigation web linking South Korea, North Korea and foreign countries? Despite the police’s promise to recruit more officers and reorganize the law enforcement agency, concerns are high that the police can hardly do the job due to its innate limits.

First of all, the National Police Agency (NPA) — currently placed under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety — is extremely vulnerable to outside pressures from the National Assembly, the press and civic groups. Second, the police cannot maintain a high level of security — a top priority in investigating sensitive cases involving North Korean spies and South Korean agents here. Third, the police are mostly indifferent to — or ignorant of — investigations of security-related cases. For instance, they did not reshuffle their organization or inject any new blood at all over the past three-year grace period. Fourth, the police have trouble communicating with the NIS closely.

The police have limits in probing into security-related cases because they cannot devote themselves to investigating North Korean spies and other security offenders. In fact, the police are already supposed to manage North Korean defectors, find industrial spies, detect terrorists and support inter-Korean exchanges. Police officers can never catch up with NIS agents in a short period of time in their ability to investigate North-related spy activities.

Another problem comes from the police’s counterintelligence activities overseas. The North’s overseas intelligence operations have increasingly expanded to China and Southeast Asia, for instance, but our police agents’ intelligence activities in foreign countries can trigger diplomatic disputes over infringement in their judicial sovereignty at any time.

Over the past five-year term of the Moon administration, the NIS arrested only a quarter of security offenders the previous administration had caught. President Yoon Suk Yeol repeatedly criticized the past liberal government for depriving the NIS of its investigative authority over espionage activities for North Korea.

The president’s determination to safeguard our national security is being highlighted more than ever after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean relations as “between two hostile states.” Lawmakers from the governing People Power Party want to recover the NIS’s investigation authority over pro-North activities by winning a landslide victory in the April 10 parliamentary elections.

But restoring the investigation authority for the NIS solely based on a majority status could repeat the confusion. That’s why the government must let the general public understand the serious security threat from the transfer of the authority, build a public consensus, and develop a joint strategy among the government, the legislature, the NIS and the police by establishing a committee aimed to normalize the NIS’s security function.

As Henry Kissinger said, a state is an entity to ensure security and people’s safety. The NIS is a pivotal body to achieve that goal. To cope with the mounting security threats, the NIS must regain its authority to investigate spy activities for North Korea. No other organizations can replace the NIS’s role in defending the country from the North’s ever-proactive intelligence operations.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.