Whistleblower scandal surrounding a left-leaning party lawmaker

A picture of a 40-something man was posted with a title “A wanted man sent by the National Intelligence Service regarding the treason scandal” on web portals including Daum’s agora on Tuesday. Below the picture was his academic background and history with a description “He is the informant who reported Lee Seok-ki’s Revolution Organization (RO) to the National Intelligence Service.” Some users wrote malicious threads to the posting such as “The informant will be found dead some day. He deserves death.”

Then, how did Internet users find the informant’s identity? The story spread like wildfire after a liberal media outlet covered the informant. The story is an add-on to what the far-leftist United Progressive Party said. It said “A whistleblower from the National Intelligence Service in our party,” a day before the coverage by the liberal media outlet. The outlet verified the party’s claim with the arrest warrant of vice chairman of the Gyeonggi Province chapter of the United Progressive Party. The arrest warrant described why it started an internal investigation, saying, “The National Intelligence Service found the first clue from an RO informant.” The National Intelligence Service only confirmed the claim made by the leftist party and media.

Korea has no witness protection program yet like the United States. The U.S. has a thorough protection system for whistleblowers to prevent an accounting fraud or detect a crime organization. It helps them live a new live in a place where nobody knows and even offers plastic surgery to safeguard them from attacks. The National Intelligence Service should have made better efforts to protect the whistleblower. He must have not slept well out of the concern that the far-leftists would attack him.

The whistleblower is the most important “key” to this investigation. If his identity is revealed, the investigation would face a challenge. If the whistleblower, the only witness who can testify in the court, is killed or seriously injured by the pro-North Korean group and cannot testify at the court, the investigation cannot go ahead.

Then, why do the liberal media and the United Progressive Party focus on the whistleblower, not Lee Seok-ki who is charged of treason? A critic who talked with the Dong-A Ilbo over the phone said, “The party and the media sealed the mouths of RO members who might have been swayed by revealing the identity of the whistleblower.” They sent a message to all members, “If branded as a betrayer, you will be known to the world and your life can be threatened.”

The ongoing whistleblower scandal was initiated by the liberal camp which calls for human rights but abuses the human rights of an individual who sided with the opposite camp and further aggravated by the amateur-like National Intelligence Service. Who can dare to report a spy in a country like this?