NIS needs self-reflection amid ex-spy chief`s guilty of election smears

Seoul High Court (Judge Kim Sang-hwan) sentenced on Monday Won Se-hoon, former chief of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), to three years in prison for violation of the Public Official Election Act related to meddling in the 2012 presidential election, overturning a lower court ruling. A lower court found Won guilty of violating the NIS law only, not the Public Official Election Act, which bans the intelligence agency to intervene in politics. “Intelligence service agency’s intervention in elections should not be justified or rationalized for any cause. It is necessary to strictly punish such act to destroy free democracy," the judging panel said. The spy agency should take the court’s comments as the direction for its reform.

The lower and appellate courts judged that the former spy agency chief’s ordering NIS staff to post political comments on the web constituted a violation of the NIS law, which prohibits the agency from intervening in the politics. The district court concluded that NIS team’s posting Internet comments is not a meddling in the election citing the number of tweets has decreased right before the presidential election. On the contrary, the appellate court judged that posting comments on the web changed from political interfering to political campaign as of Aug. 20, 2012 when the ruling Saenuri presidential candidate was selected. “After resignation of then-presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, the number of Internet comments that criticized opposition candidate Moon Jae-in increased. Considering the timing, situation and scales of such cyber activities to post messages on the web, it is fair to say that there was a willful negligence to help a candidate to win or lose in the election,” said the presiding judge, emphasizing strict punishment for the national agency’s intervention in the election.

As the legal judgment of the first and appellate trials varied over alleged violation of the Public Official Election Act, the Supreme Court’s decision should be made. However, the NIS and its former chief must have thorough self-reflection for the appellate court’s ruling that found Won and the spy agency guilty of violation of NIS law, organized illegal campaign and violation of the Election Law. Under the authoritarian administrations, the intelligence agency had dark past in which it had led elections and the government’s intervention. This bad practice has continued to the NIS led by former chief Won Se-hoon.

The intelligence agency’s intervention in the presidential election is a serious act to unsettle the order of the nation. There has never been a case in advanced nations whose national intelligence agency intervened in an election to support a ruling party candidate and oppose an opposition candidate. The NIS must take the ruling of the appellate court seriously, taking it as an opportunity to focus on its original duties such as intelligence activities against North Korea and to break up with the national politics.

The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD)’s newly-elected leader, Moon Jae-in, had sparked controversy over the opposition party’s denial of presidential election in 2013 when he criticized that President Park Geun-hye directly abused the NIS’ Internet campaign. However, he did not make any comment Monday. The intelligence agency’s intervention and cyber activities in the presidential election must be criticized, but nobody knows for sure whether the activities were strong enough to determine the election result. The 2012 presidential election result must be respected and regarded as the majority’s choice.