NIS Seeks Direct Power to Eavesdrop on Foreigners

The bill before the Legislation and Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee would have the law changed to make it possible for the NIS to eavesdrop on all current communication formats like mobile telecommunications and the Internet, as well as all communications networks that take form in the future. It would also require communications companies to maintain records of all communications for at least one year keep user location information as part of those records.

In addition, the bill would allow the NIS to, with presidential approval and for reasons of national security, eavesdrop on foreigners and electronic communications by the military. [The Hankyoreh]

What was absent from the article was any mention of how “national security” would be defined. A clear line ought to be drawn somewhere between the terrorist plotting to attack the school and the Canadian hippie B.C. bud smoker, but probably won’t be.

Under existing law, the NIS apparently has to go through communications companies, which by itself doesn’t seem provide much in the way of checks or balances.