Sale of cell phone detectors to N. Korea adds to Germany’s debt to history

If there is any justice in our universe, there is a special septic tank in hell reserved for the people who profit by selling these things to Pyongyang:

According to local sources, North Korean authorities have recently begun carrying small, German manufactured radar detectors when patrolling near the Chinese border for the purpose of monitoring international phone calls made on Chinese-made cell phones.

These intensified measures follow a proliferation of stationary detectors installed in North Hamgyong Province in conjunction with enhanced wiretapping technology, as previously reported by Daily NK. [Daily NK]

What I wouldn’t give to know the name of the manufacturer and exporter. The Treasury Department has the authority — and the responsibility — to sanction them to extinction under Executive Order 13687.

[Berlin, 1941: Gestapo officers demonstrate “a mobile radio detector to pick up resistance signals” to a visiting Spanish delegation]

Every government whose desire to open North Korea to the world matches its self-serving rhetoric ought to be investigating this case actively, including Germany, including South Korea, and including our own State Department.

On September 14th, Daily NK staff spoke with a source in Yanggang Province who confirmed that recently, personnel from a number of different security organs including the prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of People’s Security, and the State Security Department, have formed a ‘gruppa,’ or public order teams established for specific tasks, specifically for the purpose of cracking down on overseas phone calls. This unit patrols day and night using the small radar detectors to pick up on cell phone signals calling overseas.

An additional source in Yanggang Province confirmed these developments.

In the past,  the majority of sensors used for enforcement were carried in bags but the new radar detectors from Germany are small enough to be carried in a pocket, the source said, noting, “Before this, citizens who were wary of being caught would simply avoid any security officers toting bags. With the new devices, many people will see officers without bags and assume it is safe to make an overseas phone call–then they get caught.”

Knowing the human species’s gift for self-justification as I do, I’m sure that if you confronted the German government with evidence that one of its companies was helping Kim Jong-Un to seal the borders and oppress his population, at least one official would justify this trade by using the word “engagement.”

“Members of the task force, whether they are from the SSD or the MPS, are blindly rounding up citizens and searching the stored contents of their phones. If they find any South Korean songs, videos, or other materials the authorities deem ‘sensitive,’ the offender is arrested right then and there,” he said.

Despite the increase in and intensity of crackdowns, the appetite for South Korean dramas and films remains large and ever expanding, especially among university students. Because many students sell this type of media for a living, it is difficult to stamp out the problem at its roots.

But then, how different is the engagement that sells Kim Jong-Un cell phone detectors from the engagement that gives Kim Jong-Un the cash to pay for them?