It's the Switchboard, Stupid! Abolish the Telecommunications Interception Center to End Abuse of Wiretapping Powers

The September political strife sparked allegations that the Special Investigation Division abused its wiretapping powers, plunging domestic politics into a wiretapping storm. With the Legislative Yuan itself subjected to wiretapping, the stakes are exceptionally high. When the wiretapping disc was 'claimed' to be blank, the Ministry of Justice casually dismissed it as a clerical wiretapping blunder, causing public outrage. As the truth remains murky to ordinary citizens, problems continue to emerge: the phenomenon of indiscriminate wiretapping has been severely underestimated, and more frighteningly, no one is in a position to oversee it. The most fundamental solution is to dismantle the Telecommunications Interception Center—an unconstitutional and unlawful 'black site' 100 percent of the time.

1. Indiscriminate wiretapping by prosecutors, police, and investigators: Taiwan's wiretapped population ratio is 51 times that of the US and 1,930 times that of Japan

   Relevant statistics show that from 2008 to 2012 over a five-year period, Taiwanese prosecutors applied for an average of 15,312 wiretaps per year, which is nearly 5.6 times that of the United States and 520.8 times that of Japan. As for the proportion of wiretap applications approved by judges, although Taiwan's rate is lower than those of the US and Japan, the sheer, indiscriminate volume of applications by prosecutors resulted in the total number of judge-approved wiretaps in Taiwan being nearly 3.7 times that of the US and 353.8 times that of Japan. When taking into account the ratio of wiretap cases to population, the figures are even more staggering: the ratio of wiretap cases to Taiwan's population of 23 million is 0.044%, which is 50.8 times that of the United States and a staggering 1,929.8 times that of Japan. This highlights the problem of indiscriminate and unrestrained wiretapping by our country's prosecutors and police.

2. Catching everything under the sun, with zero oversight

   The root cause of the exceptionally high proportion of people being wiretapped in our country is that prosecutors, police, investigators, and other agencies conduct wiretaps in a manner that violates the Constitution and incurs ultra-low costs. Once prosecutors, police, and investigators obtain a wiretap warrant (which courts generally find difficult to review in detail beforehand), they only need to input a specific phone number, and the computer system will automatically start intercepting all communications associated with that number—catching everything under the sun! This includes not only telephone voice calls, but also any content transmitted via that number, such as emails, text messages, Facebook messages, WhatsApp, and currently popular messaging apps like Line. Any content—including audio, video, images, files, confidential documents, and private messages—is intercepted, recorded, and copied entirely. Everything under the sun is recorded first, and only afterwards do prosecutors, police, and investigators arbitrarily sift through to select the content they want. In contrast, the United States only permits wiretapping personnel to listen directly next to the interception equipment, and they may only continue intercepting after discovering content related to criminal suspicion. Japan is even stricter, requiring a third party to be present beside the listener to monitor their interception activities. One must ask: why should we tolerate having our casual chats with family, arguments with friends, sweet whispers between lovers, text messages cursing the boss, and trade secrets entirely controlled by the Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency? Such wiretapping methods directly trample upon the freedom of secret communication guaranteed by Article 12 of the Constitution and the most fundamental right to privacy protected by Article 22! Even more frighteningly, no one can exercise oversight, and absolutely no one knows what these wiretappers will ultimately use the intercepted content for!

3. Dismantling the Investigation Bureau's and the National Police Agency's nationwide surveillance centers, which are unconstitutional and unlawful

   In 1992, the government stealthily established two 'nationwide surveillance centers' within the Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency. The Investigation Bureau's Telecommunications Interception Center did not obtain organizational legal basis until the passage of the Organic Act of the Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice in 2008; the National Police Agency's Telecommunications Interception Center was likewise only reorganized in 2001 when the Organic Regulations of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the National Police Agency of the Ministry of the Interior were amended. Originally, both were 'black sites.' Furthermore, when the Communication Security and Surveillance Act was enacted in 1999, the establishment of 'nationwide surveillance centers' was strictly prohibited in order to safeguard citizens' freedom of communication. It was not until the 2007 amendments that the ambiguously worded phrase 'establishing agency' was 'smuggled' in. An 'establishing agency' could refer to the telecommunications operators' switchboards and does not necessarily 'specifically refer' to a state-owned 'Telecommunications Interception Center,' let alone a 'black site' affiliated with the prosecutors, police, and investigators who are most prone to abusing their powers! To make matters worse, the telecommunications centers even mandated that all telecommunications operators nationwide route their lines through these two surveillance centers. Through this transmission of all content from every single subscriber number nationwide, the Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency are enabled to conduct unmonitored, foolproof surveillance over the entire populace. The root of all evil lies in these two unconstitutional surveillance centers whose 'black site' status was 'whitewashed.' If this terrifying monster is not dismantled for even a single day, all Taiwanese citizens will live every day under the risk of being placed under surveillance!

Citizens' freedom of secret communication and right to privacy are fundamental rights protected by the Constitution and must not be infringed upon in this manner. Furthermore, lawful wiretapping must be bound by the 'principle of least infringement'! We call upon the public to pay attention to the severity of the wiretapping issue. This Foundation has also drafted a bill and is poised to promote legislative amendments requiring the government to dismantle these two terrifying surveillance machines!

Attachments

1. Comparison of Annual Wiretap Data between Taiwan, the US, and Japan (calculated using the five-year average data from 2008 to 2012)
2. Taiwan, US, and Japan Telecommunications Interception Applications and Execution Data

Attendees

Professor Su Yu-te, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University
Attorney Yu Po-hsiang, Executive Member, Judicial Reform Foundation
Attorney Lin Feng-cheng, Executive Director, Judicial Reform Foundation

Press Contact

Attorney Kao Jung-chih, Office Director, Judicial Reform Foundation 02-2523-1178