This was always a concern that this agency would be used for partisan purposes by whoever was in charge at the time and that is what the opposition is claiming is happening now with the collecting of phone records of conservative media figures:
Kim Jin-wook, the chief of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, enters the office in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Nov. 16. Yonhap
The state-run anti-corruption office is under fire over allegations that it searched through the phone records of reporters and citizens critical of the organization and the government.
The agency claims that this was a due, legal process and that it only checked the information of those who had phone calls with some of the people it is investigating. However, there is speculation that this may expand into an illegal surveillance scandal.
When checking phone records, the investigation agency receives personal information including subscriber name, resident registration number and address from the relevant telecommunications company. If the person whose phone records were checked asks the telecommunications company, it has to inform them of the details of when and which investigative agencies have requested data within the past year.
According to local telecommunications companies, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) has asked for the phone records of at least 10 journalists from several conservative news outlets on multiple occasions.
In detail, the CIO requested the phone records of six reporters from the Chosun Ilbo on 12 occasions from July to October, while it also rifled through the phone logs of three reporters from the Joongang Ilbo 11 times from May to October.
It looks like the North Koreans are satisfied that they made their point to South Korea about how unhappy they are about the Ningpo 13 and have folded and allowed South Korean reporters to cover the upcoming dog and pony show at Punggye-ri:
South Korean journalists board a government plane on Wednesday at the Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, to fly to Wonsan, North Korea. [YONHAP]A group of eight South Korean journalists flew into North Korea on Wednesday afternoon after Pyongyang, at the last minute, accepted Seoul’s list of reporters to cover the dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
Eight journalists from two media outlets departed at around 12:30 p.m. from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on a South Korean government plane and flew directly to Kalma Airport in North Korea’s eastern port city of Wonsan.
After arriving in Wonsan, they joined journalists from four other countries – China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – to board a special train to head to the site of the demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site to take place on Thursday or Friday. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Leave it to the North Koreans to look for any opportunity to make a buck:
South Korean reporters at Incheon International Airport, Monday. / Yonhap
North Korea is demanding that each foreign reporter pay $10,000 for a visa to cover the planned dismantlement of a nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, Seoul government officials said Monday.
South Korean reporters were exempt, the officials said. But people familiar with the situation said the rule could be overturned anytime given the reclusive state’s unpredictability.
The North has invited an unspecified number of reporters from South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and the U.K. to the dismantlement ceremony scheduled for sometime between Wednesday and Friday.
In the South, news wire News1 and broadcaster MBC were selected to cover the event. The two companies selected four staff ― two writers and two photographers from News1 and two reporters and two cameramen from MBC ― respectively. They arrived in Beijing in the afternoon of Monday. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the reporters will take a North Korean plane to Wonsan where their lodgings are at. From Wonsan they will take a train to the test site. I wonder if this $10,000 visa includes transportation and lodging? A suspect that will be a separate charge. Would anyone be willing to use their credit card in North Korea to pay for it?
Two South Korean journalists who were injured during a scuffle with Chinese security guards return home in wheelchairs on Dec. 15, 2017. The scuffle broke out a day earlier when the photojournalists were covering a business function attended by President Moon Jae-in hours before his summit with Xi Jinping. (Yonhap)
