Hsiao Tai-fu (
Hsiao, who was released yesterday after having been detained since late Wednesday night, told a press conference that he had been very cautious not to include any confidential information or cite any confidential documentation when writing his book, Thirty Years as an Intelligence Agent.
"This [book] has absolutely nothing to do with leaking national security secrets," Hsiao said. "Throughout the entire book, I do not mention any information regarding cooperation on intelligence between the Republic of China and any other country."
Hsiao said he had also adhered to his principles and not touched on any case he had personally dealt with, adding that all the cases mentioned in the book were the subject of documents or publications in the public domain.
The Taipei Prosecutors Office and NSB personnel seized about 1,000 copies of the book, which only recently hit the shelves, after searching Taiwan Elite Press, the publisher of the book, the distributors and Hsiao's home on Wednesday morning.
Taipei prosecutors sought to detain Hsiao yesterday morning after he was unable to pay his NT$500,000 (US$15,400) bail on Wednesday night.
The Taipei District Court rejected the prosecutors' request and released Hsiao yesterday morning on condition he does not leave the country.
The NSB issued a press release on Wednesday saying it took legal action against Hsiao because the bureau had advised him not to publish the book when Hsiao sent a draft to the bureau for review.
Classified information was included throughout the book, the bureau said.
Hsiao confirmed that correspondence with the bureau, but said the bureau had never specified which part of his book constituted confidential information.
Hsiao said he wrote the book to pass on the knowledge gained from his 30 years of experience as a NSB official. He said his book should be regarded as a "textbook."
The book addresses topics such as "theories of intelligence," "intelligence gathering," "intelligence analysis," "intelligence strategies," "international intelligence cooperation" and "management of intelligence organizations," copies of the book's index showed.
Hsiao said he agreed that he should "take the confidential information I knew to the grave because leaking the information may endanger people who are still alive."
"This [the NSB's action] was much more terrible than the publication screening of the Taiwan Garrison Command [a key military group during the martial law era]," he said.
The owner of the publisher, Wu Hsin-chien (吳心建), who was also at the press conference, said he felt very upset about the incident as this was the first time in the past three decades that a publication from his company had been seized and banned.
"I don't think there is anything problematic about the content of the book," said Wu, adding that he had read through Hsiao's manuscript before printing the book.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Joanna Lei (雷倩), who accompanied Hsiao at the conference, said "so-called national security was only an excuse" in the Hsiao case, adding that the seizing of 1,000 "textbook-like" books by prosecutors was a "setback" for the nation's human rights.
Hsiao is not the only former intelligence officer who has been charged with allegedly leaking classified information in a personal publication after retirement.
Pang Ta-wei (龐大為), a former deputy section chief of the Military Intelligence Bureau, was indicted on Sept. 17 on charges of collecting and leaking classified information that was published in his book.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods