Lawmakers across party lines yesterday vowed to block a draft bill that seeks to allow National Security Bureau (NSB) personnel to detain and search anyone who might endanger the safety of an incumbent or retired president when protecting the current or former national leader.
When asked for comment, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) expressed opposition to the NSB-initiated proposal.
“This should never be allowed. Our caucus will definitely kill the bill,” Chang said.
The draft proposal, which had yet to be put to a preliminary review, would allow the current or former president’s NSB bodyguards to stop and search any person or vehicle if the person were considered by the NSB guards to be an “obvious” threat to the safety of an incumbent or retired president.
The draft proposal would also authorize the NSB officials to detain the person at a certain location for a maximum of three hours.
Chang said the draft bill might constitute a violation of human rights and that it was impossible for the KMT caucus to sacrifice human rights for the sake of the legislation.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) also had reservations regarding the proposal, saying that many legislators had voiced their opposition to it.
He urged all lawmakers to deliberate over how the NSB could ensure human rights while maintaining public order and protecting the current or retired president.
When approached by reporters in the legislature, Chen Ping-lin (陳炳林), director of the NSB’s Law and Regulation Committee, defended the draft bill, saying that the proposal was meant to limit rather than expand the power of NSB officials.
Chen said NSB officials would only enjoy the authority stipulated in the proposal under emergent circumstances or when the security of the incumbent or former president was breached.
Chang Kan-ping (張勘平), deputy director of the NSB’s secret service center, said the bill would not empower the NSB to detain anyone, adding that if the bill were passed, the NSB would hand over any personnel suspected of threatening the safety of the incumbent or retired president to the police.
Meanwhile, the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee yesterday decided to slash NT$10 million (US$312,500) from the NSB’s annual budget for next year as punishment for the incident that saw China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Vice Chairman Zhang Mingqing (張銘清) manhandled by protesters in Tainan last week.
Domestic Intelligence Department Director Lin Hui-yang (林惠陽) attended yesterday’s meeting on behalf of the NSB.
In response to the decision to cut the NSB’s budget, Lin said that the incident happened because Zhang decided to visit the Confucius Temple, the site of the incident, on his own rather than staying with his delegation.
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS