A student surnamed Huang (黃) who allegedly made snapshot copies of classified diplomatic material between June and August was arraigned yesterday by the Investigation Bureau on charges related to the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法).
Sources said Huang was an intern at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that when filing the original copies of “Secret communications by overseas Chinese spies” and “Quebec Independence” files, he found a dossier carrying the name of former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).
“If I worked at the ministry for a year or half a year, I could have written a book on the secrets of the Republic of China’s recent diplomatic affairs,” Huang wrote on Facebook, adding that security at the ministry was “very lax.”
Prosecutors said Huang had applied for an internship at the ministry this summer for a total of 100 hours and signed a confidentiality agreement at the time.
The bureau said it was continuing to investigate the extent of the leak and was cooperating with the Taipei District Attorney’s Office.
Sources said that after Huang was brought in for questioning, he admitted to photographing documents, but said he did not know that doing so was illegal.
Huang said he regretted his actions very much.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
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