The Control Yuan has made available online the report of an investigation into the implementation of the Communication Security and Surveillance Act (通訊保障及監察法), which points out a number of defects, including an eavesdropping case involving several people that could be decided by just a prosecutor and a judge.
The government has been unable to ensure people’s freedom from being illegally bugged, one of the investigating Control Yuan members, Li Ful-dien (李復甸), told reporters on Tuesday. The other two investigators are Yeh Yao-peng (葉耀鵬) and Lin Chu-liang (林鉅鋃).
Li said that the “Managing and Checking System of Communication Surveillance” set up by the Taiwan High Court is not strict enough and could allow law enforcement personnel to wiretap people who are in contact with targeted individuals or to add other telephone numbers to the list of approved targets without permission.
Taiwanese courts permitted 504,788 cases of eavesdropping from 2007 to last year, while the US had about 1,000 to 2,000 cases per year in the past decade, according to the report.
However, the courts checked up on just 153 of the approved cases during the 2011-2013 period, representing an average of only 2.4 supervisory visits to law enforcement units during the period, the report found.
The report said cases can be assigned to a prosecutor and a judge, who are also responsible for renewing the case or adding targeted telephone numbers.
Taiwan falls short compared with certain other countries such as Germany, where cases are decided by judges who are on duty on a rotational basis, and the US, where cases need to be reviewed along with all previous data and can be subject to review by a different court, according to the report.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan