The Executive Yuan has submitted a proposal to amend the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法) to the legislature, which, if passed, would boost the penalties for people convicted of spying for China.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have also submitted draft amendments, and the Judiciary Committee is expected to review the bills on Wednesday and Thursday.
There are concerns about loopholes in the national security laws, including not recognizing China as a foreign state, which means that people spying for China are not considered foreign agents, DPP lawmakers said.
Other problems include the law not distinguishing between leaking secrets to Taiwanese and leaking secrets to foreign nationals, and not enumerating specific penalties, they said.
Under the Executive Yuan’s bill, the maximum sentence for passing top secret classified information to China would be increased from seven years in prison to 15 years.
The bill would also increase the length of sentences for leaking secrets to foreign citizens or Chinese nationals, including residents of Hong Kong and Macau, from the current one to seven years to three to 10 years, and increase the sentence length for illegal disclosure of top secret information by 50 percent, raising the maximum sentence from 10 years to 15 years.
The Executive Yuan bill also stipulates stiffer sentences for disclosing unclassified but privileged information to foreign citizens and Chinese nationals, or for probing for such information on their behalf, and stipulates that attempted breaches of the act are to be subjected to specific punishments.
Government ministries and agencies would no longer have the power to reduce the three-year period of required vetting for former government employees with security clearances who want to travel abroad, according to the Executive Yuan’s bill.
DPP Legislator Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) has submitted a draft bill broadly similar to the Executive Yuan’s proposal, while a number of other DPP lawmakers have also suggested amendments.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng’s (羅致政) proposal stipulates that those convicted of spying on behalf of “hostile foreign powers” should receive a 50 percent increase to their prison term.
A proposal by DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) would link the length of a prison sentence to the classification level of the compromised information, with those disclosing top secret information to foreign states potentially receiving a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The country’s efforts at international military and intelligence cooperation and arms procurement have been repeatedly frustrated because allies fear their secrets could be compromised by Chinese operatives, Lo said.
“Increasing the penalty against communist spies is, without a doubt, an urgent national security priority,” he said.
DPP Legislator Wang Ding-yu’ (王定宇) has also proposed a new amendment to Clause 10 of the Criminal Code to clarify the term “adversary” in terms of expanding the definition of treason in the code to include “collusion with an adversary,” updating a proposal that he submitted last year, another lawmaker said.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
RSS