Making the telephone records of Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) available to a Legislative Yuan task force probing a wiretapping controversy would require Huang’s consent due to their private nature, Minister of Justice Lo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) said yesterday.
Responding to a media inquiry at the legislature in Taipei, Lo said that the task force under the Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee could not request Huang’s records from his phone company without Huang’s agreement because a telephone record is a personal asset.
“[The request] involves Huang’s rights, the Constitution and the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法), so I will not comment further. If [Huang] agrees, I think the request would then be legal,” Lo said.
The committee on Wednesday passed a resolution authorizing the task force, which was formed to investigate a wiretapping controversy, to examine Huang’s telephone records and records of when he visited the Presidential Office and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) residence to report on the improper lobbying allegations involving Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
Huang has said that he would not agree to provide the records.
DPP lawmakers were angry at Huang’s refusal, with Ker saying that the task force would not be able to carry out its investigation without the records, which are believed to contain crucial evidence that Ma and Huang conspired to oust Wang from his position.
If the telephone records show that Huang and Ma had telephone conversations before Aug. 31, the day that both said they met for the first time to discuss Wang’s misconduct, the opposition might be able to prove that Ma, Huang and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) have been lying to the public about the controversy.
However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus opposed the document request, saying that if Huang’s telephone records were made public, Ma’s telephone records would inevitably be disclosed as well, which would be a violation of the Constitution.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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