The National Intelligence Service chief Lee Byung-ho’s closed-door briefing at the National Assembly produced, as expected, very different responses from the legislators attending the meeting.

Lee asserted that the spy agency never conducted illegal surveillance of South Korean citizens, according to Won Yoo-chul, the ruling Saenuri Party floor leader. The NIS chief vowed to step down from his post if there was any spying on South Korean nationals.

The briefing was held in response to the recent discovery that the NIS had purchased Remote Control System known as Galileo, a spyware, from Italy’s Hacking Team in 2012. According to the Hacking Team’s website, RCS is a “solution designed to evade encryption by means of an agent directly installed on the device to monitor. Evidence collection on monitored devices is stealth and transmission of collected data from the device to the RCS server is encrypted and untraceable.” By its own account, RCS is a very potent spyware that is also liable to abuse. The NIS maintains that the spyware was used exclusively in relation to North Korea and terrorist organizations.

During the briefing, it was revealed that an NIS agent who committed suicide on July 18 had deleted 51 data sets the day before his death. These included 10 items related to North Korea and terrorist organizations, 10 failures and 31 items related to “domestic experiments.” The opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy legislators who attended the briefing said there was no explanation about the “domestic experiments” except that it was not domestic surveillance. A Saenuri party legislator, on the other hand, said that the NIS gave sufficient explanation about the data deletion.

The Saenuri Party and the NPAD have now locked horns over an on-site inspection by legislators. The Saenuri Party wants a meeting between NIS experts and civilian cyber security experts to be held before an on-site inspection by legislators. The NPAD, on the other hand, insists that civilian experts be allowed to accompany the legislators.

The ruling party is concerned that national security and cybersecurity would be compromised as a result of investigations into the RCS operation. That is a just concern that should be shared by the opposition party as well. Yet, a way should be found to confirm unequivocally that there was no illegal surveillance of South Koreans. Only then can the NIS carry on with its legitimate activities unencumbered.