The National Intelligence Service (NIS; ) is the chief intelligence agency of South Korea. The agency was officially established in 1961 as the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA; ), during the rule of general Park Chung Hee's military Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, which displaced the Second Republic of Korea. The original duties of the KCIA were to "supervise and coordinate both international and domestic intelligence activities and criminal investigation by all government intelligence agencies, including that of the military." The agency's broad powers allowed it to actively intervene in politics. Agents undergo years of training and checks before they are officially inducted and receive their first assignments.
The agency took on the name Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP; ) in 1981, as part of a series of reforms instituted by the Fifth Republic of Korea under President Chun Doo-hwan. Besides trying to acquire intelligence on North Korea and suppress South Korean activists, the ANSP, like its predecessor, was heavily involved in activities outside its sphere, including domestic politics and promoting the 1988 Summer Olympics. During its existence, the ANSP engaged in numerous cases of human rights abuse such as torture, as well as election tampering.
In 1999, the agency assumed its current name. The more democratic and current Sixth Republic of Korea has seen a significant reduction in the role of the NIS in response to public criticisms about past abuses.
Most specifics regarding the agency's organizational makeup remain classified by the Seoul government. A 1998 investigation by the Sisa Journal into the structure of the agency (then the ANSP) estimated that it employed some 60,000 employees across 39 headquarters and regionally-based departments, spending an estimated 700–800 billion South Korean won per year.
History Korean Central Intelligence Agency
The agency's origins can be traced back to the Korean Counterintelligence Corps (KCIC), formed during the Korean War. The KCIA was founded on 13 June 1961 by Kim Jong-pil, who drew much of the organization's initial 3,000-strong membership from the KCIC. Kim, a Korean Military Academy graduate and nephew of Park Chung Hee by marriage, is also credited with masterminding the 1961 coup d'État that installed Park before he was elected president of Korea.
President Park's government extensively used the intelligence service to suppress and disrupt anti-government or pro–North Korean or other pro-communist movements, including the widespread student protests on university campuses and the activities of overseas Koreans. The KCIA developed a reputation for interfering in domestic politics and international affairs beyond its jurisdiction. The KCIA's original charter, the Act Concerning Protection of Military Secrets, was designed to oversee the coordination of activities related to counterespionage and national security, but a majority of its activities and budget were devoted to things unrelated to its original charter.
In 1968, KCIA agents kidnapped 17 Koreans living in West Germany. They were transported back to Seoul, where they were tortured and brought up on charges of having violated the National Security Law by engaging in pro-Northern activities. The victims became a cause célèbre as the kidnapping created a firestorm of international criticism that almost brought the West German government to break off diplomatic relations with South Korea. It further served as a harbinger when the much-publicised kidnapping of a dissident, Kim Dae-jung—who would later become the president of Korea and the country's first Nobel Peace Prize recipient, in 2000—took place in 1973 off the coast of a Japanese resort town.
The KCIA's virtually unlimited and completely unchecked power to arrest and detain any person on any charge created a climate of extreme fear and repression. The frequent detention and torture of students, dissidents, opposition figures, communists, reporters, or anyone perceived to be critical of the government was symptomatic of the Park presidency and the subsequent administration. In another departure from its original charter, the KCIA's assumptive role as political machine extraordinaire and domination of the country's political life began to take on even more bizarre forms such as exercising a free hand in drafting the South Korean constitution and acting as a political fundraiser for the incumbent party.
In addition to its presumptive intelligence and secret police role, which was ostensibly authorized by its original charter, it also became, by default, through a network of agents at home and abroad, the de facto attorney general and inspector general of the South Korean government. Domestically, the KCIA made itself the philanthropical arm of the government by being an avid supporter of the arts, promoter of tourism, and purveyor of national culture.
The KCIA is known to have raised funds through extortion and stock market manipulation, which were in turn used to bribe and cajole companies, individuals and even foreign governments, as happened during the Koreagate scandal in the United States in 1976. Investigations by United States Congressman Donald M. Fraser found the KCIA to have funneled bribes and favors through Korean businessman Tongsun Park in an attempt to gain favor and influence in Washington, D.C.; some 115 Members of Congress were implicated in the affair.
Agency for National Security Planning
The KCIA was purged after the agency's director, Kim Jae-kyu, assassinated President Park Chung Hee in 1979. Chun Doo-hwan was the next director in 1980. In 1981, it was renamed the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP) with newly defined powers. The ANSP maintained its cabinet-level agency status under the president. In March 1981, the ANSP became the principal agency handling intelligence, with all other agencies being required to coordinate such activities with it. Additional legislation that year incorporated "public safety against communists and plots to overthrow the government" into its functions. The ANSP managed secrets of the state and investigated "crimes of insurrection and foreign aggression, crimes of rebellion, aiding and abetting the enemy, disclosure of military secrets, and crimes provided for in the Act Concerning Protection of Military Secrets and the National Security Act" in addition to "crimes related to duties of intelligence personnel, the supervision of information collection, and the compilation and distribution of information on other agencies' activities designed to maintain public safety."
By 1983, the ANSP's status had recovered from the purge. However, it did not have "free access to all government offices and files" under the Sixth Republic. And "overt" agents from the ANSP and other agencies, which collected information from within the National Assembly of Korea, were withdrawn from the building in May 1988. The budget of the ANSP was not made public or made available for use to the National Assembly. In July 1989, the ANSP was inspected and audited by the National Assembly "for the first time in eighteen years" after being pressured. The ANSP subsequently removed agents from the Seoul Criminal Court and the Supreme Court. The ANSP Information Coordination Committee was also disbanded due to its influence on other authorities, such as the Office of the Prosecutor General. And under allegations of human rights violations, the ANSP set up a watchdog office for supervising domestic investigations and preventing abuse by agents during interrogation.
The ANSP, however, remained involved in domestic politics through methods including "wiretapping, surveillance, and financial investigations." Although it was stripped of investigating powers over pro-North Korean activity in 1989, the ANSP continued its enforcement.
In 1994, the ANSP had a significant revision of its charter, which effectively limited its activities, following an agreement between Korea's ruling and opposition parties. As a result, an "Information Committee" in the National Assembly was established to lay a foundation for the agency's removal from the political scene and an assumption of political neutrality. The ANSP also began to develop procedures and mechanisms to thwart international crime and terrorism. In 1995, the ANSP moved to a new headquarters site in Naegok-dong, southern Seoul, from its previous location on Namsan mountain, in Imun-dong, where it had been located for the past 34 years.
National Intelligence Service In 1999, it was officially renamed the National Intelligence Service.
According to its official publications, the NIS is divided into three directorates: International affairs, Domestic affairs, and North Korean affairs. Its current officially stated mission assigns the NIS responsibility for the:
Collection, coordination, and distribution of information on the nation's strategy and security. Maintenance of documents, materials, and facilities related to the nation's classified information. Investigation of crimes affecting national security, such as the Military Secrecy Protection Law and the National Security Law. Investigation of crimes related to the missions of NIS staff. Planning and coordination of information and classified.
The election of Roh Moo-hyun to the South Korean presidency in 2003 brought more concerted efforts to reform the agency. Roh appointed Ko Young-koo, a former human rights lawyer, to the position of director, expressing a desire to find "someone who will set the agency straight". The anti-communist bureau of the agency was slated to be eliminated, and many domestic intelligence and surveillance activities were either abandoned or transferred to national police forces.
In December 2008, it was alleged by the official media arm of North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency, that a NIS-trained North Korean citizen had been apprehended as part of a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader. Both the NIS and the South Korean government denied any involvement.
The NIS officially admitted in 2011 that it wiretapped Gmail accounts of South Korean citizens in the South Korean Constitutional Court.
The 2012 budget for the NIS could potentially get cut as it had shown its inefficiencies.
In the presidential election held in December 2012, NIS committed a serious crime by secretly helping Park Geun-hye's campaign, according to the Korean police investigation report. Korean prosecutors investigated the incident. in February 2015, Won was convicted on charges of instructing NIS officials to manipulate internet comments and was sentenced to three years in prison. After an appeal, the conviction was overturned. In a second trial in 2017, Won was sentenced to four years in prison. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence in April 2018. When Moon Jae-in won the 2017 election, his administration pursued nine additional charges of political interference against Won, resulting in a subsequent 7 year jail sentence in 2020. In August of 2017, the NIS formally acknowledged that it was involved in the election manipulation after an internal inquiry.
In 2015, Hacking Team's breached data showed that NIS purchased spyware from Hacking Team. An agent related to the hack was found dead in an apparent suicide. In his note, he said that the agency didn't spy on civilians or on political reactions related to 2012's presidential election.
In 2016, a prosecutors' investigation turned up evidence that the NIS orchestrated conservative groups since president Lee Myung-bak's administration. The evidence showed the NIS's involvement in newspaper political advertisements as well as one-person protests.