[Meanwhile] Same documents, different reactions

Fragmentary thinking and responses raise distrust in the government.

PARK HYUN-YOUNGThe author is a Washington correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo. Apple’s iPhone doesn’t provide a call recording feature by default. Recording without the consent of the other party is illegal in at least 13 states in the United States. To avoid controversy over privacy violations, Apple does not install this function not only for the models sold in the U.S. but also for overseas models.

It is easy to record conversations during a call on Samsung Galaxy phones by pressing a button. Surprisingly, when I brought the Galaxy phone I had been using in Korea to the U.S. and updated the software, the recording function disappeared.

It is a measure to conform to U.S. laws. It shows how sensitive the United States is when it comes to communication information and privacy protection.

Confidential Pentagon documents containing circumstantial evidence that the U.S. wiretapped the Korean presidential office have been leaked. Suspicions that a third party not directly involved in the conversation or call overheard the conversations of high-ranking officials in the presidential office in Yongsan made serious news in the U.S.

But the presidential office is busy playing down the implications of the leaked confidential documents. On April 11, Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy national security advisor, said, “The defense ministers of the two countries agreed on the fact that considerable parts of the documents were forged.” When asked what position he would convey to the U.S., he said, “Korea has nothing to say to the U.S. because someone else had forged them.”

The responses of the U.S. government and the media were different. At a press conference held after the phone call between the two defense ministers, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin did not say the documents were “forged.” He declined to go into details as the case was under investigation.

A New York Times reporter who first reported the leak said in a podcast that it would surprise people, making it a fact that the U.S. monitors not only Russia but also allies and partners. The reporter said that the documents in question illustrate how U.S. intelligence agencies eavesdrop on allies such as South Korea and Israel. After an Air National Guardsman immersed in online war games was arrested for leaking the documents, the conspiracy theory involving Russia was dismissed.

The Korean government also changed its position from “forging” to “no evidence of wiretapping the presidential office with malicious intentions.” The Yoon Suk Yeol administration often announces its position on diplomatic or security issues hastily, only to retract or withdraw it. Diplomacy is a game involving another party. Fragmentary thinking and responses raise distrust in the government. As the same behavior continues for 11 months into the administration, it makes me wonder if the system is fundamentally flawed.