of the Act at Issue requires the court to decide whether to grant
permission for the communication-restriction measures by examining the
aforementioned substantive requirements for such permission, it is clear
that the communication-restriction measures are under judicial control.
Further, as the execution period of the communication-restriction
measures has been limited to two-month in accordance with the Court’s
previous decision in the case of 2009Hun-Ka30, the extension of such
period has become impossible unless the prosecutor files another
application for the permission for the communication-restriction
measures, indicating different grounds for such application.
We do not see that no legal safeguards are in place to regulate the
abuse of power or serious infringement on the fundamental rights by
State investigative agencies during the execution of the interception of
Internet lines. The Act at Issue uniformly prohibits any public official or
former public official of State investigative agencies who has been
engaged in the interception of Internet lines from disclosing or divulging
matters he or she has learned while conducting such interception; and
imposes imprisonment of not more than ten years on the public official
who has violated such obligation. It also prohibits the data obtained
through interception from being used to investigate, prosecute, and
prevent crimes when such data is irrelevant to criminal investigations.
Further, under the Personal Information Protection Act, if special
provisions do not exist in other laws or if consent has not been obtained
from a data subject, the State investigative agencies conducting
interception are not allowed to preserve the information of a data subject
obtained through such interception or to provide such information to a
third party; and should destroy such information without delay.
Moreover, the interception of Internet lines does not essentially differ
from intercepting other communications in transit, although there are
relative differences in their mechanics and target.
On all the foregoing grounds, we find that the Provision at Issue
satisfies the principle of the least restrictive means since the fact that
there are no procedural safeguards in place to allow the court to
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