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Only by Reforming the Security System for the Chief of State Can We Avoid Repetitions of Scandals

icon2019/08/01
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 Only by Reforming the Security System for the Chief of State Can We Avoid Repetitions of Scandals

 

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

July 30, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

With the presidential tour abroad, broke out a scandal of duty-free cigarettes smuggling by special agents in the entourage who utilized the opportunity; Peng Sheng-chu, director of the National Security Bureau, immediately resigned. Thus outsiders termed this as "national security agents cigarette smuggling case." However, National Security Bureau personnel are not pleased with this phraseology, frequently leaking to the press, emphasizing that the agents involved belonged to the Office of the Aide-de-camp in the Presidential Palace, and not under the purview of the National Security Bureau; it therefore should be called instead "the Presidential Palace cigarette smuggling case" or "the Office of the Aide-de-camp cigarette smuggling case," to be exact. Such a dispute over trivial “rectification of names” reveals the chaotic state of the security system for the President; with confusing command of functions; the system has become a blind spot in discipline.

The special agents for security of the chief of state are, according to law, under the purview of the National Security Bureau, named the "Special Agents Command Center", with an NSB director as ex officio commander. From the surface, it looks like the core of presidential security; in reality, its jurisdiction covers, however, only part of the special agents. The service of the presidential bodyguards is undertaken by “the Office of the Aide-de-camp assigned to the official presidential residence” under the command of the Office of the Aide-de-camp in the Presidential Palace. The Special Agents Center, in actuality, commands part of the services of special agents only when the President leaves the country and other military, military police, and police units are mobilized to implement "joint security" will it emerge to coordinate the participating units. However, the Presidential Palace may, through the chief aide-de-camp, overstep the Special Agent Center to arrange security on its own; this time, the foreign tour was a case in point. The punishments meted out in the cigarette smuggling case this time, besides NSB director Peng Sheng-chu, were all given to the Office of the Aide-de-camp in the Presidential Palace, involving no other National Security Bureau personnel.

Despite the fact that in carrying out missions, it is under the command of the Special Agents Center or the chief aide-de-camp, the management as well as awards and punishments of the personnel are handled by the various units themselves, with no one carrying the authority to cover all the units participating in maintaining security.

In order to reform these maladies, first of all, the powers-that-be must professionalize the security functions of special agents for the chief of state. The Special Agents Center should branch out from the National Security Bureau and engage in a merger of functions with the Office of the Aide-de-camp in the Presidential Palace, similar to the Executive Protective Service of the US Department of Homeland Security (formerly one of the responsibilities of the Secret Service under the Treasury Department until 2003), becoming a security unit with full authority. The Office of the Aide-de-camp will no longer be responsible for the protection service of president, keeping only the staff role for liaison of the Presidential Palace with the military; its nomenclature should also be changed from a feudalistic "Office of the Aide-de-camp" to "military attachés."

At the same time as professionalizing the security structure for the chief of state, it should also establish a professional special agents corps; the President cannot wantonly insert protégés into the special agents corps.

With the branching out of the Special Agents Center from the National Security Bureau, the special agents will avoid being "fiefs to the family"; this is also a necessary step for Taiwan's democratization.

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