The acquittal yesterday in Prague Municipal Court of accredited Chinese journalist Jang I-ming/Yang Yiming on charges of unauthorized activity for a foreign power is the biggest public defeat so far for Dir. Michal Koudelka of the BIS counterintelligence agency. Koudelka pushed for passage of the new Para. 318a of the penal code because he was concerned that spies were getting hold of unclassified but "highly useful information" through "routine communication with politicians, journalists and businesspeople," as he explained it to Martin Shabu of Lidové noviny in March 2020. The law went into effect early last year, but the Chinese man wasn't arrested until Jan. of this year, giving him a full year to keep gathering this "highly useful information." STAN Chair Vít Rakušan, who co-sponsored the bill as interior minister, defended the law in MFD by saying that anyone prosecuted under it would have to be shown without any doubt to have intentionally wanted to harm the country. Koudelka and Rakušan really needed a conviction to absolve themselves of allegations that they were using the law to build a new police state. Bringing charges under Para. 318a against the next innocent person will now be all that much more difficult.