Japanese Public Pushes Back Against Secrecy Law

When the Japanese Diet passed into law last week Japan's new state secrets law Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had what one might call a "George W. Bush moment" in that he believed that with passage of the law the electric would turn away from its opposition and forget the law was ever enacted.  That hasn't happened. Just the inverse has taken place with the voting public  more opposed to law with its passage than during its consideration by the Diet.   Governments keep secrets for reason especially where intelligence is concerned for the obvious reasons.  Exposing specific types of information would give your enemies insight into means and methods of intelligence acquisition which should be protected.  Yet when a government writes a bill which is vaguely written as to what is considered necessary to protect national security and punishments involved with their exposure one must ask the question just how far will the Japanese government go to protect that which it believes are the nations most valued secrets.   Its a slippery slope one which Shinzo Abe's government doesn't seem to have thought  through in its rush to pass this law.

Under the new law, public officials found to have leaked information defined as a “special state secret” face up to 10 years in prison. Journalists who use “grossly inappropriate” means to obtain sensitive information could be jailed for up to five years. 

A poll by Kyodo News found that support for Abe's cabinet had sunk more than 10 percentage points since the bill passed, to 47.6 percent, the first time it had fallen below 50 percent since he took office almost exactly a year ago. Even more devastating was another Kyodo poll in which 82 percent of respondents believed the law should be revised or abolished.

Many have equated this law with the Peace Preservation Law which was enacted in 1925 as means to oppress the opposition and control the press.

The Public Security Preservation Law of 1925 (治安維持法 Chian Iji Hō^?) was enacted on 12 May 1925, under the administration of Kato Takaaki, specifically against socialism,communism, and anarchism.^[1] It was one of the most significant laws of pre-war Japan.

The main force behind the law was Minister of Justice (and future Prime Minister) Hiranuma Kiichiro.

Anyone who has formed an association with altering the kokutai, or the system of private property, and anyone who has joined such an association with full knowledge of its object, shall be liable to imprisonment with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding ten years.

By using the highly vague and subjective term kokutai, the law attempted to blend politics and ethics, but the result was that any political opposition could be branded as “altering thekokutai”. Thus the government had carte blanche to outlaw any form of dissent.

Renewed activity by underground Japan Communist Party in 1928 led to the March 15 Incident, in which police arrested more than 1,600 Communists and suspected Communists under the provisions of the Public Safety Preservation Law of 1925. The same year, the highly anti-Communist government of Tanaka Giichi pushed through an amendment to the law, raising the maximum penalty from ten years to death.

A “Thought Police” section, named the Tokkō, was formed within the Home Ministry, with branches all over Japan and in overseas locations with high concentrations of Japanese subjects to monitor activity by socialists and Communists. A Student Section was also established under the Ministry of Education to monitor university professors and students. Within the Ministry of Justice, special “Thought Prosecutors” (shiso kenji) were appointed to suppress “thought criminals”, either through punishment or through “conversion” back to orthodoxy via reeducation.

In the 1930s, with Japan's increasing militarism and totalitarianism, dissent was tolerated less and less. In early February 1941, the Security Preservation Law of 1925 was completely re-written. Terms for people suspected of Communist sympathies became more severe, and for the first time religious organizations were included in the purview of the Thought Police. In addition, the appeals court for thought crimes was abolished, and the Ministry of Justice given the right to appoint defense attorneys in cases of thought crime. The new provisions became effective on 15 May 1941.

From 1925 through 1945, over 70,000 people were arrested under the provisions of the Public Security Preservation Law of 1925, but only about 10% reached trial, and the death penalty was only imposed on two offenders, spy Richard Sorge and his informant Ozaki Hotsumi. The Public Safety Preservation Law of 1925 was repealed after the end of World War II by the American occupation authorities.

What better excuse to enact such a law than Edward Snowden who leak the NSA files to the media

The law applies to four areas – defense, diplomacy, counterterrorism, and counterespionage – and gives senior officials from dozens of ministries and agencies the power to keep sensitive information out of the public domain for up to 60 years, and in some cases, indefinitely.

Abe insists the law is a non-negotiable accompaniment to his US-style National Security Council (NSC), approved days before the secrecy law passed.

That need has taken on greater urgency, the thinking in Washington goes, in light of the intelligence leaks by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

“[The law] has the effect of bringing Japan into line with the US model of how to run its intelligence services – placing them under the central control of the NSC,” says David Murakami Wood, Canada research chair in surveillance studies at Queen’s University in Ontario, who has studied Japan's secrecy law.