Japan Press Weekly

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2013 November 6 - 12 [POLITICS]

Secrets protection law would open ‘classified information’ only to US

A secrets protection bill, which the Abe Cabinet aims to enact during the current session of the Diet, will function to provide classified information only to the United States, as highlighted by in a provision of the bill.

The bill, if enacted, will allow administrative bodies to conceal information on a broad range of fields, including diplomacy, military, and nuclear power generation, by designating them as “specified secrets”.

Municipalities and the general public will be denied access to the designated information. A person will even face severe punishment just for trying to obtain any specified secrets.

The bill will restrict access to the classified information to select entities, including private companies, the Diet, the Court, foreign governments, and international organizations.

These entities will be required to meet various conditions for receiving information. Private companies have to use pre-approved workers whose relatives and friends have all been intensively investigated. Lawmakers can get the designated information only at secret meetings of the Diet which are closed to the public, and they are prohibited to disclose the obtained information to anyone, including members of their political parties and their secretaries. Regarding the judiciary, only judges can know the secrets but they are not allowed to divulge any information.

In contrast, the Japanese government can provide the classified secrets to foreign governments and international organizations if they have a secrets protection system.

The Abe Cabinet evidently has the United States in mind for sharing the information with, as the chief cabinet secretary stated that the secrets protection bill is “inseparable from” a bill to establish a Japanese version of the U.S. National Security Council.

Military Journalist Maeda Tetsuo said the government intends to disclose all information to the United States by using the bill. On the other hand, the Japanese government expressed no protest against the alleged surveillance kept on top Japanese officials by the U.S. National Security Agency, he pointed out. Maeda criticized this attitude as servile.