Japan parliament approves contentious secrets law

[bananas]

Source: Associated Press

Japan's parliament approved on Friday a state secrets law that stiffens penalties for leaks by government officials and for journalists who seek such information, overriding criticism that it could be used to cover up government abuses and suppress civil liberties.

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is seeking to increase Japan's global security role and create a more authoritarian government at home, says the law is needed to protect national security and assuage U.S. concerns over the risks of sharing strategically sensitive information with Tokyo.

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The bill allows heads of ministries and agencies to classify 23 vaguely worded types of information related to defense, diplomacy, counterintelligence and counterterrorism, almost indefinitely.

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"People will be living in a society where they could be punished for not knowing what's secret and what's not," Japan Communist Party lawmaker Sohei Nihi said in arguing against the bill before its passage. "Arrests, court judgments, all could be secret. This would violate the constitution."

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The government was eager to pass the secrets bill because it is needed for an associated measure that established a National Security Council that made the prime minister the top of the chain of command, giving him more power.

Older Japanese, intellectuals, lawyers and activists fear the country could be edging toward the sort of repression of a free press and speech seen before and during World War II which resulted in the arrests of tens of thousands of people. Thousands of protesters turned out to beat drums and rally against the legislation, which surveys show is not popular with the general public.

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Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_SECRETS_LAW?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-12-06-11-48-19

[truedelphi]

1. When we activists started saying back in the Seventies that

Nuke power leads to fascism, we were told we were exaggerrating.

Now it appears we were right. (Along with our "illogical notions that nuclear power is a danger to all humankind" being right as well.)

[cprise]

2. Avert your eyes (and cameras) from the nuclear police state

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=503081

[blkmusclmachine]

3. The Japanese didn't even need a 9/11 to institute this foul Agenda.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. Not a bug, it's a feature folks

They need to shut up the critics before profits suffer any more.

[kristopher]

5. Great Japan Times Guest Opinion

A secrets law for whom? Look who gets a free pass
Contentious legislation could mark the start of a dramatic shift of power to the executive, with checks and balances an afterthought
BY COLIN P.A. JONES
DEC 18, 2013

<big snip>

Nonetheless, remember when organizers of the 2005 Aichi Expo prohibited outside drinks — on the grounds of preventing terrorism? More disturbingly, LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba characterized noisy protests against the law as being similar to terrorism. And if you have become numb to the signs at bus stations and elsewhere saying “On special alert for terrorism!” just remember that each one reflects a context in which designation of a state secret may now be theoretically possible.

A hint of whom the law is for might be found in the provisions establishing a system of security clearances for people with access to designated secrets. However, waivers apply for Cabinet ministers and vice ministers, the heads of the executive agencies empowered to designate national secrets in the first place, a few other designated posts and a useful “TBD” category; for this elite few, a security clearance will be something that other people have to get.

From this emerges a picture of a core group of people — political bosses and elite bureaucrats — who, perhaps not individually but as a group, expect that “they” will always be in power. “They” apparently are not concerned about the prospect of becoming “other people” whose access to government information will be blocked by the law. Given the LDP’s almost uninterrupted monopoly on power and the even greater consistency of bureaucratic rule, this might be a reasonable assumption.

...

Disturbingly, some former prosecutors have warned that the problem is not so much with the secrets act itself, but with the inability to expect the criminal justice system to prevent its abuse. One of them, attorney Yoji Ochiai, notes on his blog that elite special prosecutors already use criminal statutes not just to fight crime but as a pretext for investigating — and sometimes detaining — people who “need to be investigated” because they threaten “public security.” This ability will be greatly expanded under the secrets act, concentrating even more power in the hands of prosecutors who can arrest people and detain them for up to three weeks based on the pretext of a violation.

Detention alone is enough to shatter the lives of most political troublemakers without a trial...

Colin P. A. Jones is a professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2013/12/18/general/a-secrets-law-for-whom-look-who-gets-a-free-pass/