Japan: Nuclear plant security to be designated as state secret

[cprise]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/09/national/nuclear-plant-security-info-should-be-kept-secret-mori/

Nuclear plant security to be designated as state secret

Information on the way Japan’s nuclear power plants are guarded by police and security officers will be designated as a state secret by a government-sponsored confidentiality bill, said Masako Mori, minister in charge of the legislation.

“If we make public the security plans of police, such information could reach terrorists,” Mori said Friday in a meeting of a Lower House special committee on national security that kicked off full deliberations on the bill.

The legislation designates such information as a state secret under the category of terrorism prevention.

-more-

So this was known before the bill passed. Quite frankly, I'm amazed.

[FBaggins]

1. Doesn't that make sense?

Why would you broadcast security plans?

Note that these are private companies. It only becomes a state secret because the companies can't keep it a secret from the regulators.

[cprise]

3. The pretense that nuclear energy is 'civilian'

is only that... a pretense.

Your kneejerk 'doesn't that make sense?' reaction is classic. I suppose its too obvious to ask why the state has to coordinate security with corporations.

And I suppose your response would be 'hysteria' or something equally inane.

[FBaggins]

6. So... what is your position here?

That nuclear reactors should not be subject to government regulation?

Or that the regulation should not include security plans for reactors?

Or that those security plans should be made public?

All of the above?

[cprise]

7. I'm illustrating a social problem nuclear creates

that cuts across the grain of civil society.

My position is to keep it from spreading.

[FBaggins]

8. Dodging the question?

Or is your answer that there shouldn't BE any nuclear plants because they require government oversite that must include security...and that requires secrecy which you oppose?

You really buy into the nonsense that Japan concocted their secrecy laws because of nuclear power?

[kristopher]

9. Poor Baggins. I'll bet you deny the existence of a military industrial complex also.

Your continuous and obvious grasping at straws is sad.

[FBaggins]

10. Posting on the wrong thread by accident?

So do you think that nuclar plant security should not be subject to government oversite? Or that the details of those security arrangements should not be classified?

[kristopher]

11. You are, again, resorting to evasion

The civil consequences of nuclear power are extremely significant. You can stick your fingers in your ears and shout la-la-la all you want, everyone else can easily see the implications and the connection of those implications to Abe's far-right actions to preserve nuclear power.

[FBaggins]

12. I'm the one evading?

That's strange. I appear to be the one asking straightforward questions that can't seem to get a straight answer for them.

All you've offered is an oddly off-topic question re: whether I believe in the MIC (which is harldy open to debate). Avoiding getting sidetracked is not the same thing as evasion.

The civil consequences of nuclear power are extremely significant.

And you believe that the consequences in this case include Japan's recently enacted secrecy law?

[cprise]

13. I'm opposed to secrecy in a "democratic" society

...unless said secrecy is restricted to wartime or defense operations that do not involve the public.

You obviously think its OK to shut the public out of any ability to make informed decisions about "nuclear security". Does that include evacuation plans?

[FBaggins]

14. You have a false dichotomy there

There are not just two options "secrecy for wartime and defense operations" and "ok to shut the public out"

How about a natural gas facility. Should their security be a matter of public record?

Japan has some wonderful high-speed trains that they would probably not like to be sabotaged. Should I be able to google their security arrangements?

The Nikkei is an integral part of a world economic system... and almost certainly has government oversight that includes requirements for data and physical security. You ok with those being available to any hacker who wants them?

Does that include evacuation plans?

Of course not. What possible need for secrecy would there be for that?

[cprise]

15. Most normal police operations are not an open book, either

although they are within the reach of public scrutiny should the need arise. Like the bank accounts of the state governments we live with, their details are not generally available even though they are far from being considered state secrets.

So I think your response has more than a touch of the dichotomy that you accuse me of.

Also, conflating security at natural gas and electronic trading facilities with nuclear facilities is pretty disingenuous. Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on why you think they are comparable, keeping in mind that "terrorism" is still the buzzword of the day.

[kristopher]

2. Japan: The new Uzbekistan of press freedom in Asia

Japan: The new Uzbekistan of press freedom in Asia
BY JAKE ADELSTEIN
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES
NOV 30, 2013

If you’re living in Japan, you may be surprised to know that your right to know has been replaced by the right to remain silent. Shhh … don’t protest. It’s practically a done deal.

The first rule of the pending state secrets bill is that a secret is a secret. The second rule is that anyone who leaks a secret and/or a reporter who makes it public via a published report or broadcast can face up to 10 years in prison. The third rule is that there are no rules as to which government agencies can declare information to be a state secret and no checks on them to determine that they don’t abuse the privilege; even defunct agencies can rule their information to be secret. The fourth rule is that anything pertaining to nuclear energy is a state secret, which means there will no longer be any problems with nuclear power in this country because we won’t know anything about it. And what we don’t know can’t hurt us.

The right to know has now officially been superseded by the right of the government to make sure you don’t know what they don’t want you to know.

Welcome to the new Dark Ages of Japan, brought to you by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and Your Party. If the economy and the actions of the government and its politicians seemed opaque up to now, the ruling bloc is making sure that it’s very solid obsidian. Every major news organization in Japan opposes the bill. Last week, thousands of ordinary citizens took to the street to protest the proposed legislation.

The LDP — ever sensitive to the will of the people...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/30/national/japan-the-new-uzbekistan-of-press-freedom-in-asia/#.UvLtf3l0Uy7

And though I can't lay hands on it at the moment, I recently read that direct public dissemination of cancer diagnoses numbers by doctors are forbidden under the law.

[cprise]

4. And the ban on cancer reports will lead to other bans

Because we wouldn't want the public to become inured to the supposedly uneventful, boring information that results from a nuclear meltdown.

Also, the excuse that the new law is to protect US military operations is risible: Not even 2 months in, its being used to effect a news blackout re: Fukushima. If it protects anything in the US military at all, it will be related to the health complaints of the personnel aboard the USS Ronald Reagan (helping sweep them under the rug, that is).

[madokie]

5. When you have something to hide

bans are handy things to have.

[kristopher]

16. The ideology of progress and the globalization of nuclear power

The ideology of progress and the globalization of nuclear power
Byrne and Hoffman 1996
http://ceep.udel.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/1996_pe_atom_ideology_progress.pdf

Introduction

As an energy source, nuclear power was not technologically feasible nor economically viable when it was embraced by the U.S. in 1946. It did not originate as an invention of enterprise, nor was there a market for its supply. In fact, the U. S. committed itself to the development of the "peaceful atom” 11 years before it would be successfully demonstrated. The national government sought to discover the advantages of the technology and to discount its costs in the absence of knowledge of its economic or technical practicality. When Lewis Strauss, a former chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), announced that nuclear power would bring forward an energy supply "too cheap to meter," he signaled that, for this technology, social desirability would be decided in advance of performance, since his declaration of nuclear energy’s economicalness was 17 years before the opening of the first commercial reactor (Byrne
and Rich, 1986).

Despite the catastrophic accident at Chernobyl in 1986, the near meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, over 200 "precursors" to core meltdown accidents in the brief period of the technology’s commercial use (Adato, et al, 1987), and an industrial history worldwide of massive cost overruns, nuclear power continues to be evaluated in the "future tense",‘ that is, in terms of what it will bring rather than what it has already wrought or what it requires from society to maintain operation. While enthusiasm is expressed more modestly today than in the heyday of its early promotion, support for nuclear power remains strong in several quarters despite its authoritarian politics, its failed economics and its dubious performance history. Thus, Mr. Ryo Ikegame, executive vice president of Tokyo Electric Power Company, one of the largest electric utilities in the world, recently offered this assessment of nuclear power in the only country that has suffered a nuclear attack (Taylor, July 1992: 32):

(I)t rained after Chernobyl, and now it's cloudy but we can see the sunny part of the sky. I'm rather optimistic about the future of nuclear power plants, because Japan has no oil, no coal, no gas - so we have to depend on nuclear, and this is good for the environment.

Nuclear development plans for Japan reflect this belief: over the next twenty years, Japan intends to add 38 more nuclear plants to its existing stock of 49 (for a total nuclear capacity of 40 GWe); 5 of these plants are already under construction and will begin operation by 1997 (Nuclear News, August 1992: 60-61; March, 1995: 32-33; June, 1995: 40). Japan is not alone in its commitment to nuclear power: as of December 1994, 66 nuclear plants are under construction or on order in 19 countries, the majority of which are scheduled for completion by the year 2001 (Nuclear News, March, 1995: 27-42).

Below we examine the continuing worldwide momentum for nuclear power development. It is argued that support for nuclear power is embedded in first, the modernist ideology of progress that equates economic growth and technological power with social success; and second, the "nuclear consortium” comprised of the state, military, science and industrial apparatuses which must be integrated in order to develop nuclear technology (Camilleri, 1984; Byrne, Hoffman and Martinez, 1989). Together the modernist ideology of progress and the nuclear consortium are argued to constitute a political economy of technological authoritarianism" (Byrne and Hoffman, 1988). This political economy has been institutionalized in the core industrial countries and is now being "transferred" to the periphery and semi-periphery countries of the Third World.

Nuclear Power and the Industrial Idea of Progress:
The Case of the U.S....

The paper can be downloaded here:
http://ceep.udel.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/1996_pe_atom_ideology_progress.pdf

It gives a rather standard analysis of the nature of the nuclear power industry before they started their most recent PR campaign to rebrand themselves as champions of the environment because of low CO2 emissions. The fact that polling has changed little since the paper was written tells us that, by far, the largest bloc of supporters for nuclear energy today fit into the paradigm described in this paper.

[cprise]

17. The example that starts on pg. 15 is pretty emblematic

Thanks!

[kristopher]

18. New bill to increase security at nuclear plants introduced by state Sen. John Proos, Rep. Al Pscholk

...On Feb. 6, state Sen. John Proos, R-St. Joseph, and state Rep. Al Pscholka, R-Stevensville, introduced Senate Bill 757 and House Bill 5282.

The bills were designed to provide nuclear plant security officers "reasonable and necessary response capabilities" to protect plants, employees and the general public, the lawmakers said in a press release. The bills will go to the House and Senate Committees on Energy and Technology.

"Nuclear Security Officers must have the ability to protect nuclear power plants and the people of the state of Michigan. This legislation is necessary to keep Michigan one step ahead of possible terrorist threats," said Pscholka in a statement.

The legislation would allow officers at nuclear power plants the right to use different levels of force -- including deadly -- in specific instances, including: trespassing in secure areas, purposely avoiding detection by monitoring systems and attempting to break into or through secure perimeters.

"The purpose of this legislation is to make Michigan, and our country, a safer and more secure place," said Proos in a statement. ....

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/02/security_at_nuclear_power_plan.html

Just imagine the security we'll need for distributed wind and solar. The cost of 24/7 armed guards securing very solar rooftop and wind turbine is definitely a factor that is going to make the renewable revolution a non-starter.