Leaving Drone Two Weeks

A forty-year old man was arrested on Saturday with suspect of dropping a small four-propeller drone on the roof of the Official Residence for Prime Minister. Suspicion on him was forcible obstruction of business. What kind of business did he disturbed, anyway? According to the record of his blog, he dropped it about two weeks before. Prime Minister and his staffs had been in business as usual during that period until it was found. Actual crime the man committed must have been defamation on the government of Japan, which failed in commanding the air above Prime Minister’s head.

As if deriding at weak security and losing mind of law enforcement, the suspect, Yasuo Yamamoto, turned in to the police in Fukui on Friday. He admitted that he dropped the drone on the roof of Premier’s official residence and it loaded radioactive soil retrieved in Fukushima. He explained the motive as appealing necessity for getting rid of nuclear power generation. He left his house in Fukui on the 8th of this month and arrived Tokyo late at night. Then, he flied his drone to the dark sky before the dawn of next morning and failed in landing it on the garden of the residence. Losing his drone, he got back home.

The important fact was that Yamamoto had been uploading his attempts on his blog page. He reported the situation of his activity in Tokyo and the fact he lost his drone around Prime Minister’s residence. Police could not only find his writings, but the fallen drone on the top of the building for two weeks. Different from White House in Washington, D.C., Prime Minister’s residence had no watchmen on the roof.

Yamamoto was formerly a member of Air Self-defense Force. After quitting his job at a firm in Fukui last summer, he was involved in his blog, in which he frequently uploaded negative opinion on resumption of nuclear power plants in Japan. Fukui has most reactors in its area in any prefecture. However, Yamamoto did not join anti-nuclear movement, calling himself a lone wolf.

Prime Minister’s Official Residence is actually working office of him located alongside of National Diet Building in Tokyo. It is surrounded by tall office buildings, from which windows people can easily see what is going on around the building Prime Minister is working. The drone incident revealed poor security around the center of political power of Japan. While the government is considering how to regulate the same kind of devices that can easily penetrate, others are approaching the core of Japanese government. What if they are not the Japanese, but foreigners?