Arbitrary Tradition of the Government

The Cabinet led by the Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, decided the bill of Specific Secret Protection Act on Friday and submitted it to the Diet. The bill allows the government to register important security information as “specific secret, ” the leak of which may cause ten years in prison at most. Who allured the leakage can also be charged five years in prison. Media organizations are firmly opposing to the bill, because of oppressive tendency of that government in the past.

Media organizations strongly criticize government’s arbitrariness of the act. Although “specific secret” is limited to four categories -- defense, diplomacy, activities harmful for the government and terrorism, it is the government officials who decide what would be within one of those categories or out of them. If one were talking about his company that produces a new engine for aircraft, for instance, a policeman may arrest him with suspect of leaking information about high technology that is related to a governmental project. Such a kind of thing may not happen in democracy. But Japan is rather a nation of bureaucracy than democracy.

The Japanese experienced that kind of arbitrary exercise of laws in pre-war imperial regime. One typical example is Maintenance of the Public Order Act. Legislated in 1925, few years after the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Act strictly prohibited communist activities in Japan. Warrants of arrest were not issued by the court, but the prosecutors office. A suspect could not hire a lawyer. Instead, the Minister of Justice would select one. If the government had seen a possibility of subsequent offense, it could extend detention. Such oppressive tradition of laws in Japan was succeeded by some post-war legislations such as Destructive Activity Prevention Act.

Regardless requirement of anti-communism or national security, the government always seeks stricter control on the public, because it simply makes their job easier. Basic concept for their governance to the people has traditionally been: “The less they are informed, the more they depends on the government.”

In modern society with huge amount of information shared through networks, however, blind-and-rule governance would never work at all. It is the government of Japan which is blinded by their own desire to rule the people. If they genuinely wanted to protect security information from leaking to public, current laws can do it well. The National Public Service Act determines that a national public servant should not leak a secret obtained through his/her profession. There is no need to anti-democratically restrict access of reporters to workers of the government.