Reluctant to Be Reined in

The Government of Japan obstinately insists on restricting freedom of speech. In drafting process of the Specific Secret Protection Act, it has been highly reluctant to add provisions for preserving freedom of report, right of knowledge and freedom of interview. Although main purpose of the act is to prevent public servants to reveal important security information, the argument is focused on how to limit reporters’ access to government people. The more rigorous bureaucrats are, the harder establishment of closer security cooperation between Japan and the United States becomes.

The crucial point of the Act is to establish new category in national security information, described as “specific secret”, which should be dealt with special care. Ministers categorizes which information would be protected as specific secret, and only a few public servants who passed examination can access it. The secret will be protected for five years and it will be extended basically up to thirty years, and it needs approval of the Cabinet to extend the expiration beyond thirty years. Penalty of intended leak of the information would be ten years in prison.

The original draft did not mention “freedom of report.” The concern of bureaucrats was the case in which media reporters brings a great scoop on national security and bureaucrats in ministries are suspected for the leak and punished. Considering themselves as being on the top of social hierarchy in Japan, bureaucrats cannot stand leaving their fortune dependent on ordinary people like reporters.

However, the original momentum for this legislation was that a Coast Guard official uploaded a video footage on social network, in which an aggressive collision of a Chinese fish boat on a vessel of Japan Coast Guard in 2010 was recorded. If they are genuinely protect information from that kind of leakage, the argument over the freedom would not be occurred. Since they wanted to take advantage of this opportunity for their resentment against media reports, the process over the legislation became complicated.

New Komeito, the coalition partner of Liberal Democratic Party, is firmly against restricting freedom of speech. With its effort, the government started consideration to add “freedom of report” “right of knowledge (or accessibility to information)” and “freedom of Interview to public servants” on the draft. It might be some efforts to preserve freedom of activities of the party’s biggest religious supporter, Soka Gakkai.

News organizations are active to report the discussion over the bill, with the notion that the legislature will have crucial impact on their job. They are extremely sensitive on actual effect of it. After all, the discussion is about how to preserve the rights taken for granted to each party.