The Fukushima Secrecy Syndrome – From Japan to America by Ralph Nader

The Fukushima Secrecy Syndrome – From Japan to America
By Ralph Nader

Last month, the ruling Japanese coalition parties quickly rammed through Parliament a state secrets law. We Americans better take notice.

Under its provisions the government alone decides what are state secrets and any civil servants who divulge any “secrets” can be jailed for up to 10 years. Journalists caught in the web of this vaguely defined law can be jailed for up to 5 years.

Government officials have been upset at the constant disclosures of their laxity by regulatory officials before and after the Fukushima nuclear power disaster in 2011, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

Week after week, reports appear in the press revealing the seriousness of the contaminated water flow, the inaccessible radioactive material deep inside these reactors and the need to stop these leaking sites from further poisoning the land, food and ocean. Officials now estimate that it could take up to 40 years to clean up and decommission the reactors.

Other factors are also feeding this sure sign of a democratic setback. Militarism is raising its democracy-menacing head, prompted by friction with China over the South China Sea. Dismayingly, U.S. militarists are pushing for a larger Japanese military budget. China is the latest national security justification for our “pivot to East Asia” provoked in part by our military-industrial complex.

Draconian secrecy in government and fast-tracking bills through legislative bodies are bad omens for freedom of the Japanese press and freedom to dissent by the Japanese people. Freedom of information and robust debate (the latter cut off sharply by Japan’s parliament in December 5, 2013) are the currencies of democracy.

There is good reason why the New York Times continues to cover the deteriorating conditions in the desolate, evacuated Fukushima area. Our country has licensed many reactors here with the same designs and many of the same inadequate safety and inspection standards. Some reactors here are near earthquake faults with surrounding populations which cannot be safely evacuated in case of serious damage to the electric plant. The two Indian Point reactors that are 30 miles north of New York City are a case in point.

The less we are able to know about the past and present conditions of Fukushima, the less we will learn about atomic reactors in our own country.

Fortunately many of Japan’s most famous scientists, including Nobel laureates, Toshihide Maskawa and Hideki Shirakawa, have led the opposition against this new state secrecy legislation with 3,000 academics signing a public letter of protest. These scientists and academics declared the government’s secrecy law a threat to “the pacifist principles and fundamental human rights established by the constitution and should be rejected immediately.”

Following this statement, the Japan Scientists’ Association, Japan’s mass media companies, citizens associations, lawyers’ organizations and some regional legislatures opposed the legislation. Polls show the public also opposes this attack on democracy. The present ruling parties remain adamant. They cite as reasons for state secrecy “national security and fighting terrorism.” Sound familiar?

History is always present in the minds of many Japanese people. They know what happened in Japan when the unchallenged slide toward militarization of Japanese society led to the intimidating tyranny that drove the invasion of China, Korea and Southeast Asia before and after Pearl Harbor. By 1945, Japan was in ruins, ending with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The American people have to be alert to our government’s needless military and political provocations of China, which is worried about encirclement by surrounding U.S.-allied nations and U.S. air and sea power. Washington might better turn immediate attention to U.S. trade policies that have facilitated U.S. companies shipping American jobs and whole industries to China.

The Obama administration must become more alert to authoritarian trends in Japan that its policies have been either encouraging or knowingly ignoring – often behind the curtains of our own chronic secrecy.

The lessons of history beckon.

Ralph Nader - The Fukushima Secrecy Syndrome – From Japan to America (facebook)

Nuclear Hotseat #129: US Sailors Vs. TEPCO Attorney Charles Bonner | Nuclear Hotseat

Japanese citizens protest the newly-passed Secrecy Law

INTERVIEW:  Attorney Charles Bonner, one of the team representing sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan in their lawsuit against TEPCO for the health damages they sustained from Fukushima radiation during Operation Tomadachi, the humanitarian aid mission to Japan immediately after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. 

NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK:  Japanese government PR stunt feeds radioactive Fukushima rice to workers and executives in a Tokyo government office complex, while the farmer who grew it can only visit his fields, not live there because the area is still too contaminated for resettlement...

more / LISTEN > Nuclear Hotseat #129: US Sailors Vs. TEPCO Attorney Charles Bonner | Nuclear Hotseat

Urgent Appeal against Japan's secret-protection legislation

APC member Japan Computer Access for Empowerment (JCAFE) and JCA-NET is calling the international community to campaign against the State Secret Protection Bill, which Japan's ruling party is promoting and is planning on passing it by December 6.

The ruling bloc of Japanese Diet railroaded a highly controversial State Secrets Protection Bill through the House of Representatives on the evening of Nov. 26 -- just one day after voicing strong opposition to the legislation at the only one public hearing. All of the seven local residents who were invited to state their opinions voiced opposition to or concerns about the government-sponsored secrecy bill in the hearing held in Fukushima. According to the result of a government-sponsored "public comment" process in September, 77 percent of about 90,000 comments opposed the bill, most of them expressing concerns about the possibility of their civil activities being curtailed.

The bill is far from the Global Principles on National Security and the Right to Information (Tshwane Principles). As the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, Frank La Rue, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover, pointed out, "most democracies, including Japan, clearly recognise the right to access information. As much as the protection of national security might require confidentiality in exceptional circumstances, human rights standards establish that the principle of maximum disclosure must always guide the conduct of public officials." We think that the bill is very dangerous, and it may destroy democracy in Japan. The situation is worryingly similar to the time when the Military Secrets Act was established and revised many times before the World War II, and the Act paved the way to what they call the Greater East Asia War which Japanese army invaded many countries in Asia.

We think the law is problematic because:

- The scope of “specific secrets” is broad and vague, and how exactly “specific secret” will be designated remains unclear. Especially, there is no regulation which forbids specification of the disadvantageous information for the government.

- The government can permanently designate any information it wants to hide from the public as specific secrets.

- Any independent third-party bodies will not established that have the power to screen information to determine whether it merits being classified as a specific secret. Even the Diet or courts can not check.

- The bill includes serious threats to whistle-blowers and even journalists reporting on secrets. Government officials who, in good faith, release confidential information on violations of the law, or wrongdoing by public bodies, should be protected against legal sanctions.

- Anyone who asks central government employees to offer specific secrets could be subject to punishment on the grounds that they abetted the leakage of secrets. This withers too much the coverage act by all the press containing community media, independent media, and foreign media with the intimidation by punishments.

- The "aptitude evaluation system" is a privacy infringement not only to public servants and the private citizens that have accepted commissions for government contracts but also to their families, friends, and even their romantic partners.

We call upon all members of the House of Councilors to scrap the bill.

sign now > Urgent Appeal against Japan's secret-protection legislation | computician.net

Beyond Nuclear - Investigate the NRC

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was created by Congress in 1974 after its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, was abolished due to its blatant promotion and protection of nuclear power expansion and the absence of effective enforcement action of public health and safety requirements. But little has changed. By charter, the NRC is tasked with the licensing, operational oversight and enforcement of regulations for US nuclear power reactor operations “to ensure public health and safety.” However, documented malpractice, accidents and near-miss events at US reactors reveal the agency’s ongoing failure to uphold its charter. Beyond Nuclear is calling on Congress to hold a “special investigation” of the NRC. To support this, Beyond Nuclear is drawing up a list of "charges" that itemize the NRC’s collusion with the nuclear industry and its undermining of public health and safety.

more > Beyond Nuclear - Investigate NRC