Taro Yamamoto’s Statement  

My name is Taro Yamamoto, I was privileged to become a member of the House of Councilors during the summer.
Thank you.
Regarding the State Secrets Protection Bill, I have been on the streets, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, the top to the bottom of Japan, holding a microphone and explaining how dangerous this law will be.
Why did I have to stand on the street?
I must work in Parliament, but no dialogue on this subject had started yet. There had been almost no broadcast from the major companies on the subject.
This law’s previous name was “Preserving Secret Law”, but the silence from the big medias continued.
The only way to get the message out to the people was by going onto the streets and trying to broadcast the message to as many people as possible.
That is the reason I have travelled the length and breadth of Japan.

Here is a document I would like to show you all.

Almost every page is censored in black ink.
This document details the proposed plans to export nuclear power plants to Vietnam.
An investigation has already been conducted in Vietnam.
2,500 million yen of Japanese tax has already been spent on this investigation in Vietnam.
500 million yen of that tax came out of funds from within the so called “Reconstruction Budget” for the earthquake in 2011.
Why do they use the “reconstruction budget” for this field investigation into the export of nuculear power plants to Vietnam? How did they spend this budget? What was it spent on? I asked these kinds of questions, and in answer all I received was this document with almost everything censored in black ink.
All the secrets are protected perfectly at this moment.
I think it is perfect.

A similar example of this happened directly after the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident.

In Japan, there is a system called SPEEDI, which predicts how radioactive material will be spread into the atmosphere.

This is the system created by using large amounts of tax revenues, 10 billion yen or more.
The system was designed to safe guard Japanese Nationals in the event of a Nuclear disaster. But how was it actually used after Fukushima?
After Fukushima it was kept secret.
Only selected groups were given the information right away.
Who were they?
The U.S. Armed Forces.
Three days after the incident, the U.S. Forces were provided with the valuable information by the Japanese Government.
However, the Japanese citizens that live in this country remained uninformed and did not benefit from the information.
The attitude of the Japanese Government was that there would be trouble if the U.S. Forces were contaminated, but it seems that the same could not be said for Japanese citizens that would become contaminated..
The information has alerady been hidden, and the information exchange with foreign nationals will be more solid.
Even if they keep the citizens of their own country exposed.
In this situation, why do we need this law?
About SPEEDI, MD. Ms. Mizuho FUKUSHIMA, the former SDP leader, investigated this issue at Parliament on 22nd March and eventually the general public were provided with the necessary information .
Then the people could know the fact.
It is really difficult to understand, isn’t it?
The current constitution is to conceal information, even if it puts the general public in harms way.
I am very concerned how this country will be if this law remains enforced.
However, the Government still says that the law is required.

If one asks why we need it now and the answer would be for the security problem.
It is a clear lie that due to rising tensions between Asian countries and such information must remain hidden.
The reason why I am saying this is that there is already an existing self-defence forces act in place for the purposes of protecting National Security confidential information.
Moreover, there is an act such as Mutual Defense Assistance (MDA) Agreement, criiminal special act, which aims to proect such things as US Military equipment.

However, the Government asks, what will we do if our Public Officials reveal such information.
About this, the measures have been taken already, and laws exist such as National Public Service Act, Diplomats Act and Local Pulic Service Act etc.
With the existed laws in place why are they making a new law which could restrict such a wide variety of things. I think the given explanation of purpose, to protect national security, is just an “official reason”.
Really, the aims are for expansion of police authority power and public safety power.
It is clear that this law is the one for the restriction of the freedom of expresson.
It is about gaining further control over the people, that who oppose the authorities are to be suppressed.

The path we are leading towards is that of a Fascist state.
At this moment, we are standing at such a point.
I think that the secrecy law represents a planned coup d’etat by a particular group of politicians and a particular group of beaurocrats.
Thank you for your attention.

Japan Whistleblowers Face Crackdown Under Proposed State Secrets Law

World news | the Guardian.com

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/whistleblowers-japan-crackdown-state-secrets

Japan Enacts Strict State Secrets Law Despite Protests | Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/06/us-japan-secrets-idUSBRE9B50JT20131206

Secrecy Bill Could Distance Japan From Its Postwar Pacifism – NY Times.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/29/world/asia/secrecy-bill-could-distance-japan-from-its-postwar-pacifism.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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