The government will likely designate around 460,000 documents as "special secrets" in the areas of diplomacy, defense, counterterrorism and counterespionage after the contentious state secrecy law takes effect on Dec. 10, a Kyodo News survey of 19 government offices said Sunday.
The documents are considered highly confidential secrets in national security and diplomacy based on a 2007 government guideline. The Cabinet Secretariat was keeping the bulk of the documents, which were tallied at some 353,000 items as of late last year.
Signaling the opaqueness of the new system, which toughens penalties for leaking state secrets, only three of the 19 government offices provided concrete answers regarding how much information they plan to label as "specially designated secrets" when the law takes effect.