The Defense Ministry on Oct. 2 dismissed a 50-year-old colonel of the Air Self-Defense Force for allegedly passing a "defense secret" to a Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reporter more than three years ago. The information was about a Chinese submarine that had surfaced in the South China Sea and was adrift. The investigative unit of the Self-Defense Forces sent allegations against the officer to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office some six months ago, but the office has not yet taken any action.

It is extraordinary that the investigative unit, which is directly under the defense minister's control, made efforts to pinpoint a news source who provided the recipient with the information and that the ministry dismissed the ASDF officer before public prosecutors took action. It is the first time that defense authorities have dismissed an SDF member for giving information to a reporter.

The Defense Ministry obviously aims to control the flow of information from the SDF to the outside by slapping tight restrictions on SDF members likely to be approached by reporters. This will intimidate SDF members and, possibly, even reporters trying to carry out their normal news-gathering duties. Thus it carries the danger of limiting people's right to know.

The ASDF colonel was head of the Russian section in the electronic waves department at the then Defense Agency's Defense Intelligence Headquarters. According to the Defense Ministry, the officer's position allowed him access to information from U.S. spy satellites, and it was he who approached the Yomiuri reporter.

The ministry says that on May 30, 2005, the officer told the reporter that a fire was thought to have occurred inside a Chinese submarine while submerged. The ministry insists that this information, which concerned the behavior of a foreign submarine, constituted a "defense secret." It quotes the officer as admitting that he was aware the information was a "defense secret" when he conveyed it to an outside person.

In its May 31, 2005, edition, the Yomiuri Shimbun carried a front-page article headlined "A fire in a Chinese submarine?" It reported that a Chinese submarine was being towed toward Hainan Island, which is Chinese territory. It identified the submarine as a Ming-class diesel-powered attack submarine and said that Japanese and U.S. defense sources had confirmed the submarine's hull number. It quoted the defense sources as saying they suspected that a fire of accidental origin had occurred inside the submarine several days earlier in international waters between Taiwan and Hainan.

In October 2005, the then Defense Agency filed a criminal accusation with the SDF's investigative unit against an unnamed suspect in connection with the leak. In January 2007, the unit searched the ASDF officer's home and workplace. In March 2008, the investigative unit sent a paper on him to the public prosecutors office.

The investigative unit acted under the 2001 revision of the SDF Law that created a "defense secret" category. Not only SDF members but also other public servants and private-sector workers under contract with the SDF face imprisonment of up to five years if they disclose "defense secrets."

Those who persuade SDF members to disclose such secrets face up to three years' imprisonment. The Yomiuri reporter obtained the information as part of his usual news-gathering beat. In announcing its in-house investigation, the Yomiuri Shimbun announced in February 2007 that the reporter had done his job properly. The SDF investigative unit did not question or take legal action against the reporter.

The case in question does not involve a leak of details on U.S.-supplied weapons and other equipment or of defense plans to cope with an emergency situation. Convictions on such disclosures carry imprisonment of up to 10 years. One wonders why information on an adrift Chinese submarine should constitute a "defense secret." It seems more like the kind of information that should be shared with the public.

As the Yomiuri Shimbun said after the ASDF officer was dismissed, the Defense Ministry's "extraordinary" action will intimidate public servants approached by reporters, make news gathering more difficult and restrict the functions of the mass media whose duty is to inform people of important events.

The Defense Ministry took tough action against the officer apparently because the U.S. had supplied the information to the SDF. There are no clear standards for which information should be classified as secret. If the Defense Ministry classifies one piece of information after another as secret, civilian control of the SDF will be lost. The SDF will become closed to an open society. To prevent this, it is all the more important for the mass media to vigorously adhere to journalistic principles, including protection of a news source, when carrying out their activities.