Newspaper reporters occasionally visit Seiichiro Murakami at his office inside the Diet Members No. 1 Building. The door sign reads "Office of the Chairman of the Deliberative Council on Political Ethics of the House of Representatives."
Murakami, 61, is a Lower House member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and claims to be the 18th-generation family head descended from a pirate group bearing the name Murakami, active in the Seto Inland Sea centuries ago.
He started attracting the attention of news media after he denounced the state secrets law, which was passed by the Diet late last year, branding it as "nothing more than a hobby" of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He was the only member of Abe's LDP to abstain when the bill came to a vote.