The government last week adopted guidelines for implementing the state secrets law, which will go into effect Dec. 10. For a month through late August, it sought public comments on the draft guidelines and made 27 changes to them. But the basic problem with the law — the lack of a valid mechanism to prevent heads of administrative bodies from arbitrarily designating information held by the organizations as state secrets — has not been corrected, posing a threat to the basic foundation of Japan's democracy.
Lawmakers and the public are urged to push for major changes in the law and its guidelines at the very least — before and after the law is implemented — including making the insufficient oversight mechanism more effective.
Under the guidelines, 19 ministries and agencies, including the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Cabinet secretariat, the National Security Council, the National Police Agency and the Nuclear Regulation Authority, may designate government information in 55 categories as state secrets.