NEWSWORTHY
Over 383,000 documents classified under Japan's state secrets law by end of 2017
The government had 517 designated state secrets at the end of 2017, with the number of administrative documents containing them totaling 383,733, a government report showed Friday. The designated secrets involve 11 government agencies, according to the report, which was approved at the day's Cabinet ...
DP candidate Edano cool to teaming up with Koike unless she renounces LDP policies
Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, who plans to run for leadership of the main opposition Democratic Party, is giving off negative signals about working with popular Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike. "Koike takes policy positions that are different from ours — for instance on the ...
Why Japan's poor media grade matters
Japan has a media problem, and it's holding back the economy and undermining Abe's goal of raising Tokyo's global status.
Japan's Board of Audit: unlikely guardians of the Constitution?
As well as uncovering government waste, the bean counters have pushed back — politely — over state secret exemptions.
Defense Ministry warned about misuse of state secrecy designations
The ministry has been advised to lift its secrecy designation for a file that an oversight body says contains no applicable restricted information under the secrecy law, the Cabinet Office said.
Letters: Snowden and the sheeple; 'U.S. Marines culture' was once like Japan's
A couple of readers' responses to recent Community Page articles.
Who's watching whom in Japan? It's a state secret
Contentious law has been cited in two recent cases, including one over the mass surveillance of resident Muslims.
Freedom of speech and of the press, a key democratic right, is increasingly under threat around the world.
The Diet boards trying to oversee the designation of state secrets under Shinzo Abe's new laws are running into significant problems — as expected.
The background check required of people who are going to handle state secrets is overly intrusive in some areas.
The controversial state secret law that took effect last year has already had a chilling effect on the media: no one is even talking about it anymore.
The Abe administration must not be allowed to use "the war on terror" to enact sweeping security laws.
