Toward Global Communication Rights: Movements Against Wiretapping and Monitoring in Japan
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Toward Global Communication Rights: Movements Against Wiretapping and Monitoring in Japan I would like to thank the sponsor to give me an opportunity to speak at this meeting. I have three issues for today's speech: 1) wiretapping law and our struggle against it in Japan; 2) several monitoring systems in Japan; and third, censorship and regulation by government for the Internet. About the Wiretapping Law and the Struggle Against it in Japan On August 1999, the Diet approved the wiretapping bill. The legislative process in the Diet was very unusual especially that the ruling party forced a vote on the Committee of Justice in the House of Councilor. The chairperson suddenly decided on voting though there were many issues that had not yet been discussed. The members of the opposition parties appealed strongly against the voting and the committee had confusion. Nobody knows when the vote was done and what the result was. In fact, the minutes of the meeting had nothing of the voting. In the plenary session, the chairperson decided to break off the discussion and forced a vote. The Liberal Democratic Party, the ruling party, was irritated because the Diet had carried the bill over for consideration to the next session for several times. On the other hand, the struggles against the bill spread to the various fields from human rights groups, network activists, trade unions, and journalists to professional organizations of lawyers such as the Japan Bar Association. We organised conferences about privacy and wiretapping investigation several times. People increasingly understood the bill was not useful for serious criminals but rather for the violation of ordinary people. The ruling party recognised that the bill would have been rejected if the voting were postponed till the next session. We could not stop the bill. But many people are interested in the law. The National Police Agency (NPA) and the Department of Justice cannot practice the law freely. After authorising the law, we move to gather signatures for the petition against the wiretapping law. In about half a year, we gathered over 200,000 signatures. The opposition parties submitted the abolition of the bill for the wiretapping law repeatedly. Yuu Terasawa, a journalist, filed a case on the wiretapping law as unconstitutional last spring. The first trial rejected the case on procedural ground. (1) The wiretapping law in Japan has several loopholes. According to the Japanese interpretation of the law, the description of the law enforcement is very wide. For example, the law has no precise definition of devices for wiretapping; therefore, law enforcement can freely use various devices. They can freely duplicate the wiretapping records for other investigations. There is no restriction to use the record for database. According to the testimony in the Diet, handing off the record to foreign law enforcements is not illegal and does not violate privacy. In fact, since the Diet passed the law, NPA and DOJ tried to interpret the law in their favour. For example, NPA and DOJ changed the recording medium from analog cassette tape to digital audiotape (DAT) for computer data encoding. They changed the method of wiretapping of the e-mail. The so-called "temporary mailbox" replaced the floppy disc. The NPA demanded 140,000,000 yen (about 1,400,000 US dollars) for wiretapping of the Internet in next year's budget. The expenditure is for the "temporary mailbox". According to the NPA, this "temporary mailbox" is a device lent out to the ISP. The ISP taps targets using this "temporary mailbox". As they do not disclose the detail of the "temporary mailbox", I cannot say how many devices the NPA purchases with this budget and how it functions. It may have the same function as the FBI's Carnivore or the British RIP bill. We intend to make NPA and DOJ disclose the detail of the "mailbox". In addition, wiretapping law allows the police to wiretap outside of common carrier offices. The law does not forbid the usage of the network. This applies not only to the Internet but also to telephone calls in general. NTT has Cultus, which is a system of line failure investigation for customer loyalty. In accessing the Cultus and the in inputting the phone number targeted, one can eavesdrop on the communication. This system is networked around the country. The person can access this by remote using Windows 95. The police are going to divert the NTT service system to the wiretapping investigation. The Japanese government explained the wiretapping law as follows: firstly, in the major democratic countries, wiretapping investigation is legalised. Accordingly, it does not violate human rights. Second, for dealing with internationalisation of crime, the Japanese police had to cope with international cooperation on investigation. Third, the wiretapping investigation is effective and therefore, indispensable against major organised crimes. These descriptions are deceptive. We know that the US wiretapping investigation is a huge violation of privacy. About 80% of the phones tapped are not related to criminals according to the Wiretap Report. In addition, there are a lot of facts that were not reported. Wiretapping has few effects on major organised crimes (2). Comparing the American wiretapping investigation with Japan, we know that the regulations in Japan are very loose. The Judge who issues a wiretap order cannot intervene during the investigation. The Judge does not have an obligation to check the records that the law enforcement submits. The law enforcement allows one to carry out, without court order, pen register and also wiretap the communication. There is no mention if the law enforcement recognise that the communication is related to any kind of crime. And law enforcement do not pay any services by common carrier, on the other hand, the latter has to support the former abiding by the wiretapping law (3). The NPA demanded recording medium (DAT) for voice print analysis in a budget on the next fiscal year. From a breakdown of the budget request, I judge that all the DAT tapes that the police will record in wiretapping investigations are passed to a voice print judgment. This shows that NPA intends to build a database of a voice print. According to NPA and MOJ, they use the wiretapping law for the investigation of crimes and not for surveillance of ordinary people or legal political action. They insist there will be nothing of violating privacy of an unrelated person. However, it is clear from their descriptions in their Diet that such a vindication is a deception. The MOJ illustrated that the legal case of wiretapping is for communication about an arrangement of a ship for rug business. In this case, the telephone company and mail server for customer loyalty of a shipping company will become a target of wiretapping. This means that all the unrelated persons' phone calls will be tapped, traced, and carried out voice judgment for database by the police (4). Big Brother in Japan Before the wiretapping law was approved, law enforcement had carried out a lot of illegal wiretapping investigations. In particular, wiretapping has been used by the secret police, the Public Security Police, to monitor political movement. However, as for the facts of such illegal wiretapping, there are many points that are still unclear. There are a few cases brought into light. The most famous one is a 1986 wiretapping case by the public security police of Yasuo Ogata, a former international director of the Communist Party and now a Diet person. This wiretapping lasted for more than a year. Moreover, a former employee of the manufacturer of wiretapping devices, who drew the blue print, gave the testimony in the Ogata case that the NPA bought a lot of wiretapping devices. Recently, during the discussions on the wiretapping bill in the Diet last year, Nobuto Hosaka, one of the main Diet person who is against the wiretapping bill, communication with a TV reporter was monitored by the police. This was uncovered with an anonymous letter (attached with a document of the tapping) sent from, supposedly, inside of the police. This case is now on trial. Though this fact was made clear in the trial and the Diet, the NPA denies organising the wiretapping of the above cases or says nothing about these. With the digitisation of the communication line, it is very difficult to illegally wiretap by physically tapping the phone line on the way to the exchange device at the phone company, such as the Ogata case, for very long periods not for investigation but for monitoring. I supposed, therefore, that the NPA and DOJ planned the legislation that forced common carriers to support the wiretapping by police. The wiretapping has a character of monitoring communications not just for criminal investigations but also for other purposes. And, in addition to the wiretapping, there are several other monitoring systems that we should be cautious. In 2002, the Japanese government will introduce a system that will give unique identification number to every resident. In the 1999 summer Diet session, the government revised the basic Resident Register Law that is necessary for this new system. This identification number integrates the basic information of residents such as address, full name, age, sex, and so on. Furthermore, in the future, this system will increase the danger of cross-reference of databases that will promote more data matching. Based on this system, the local governments issue the electronic ID card with a buried IC chip in as an official ID card. This IC chip has a huge memory; therefore, stored personal data will be added increasingly on to it (6). The government and the police utilises this kind of information communication technology. Besides, the common carriers have increasingly introduced similar monitoring or privacy violation technology as "customer loyalty". For example, cellular phone companies have a service to inform the position of an owner of a cellular phone (7). The common carriers publicise that this service is beneficial for children and the aged from a security viewpoint. In addition, they have the service to automatically notify the caller's phone number. They say this is effective in the prevention of harassment. In addition, several companies on the website give a service to look for an address and name from phone number. Only 10 years ago, the Systems introduced as a "customer loyalty" was considered as a violation of privacy. Regulation and restriction in the Internet in Japan How about the Internet? On the Internet, regulation on information access goes along. In Japan, rating and filtering by the Electronic Network Consortium that is an umbrella organization of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI) was started in 1996. According to the ENC, this system registers "inadequate words number about 6,000 and relevant words about 26,000". Also ENS says "The filtering function, by enabling Internet users to receive information selectively in accordance with their requirements, is a user-friendly information system that guarantees the users' right to know and at the same time protect their children from unwanted information, while respecting the rights and freedom of information providers." This system is not "user-friendly" for the user as a child who cannot access what he or she "wants". Therefore the system does not guarantee the users' right. They use "children" as an excuse to regulate the contents of the Internet because Japanese government has never wrestled with serious sexual issues such as sexual war crimes, sexual slaves, rape, domestic violence, and so on. The filtering and rating system become the means of regulation and limitation of a right of access to information not only by children but also by students and workers (8). Another regulation is the link of web sites. In March 2000, the Osaka district court decided that to link to an illegal content in foreign sites was illegal (9). It was the first judgment that the link itself was illegal though the defendant's site had nothing of illegal contents. If such a judgment will be repeated, I fear that search sites may be also considered to be illegal, then such search site may be forced to regulate for themselves. Japanese law does not regard self-regulation by private enterprises as illegal censorship. Currently, sexual expression is a target of disclosure by the police, but judging from the past history, I think such a regulation will come to an extent of regulation and self-censorship of political social contents. The election campaign that used website is virtually impossible in Japan. A candidate cannot campaign using the Internet during election periods. Also, rejection campaign for candidates like in Korea is illegal in Japan. Such a regulation is apparently a violation of citizen's rights. However, there is hardly any interest in this problem for both the ruling party and the opposition in the Diet. As for the Japanese Internet circumstances, regulation tends to become more severe compared with print media. Therefore, the trend of Japanese communication environment is opposite to "freedom of expression" by visible regulation as above mentioned and invisible surveillance system as wiretapping and various monitoring system. I think there are several reasons why the Internet situation in Japan does not have enough of freedom of expression. One reason is related to the Internet governance. Not only in individual countries but also all over the world, the Internet governance is very important and a basic condition of the Internet. Especially in Japan, we have a history of very severe censorship before and during the War and then we experienced another censorship by market economy for books and license system for radio and TV. We can produce any books but we cannot distribute them to bookshops because the big distributors monopolise book circulation. Also we cannot get a license for radio and TV broadcasting even though the set up cost is much less than printing books. Both are not restricting the production itself but regulating the distribution. I fear the same thing will occur in the Internet that we have a freedom of creation of website but nobody cannot access it. Or everybody can access the web but they are secretly checked. Political Context of Wiretapping and Monitoring System I want to refer to the Japanese wiretapping law once more from a political and military viewpoint. The Japanese wiretapping law is political and a violation of not only privacy but also human rights including freedom of thought and political practices. It is clear from following reasons: The USA. government recognises that Japanese wiretapping law indirectly affects the USA. national security. In May last year, the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) required the documents according to the Freedom of Information Act that Japan and the USA. government discussed on the formation of the Japanese wiretapping law. For this request, the CIA replied to ACLU. CIA assumed that this request affected the American national security and refused reply (10). This means that the wiretapping in Japan may have a relationship with the USA. national security. If so, another global surveillance network as the ECHELON is also related to the wiretapping law. Japan is a member of the third party of ECHELON. According to Jeffery Richelson, the Japanese Defence Army is in charge of the East Sea area as an information-gathering area (11). Wiretapping law includes illegal migration as one of its main targets. I think these are different stories but integrated into one story. ECHELON can gather the information about the Korean Peninsula but cannot gather about the Korean residents in Japan. On the other hand wiretapping law can easily access communication by the latter or various supporting groups, human rights groups and peace movements inside Japan. In order to grasp the situation of the Korean Peninsula and related movements in Japan, especially various autonomous grassroots level movements in both sides, the Japanese government seems to want to integrate the information-gathering systems such as ECHELON, wiretapping law, N system, ID card and other monitoring systems. As for supporting groups of Third World people and human rights groups, ECHELON and the wiretapping law are very dangerous because these national and international surveillance function to destruct such international coalition among people. And, after the Cold War, economic exploitation and human rights violations are globalising along with globalisation of capitalism. On the other hand, the people's movements have developed in the global level and communication among people beyond national border grew rapidly. We have such a lot of good cases as from the indigenous people of Chiapas in Mexico to the liberation movement in Eastern Timor, and from anti-IMF to anti-WTO movements. Conclusion From a network activist point of view, I think the following issues are very important.
Notes
About wiretapping in the US, see the following sites: http://www.epic.org/ http://www.aclu.org/ An expense of wiretapping investigation of the United States is about 60,000 dollars per affair. For wiretapping of cellular phones in Japan, according to a mass media report, NTTdoccomo states that it takes an expense of 10,000,000,000 yen for technological development costs. According to the explanation by the document of the DOJ submitted to the Diet, every phone call are traced and checked (telephone number of a customer, mail address) and probably I think the identity is checked and these data are registered with various database including voiceprint database. Nozomi Hamashima "N sisutemu to Sensou Taisei [N System and War Structure]" in Gijutu to Ningen, 1999, October. Following is a web about N System by the organisation of thinking people to prevent administrative authority from abusing their power (in English): http://www.sakuragaoka.gr.jp/nsysUS/index.html Takao Saitou, Praibashii Kuriaisisu [Privacy Crisis], Bunshun shinnsho, Bungei Shunjuu, 1999. NTT Docomo supplies service named Imadokoservice using phs phone. One can know a position of the owner of phs phone by the map sent via fax from NTT Docomo. http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/p_s/services.html Rating and filtering about Electronic Network Consortium Jiro Makino, "Internet jou no kontentsu kisei to rinku kisei," in Kouichirou Hayashi, et.al. eds, IT 2000 Nani ga Mondaika, pp.90-101 Replies by the CIA appeared in the following websites: http://www.jca.apc.org/~toshi/cen/cia_19990521_1.jpg http://www.jca.apc.org/~toshi/cen/cia_19990521_2.jpg http://www.jca.apc.org/~toshi/cen/cia_19990521_3.jpg Jeffery T. Richlson, The US Intelligence Community 4th edition, Westview, 1999. About the Internet governance, see below sites: Internet Rights (APC) Civil Society Internet Forum Civil Society Democracy Project References about wiretapping law in Japan (in English) Toshimaru Ogura "Japan's Big Brother The Wiretapping Bill and the Threat to Privacy,"AMPO, Japan-Asia Quarterly Review, Vol.28 No.1, 1997. Early messages about the wiretapping bill in Japan written in English Information about wiretapping law in web (in Japanese) Toshimaru Ogura, JCA-NET director, Toyama University |
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