Managing versus throttling
(From The Japan Times November 11 issue)

尖閣ビデオ流出、情報の管理と統制

The police Nov. 10 identified a Japan Coast Guard member in Kobe as a suspect in the Nov. 4 leak onto YouTube of video footage showing a Sept. 7 collision between a Chinese trawler and two Japan Coast Guard patrol ships off the Senkaku Islands. Earlier, documents apparently linked to the security police’s investigation into international terrorism were posted on the Internet. The 44-minute Senkaku video is identified as one of the videos the Ishigaki Coast Guard Station in Okinawa Prefecture provided to the Naha Public Prosecutor’s Office. After the leak, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said that the punishment for civil servants who violate the duty of confidentiality is too light — up to one year imprisonment or a fine of up to ¥500,000.

In the leak of the terrorism investigation data, not only the privacy of informants was violated but also their lives can be exposed to danger. Seeing this leak, foreign countries may stop offering important information to Japan. But in the Senkaku video leak, the question of whether the video must be hidden from the eyes of the public at any cost must be asked. In view of people’s right to know and national interests, the video should be officially released — not to stoke anti-China feelings but to give an objective picture of what happened.

After the Sept. 7 collisions, the captain of the Chinese ship was arrested the next day. His detention was to continue through Sept. 29. But the Naha prosecution office announced Sept. 24 that it would release him in view of the overall Japan-China relationship.

It was only Oct. 7 that the Kan Cabinet decided not to make public Senkaku incident-related video footage. As late as Oct. 18, transport minister Sumio Mabuchi, who has the Japan Coast Guard under his jurisdiction, ordered “thorough management” of the video footage. For many days, access remained easy to the footage, which was kept on a personal computer at the Ishigaki Coast Guard Station.

What is needed is the proper handling of information at government offices. People should guard against any government move that will result in the throttling of information people are entitled to know.

警視庁は尖閣沖中国漁船衝突事件のビデオ映像流出の容疑者として神戸海上保安部の保安官を特定した。同庁公安部が作成したとみられる国際テロ関連の捜査情報漏洩が起きたばかりだ。

　後者は、捜査協力者のプライバシーを侵害し、生命を危険にさらしかねない。海外でも日本への情報提供に慎重になるだろう。しかし尖閣ビデオの場合はそもそも機密情報とすべきなのかが問われなければならない。国民の知る権利と国益を考慮すると、反中感情を煽るのではなく客観的情報を提供するために公開されるべきだ。

　菅内閣が尖閣ビデオの非公開を決めたのは10月7日になってからだ。海上保安庁管轄の馬渕国交相がビデオ映像の｢徹底管理｣を求めた18日までは、映像へのアクセスは容易にできた。官庁での適切な情報管理が望まれる。国民の知る権利を奪う政府の動きは防がねばならない。