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Ｂｉｌｌ：　　Ｄｅｓｔｒｕｃｔｉｏｎ　ｏｆ　Ｄｅｍｏｃｒａｃｙ　ａｎｄ　ｔｈｅ
Ｈｕｍａｎ　Ｒｉｇｈｔｓ

A package of three bills, which includes a wiretapping bill, was rammed through
the House of Councilors. However, we cannot accept this wiretapping bill as law
because of the series of abnormal legislative procedures that passed it.

The bill will disrupt the freedom of communication, a right protected under the
Constitution. The government does not yet have solutions for all of the problems
relating to the bill that we pointed out before. At this point, we are not able
to see how this bill would affect and/or violate our human rights. The bill was
approved forcibly and prematurely without enough discussion both in and outside
of the Diet about the effects and problems concerning the bill.

A characteristic of this law is that although actual conduct of wiretapping
involves highly technical practices, the technical aspect of wiretapping conduct
is never mentioned in the law. In the legislative conference, engineers pointed
out the problems in the technical aspects of the law, and in fact the most
engineers opposed the bill.

We do not think that the members of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Liberal
Party and the Komei Party really understand how this law will affect our lives.
What were the reasons they so hastily argued and approved the bill?

We hear many critics and telecommunication companies from other countries say
that Japan passed the bill too hastily. In the beginning, the government said
that other nations' pressure required it to enact the bill. However, there is
no such political pressure in international relations.

A conference of the Judicial Affair Committee tells us that the law is little
help against organized crime.

As technology advances, more and more information moves freely through the
Internet. The future of our society requires the healthy development of such
networks and the protection of the freedom of communication. The world of Inter-
net is now disposed to protect information and individual privacy, and the trend
of international politics is that authorities disclose their information and at
the same time protect the privacy of citizens.

However, our government is about to pass the bill---it seems Japan is going
backward. (Japan passed the law on August 12.)

The healthy development of our society requires the protection of individual
privacy in networks. The bill, however, allows the police to engage in unlimited
wiretapping operations. Therefore, Japan itself is disturbing the growth of the
network system.

Our government has been ignoring not only the voices of various industries and
critics who oppose the bill but also the opposition of the network industry that
will play a central role in the future network society. The Obuchi Cabinet
enacted the bill without listening to the opinions of the network industry and
rapidly growing population of Internet users. The Cabinet took advantage of the
coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party with the Liberal Party and the Komei
Party. We think this government's whole movement is facist.

We also express indignation at Japan's media. The media should have pointed out
the problems, and informed, and aroused public interest in the bill. Did
Japan's media really play this essential role? The bill might even threaten
the media's independence from the authorities. However, how many newspapers
and television stations realized this and took it seriously? Thus the media
itself assisted in the passage of the bill. We want all the media people to look
back and examine what they have done.

In order to prevent wiretapping by the police and to protect the privacy of
communication, we request network and other telecommunication industries and the
engineers not to give any technological help to the authorities.

Through our fight against the bill, we have been meeting many people from
various fields. With this precious human network, we will continue to examine
and investigate the problems in the bill, and to share the information with the
public. We are not able to tolerate the bill. We will create a network to
fight against the tyranny of the authorities, and find the way to protect our
individual privacy.

We here announce that with help from politicians who are fighting against the
bill in spite of going against the policies of their political parties, and from
civilians, companies, and engineers, we will continue to fight to have the bill
abolished.

August 12, 1999

Signatory groups:
JCA-NET Commitee on Security <desk@jca.apc.org>
Network Anti-Surveillance Project <priv-ec@jca.apc.org>
Anti-wiretap Networker group <owner-anti-wiretap@jca.apc.org>

mailto:priv-ec@jca.apc.org