Demand Explanation for US Surveillance of Japan

We are seeing a dark facet of the United States. Cases of wiretapping by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) have been exposed one after another.

One of the NSA’s overseas sites is in Japan; it was discovered that Japan has also been a target of wiretapping. It is said that the NSA’s base of operations is located within a U.S. military base or diplomatic mission.

The U.S. newspaper The New York Times covered the story. The news report is based on classified documents obtained from Snowden, a person of interest and the former employee of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who was granted political asylum by Russia. “It spies routinely on friends as well as foes,” The New York Times reports of the NSA’s activities. The objective was to achieve an “economic advantage” over Japan and Brazil and a “diplomatic advantage” over such allies as France and Germany.

Japan should consider information related to the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which is proceeding behind closed doors and not yet announced to the public, as having become target to eavesdropping as well.

The Obama administration’s explanation that counterterrorism was the objective of the wiretapping is no longer convincing. The U.S. is completely out of touch with freedom and democracy, to say the least.

What’s pathetic is how the Japanese government is dealing with this. Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, when questioned by reporters, commented, “It is never desirable to carry out acts that would undermine trust between friends, including allies. I don’t want to believe what was reported.”

Rather than the emotional sentiment, “I don’t want to believe,” it’s more natural to regard the facts as true, judging from what has been recorded in the confidential documents. The government of Japan should launch a protest.

German Chancellor Merkel’s cell phone has been bugged by the NSA from 2002 to 2010 or later. Merkel protested to President Obama that this was a breach of the allies’ relationship of mutual trust. It stands to reason that President Obama claims he was unaware of the wiretapping, but this is not very convincing. Even if the president didn’t know, the intelligence agency is operating unchecked.

The NSA has eavesdropped on 35 world leaders and millions of telephone conversations in France and Spain. The wiretapping of Brazil and Mexico’s leaders has also come to light.

The U.S. director of national intelligence has stated that the collection of information on foreign leaders will continue in the future. It is purported that President Obama called for eavesdropping to cease, but what has become of the U.S. government?

Germany and Brazil introduced a resolution to the U.N. General Assembly’s Third Committee (human rights) calling for the establishment of an “independent mechanism” for third-party oversight of information gathering.

A bill to establish a Japanese version of the National Security Council (NSC), together with a bill to protect special state secrets, have been submitted and are being deliberated.

The state secrets law is for controlling information brought in from the U.S. To protect U.S. information, the law strengthens penalties against public officials and regulates access to citizens’ information. While trying to establish a dangerous law, Japan pays no attention to homeland information being monitored by the U.S. It’s jaw-dropping. Japan offers an enormous “sympathy budget” to the U.S. and is considered its most generous ally. If Japan won’t even protest, then it has no choice but to be viewed by the U.S. as a vassal state.