Forwarded From: William Knowles <erehwonat_private> http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/business/story/19973.html?wnpg=all (Wired News) TOKYO [6.2.99] -- Privacy issues have taken center stage as Japan prepares to enact legislation allowing the police to eavesdrop on phone calls, intercept fax and computer transmissions, and read email. The draconian measures are ostensibly intended to help law enforcement halt premeditated murders, trafficking in drugs and guns, and smuggling of illegal aliens into Japan. At least that's what a bill cobbled together by the country's coalition government says. The reality could be far more intrusive, especially after investigators receive an official green light to comb through private correspondence and communications. Japanese citizens' groups -- a hodgepodge of activists with little actual influence over policy decisions -- have decried the wiretapping legislation as a gross invasion of privacy, and opposition politicians boycotted a vote on the legislation last Friday. But the government insists that what Japan needs to restore public order is less civil liberty and more Big Brother. People here are scared. Crime -- once unthinkable in Japan -- is on the rise. The country's yakuza racketeers are growing increasingly bolder in their schemes as nearly a full decade of recession eats away at traditional revenue sources, such as payoffs from companies and corrupt politicians. For law-enforcement authorities, the trouble began back in 1995 when Aum Shinrikyo cultists released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway, killing a dozen people. The cops simply never saw the attack coming, and have been agitating for greater surveillance powers as a means of preventing such nastiness from happening again. Wiretapping is a convenient shortcut for investigators. And, as the pervasive eavesdropping of former East Bloc countries made undeniably clear, once authorities start listening it's a hard habit to break. Yozo Marutake, a former senior executive with a manufacturer of hearing aids called Rion, said last week that the Japanese police have been bugging phones for decades. How does he know this? Because his company sold the cops all their surveillance gear, and had done so since first being approached by authorities in 1957, he said. So why would the Japanese police now be seeking legal backing for their electronic skulking? One reason might have to do with charges from an opposition politician last year that his phone had been bugged. The courts upheld the politician's claims, although the cops never actually admitted being behind the incident. The Internet undoubtedly will be a low priority at first for Japan's snoops, but this will change as more people, criminals included, go online. For now, it looks like the cops are still unsure how to proceed where matters of cyberspace are concerned. Police last week raided the Sapporo home of an 18-year-old who had posted a bunch of hit tunes on his home page using the MP3 compression format. The teen, needless to say, hadn't worked out copyright issues in advance with related Japanese recording companies. Police didn't reveal how they learned about the song-laden site. But they said they moved quickly to shut things down after concluding that illegal actions were being perpetrated. This only took them three months of monitoring downloads to figure out. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: OSAll [www.aviary-mag.com]
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