http://security.itworld.com/4368/050125japansecurity/page_1.html Paul Kallender IDG News Service Tokyo Bureau 1/25/05 A U.S. security expert appearing in a Tokyo court on Tuesday accused the Japanese government of pushing a dagger against the heart of free speech. Ejovi Nuwere, chief technology officer of SecurityLab Technologies Inc., in Boston, Massachusetts, is suing the Japanese government for ¥30 million (US$291,000) for allegedly censoring his criticisms of Japan's online citizens registry database, called Juki Net. In a lawsuit filed last November against Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), Nuwere alleged that the ministry stopped him from making a presentation at a conference earlier that month in which he planned to discuss his concerns about the security of the database. He said he brought the case to defend his human rights under the Japanese constitution. Juki Net is a national network of databases that contain the names and personal details of nearly every person residing in Japan. It has been surrounded by controversy, particularly over security concerns, since before its launch in 2003. Nuwere was one of three experts hired by the Nagano prefectural government to test the security of the system last year. The experts successfully managed to compromise servers in part of the system maintained by the prefectural government. Nuwere had intended to describe these experiences in his talk. In his deposition, which he read to the Tokyo court on Tuesday, Nuwere alleged that the MIC had put pressure on both him and the conference organizers, forcing him to cancel his speech shortly before he went on stage. This last-minute interference came after a month of negotiations between Nuwere and the MIC, and after the ministry had ignored requests to discuss their objections to the speech, Nuwere said. Accompanied by his lawyer, Tsutomu Shimizu, and facing three judges at the Tokyo Regional Court, Nuwere spent about five minutes reading out his deposition as a nine-member legal team representing the government looked on. "The government should not be allowed to censor thoughts, opinions and speech in a democracy," Nuwere told the judges. "We must constantly challenge any attempt to ignore the constitution. If we don't ... it will only be a piece of paper with words and signatures, an insignificant document," he said. Nuwere also alleged that the MIC had already partially admitted censoring parts of Nuwere's speech in a Jan. 18 response to his initial petition. "The government has pushed a dagger ever so slightly against the heart of free speech in this country," Nuwere told the court. The Nagano prefectural government had expressed no concerns about his presentation, and as a security expert with 10 years of experience he understood the confidentiality agreements he had been required to honor when making his presentation, Nuwere said in an interview outside the court. Throughout his deposition he made repeated references to the notion that he was one person defending his rights against the power of the Japanese government. "I thought it quite interesting that they had prepared an army of lawyers against me," he said in the interview. Lawyers for the government are scheduled to present their opening statement at a hearing on March 22. Contacted by telephone Tuesday, the government's lawyers declined to comment on the case. The two sides are expected to have gathered the evidence needed for trial by the end of August, Shimizu said outside the court. "I am going to play the best hand I can with the cards that I have been dealt," he said. _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Wed Jan 26 2005 - 00:50:16 PST