Salient to Investors:
William Pesek writes:
- According to one prevailing theory, China is creating an international storm to change the subject domestically away from income inequality, official corruption and China’s blackening skies.
- Japanese Premier Abe is seizing the opportunity to rush a chilling official-secrets bill into law: which if enacted would allow government ministries to declare just about anything they want classified. Yet Abe has not implemented a single structural reform in almost 12 months in office. The vaguely written law could easily result in long jail terms for reporters and whistle-blowers.
- Reporters Without Borders argues that Japan is making investigative journalism illegal, and is trampling on the fundamental principles of the confidentiality of journalists’ sources and public interest. It ranked Japan’s press-freedom 53rd out of 179 countries, 31 places lower than in 2012.
- Jake Adelstein said the secrecy bill bears a resemblance to Japan’s pre-WWII Peace Preservation Law, which gave the government wide latitude to arrest and jail individuals who were out of step with its policies. Parts of the bill echo the Bush-Cheney power grab that was the Patriot Act.
Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-02/japan-s-secrets-bill-turns-journalists-into-terrorists.html
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