by Jack Campitelli | July 27th, 2011
Precis: Free speech, nuclear radiation and fallout, Japan disaster, continuing efforts of governments to limit free speech around the world, U.S., Syria, Libya, UK, power, TEPCO, Japanese people.
According to a post on “Denis Campbell’s UK Progressive,” author Theodora Filis claims that on July 15, 2011, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (METI) Agency for Natural Resources and Energy put out a request for bids for a contractor to monitor websites, tweets, youtubes, blogs about nuclear power and radiation.
They are looking for “incorrect” information – which is Japan-speak for all information, true or not, that “they” don’t like.
There has been no discussion about what Japan wants to do with all this information or what they want to do to the people and organizations who publish it.
This has been business as usual for Japan and its troubles up north.
The U.S., of course, monitors “everything” with key word searches etc. – emails, phone calls, etc. The U.S. mostly just saves everything and doesn’t use it unless content rises to the top of the pile. Which it won’t since most real trouble makers use encryption – which in itself puts a flag on communications. Of course, all financial and legal transactions are suppose to use encryption, too, to protect our privacy, so the government has a lot of “stuff” piled up to crack.
In reality, the U.S. doesn’t usually use the sniffer technology to find targets, it uses it to track targets once they are identified. What happens in seconds on TV in “Criminal Minds” and “NCIS” and “CSIs,” in reality gets sent to a “department” where it’s prioritized and then hammered until it cracks, if it cracks.
That is not to say that just as there are “No Fly” lists, there are undoubtedly lists of folks who publish anti-government polemic – true or not – and that those lists are loosely monitored.
Whether it’s Japan, the U.S., the UK, Libya, Syria, or Israel, all persons in positions of power like to stay there and don’t like their roosts rattled. So it has always been. Go too far and it’s treason and Henry the VIII will off your head.
What’s funny about Japan is that the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been proven to have consistently under-reported nuclear events. And the government has more or less supported them under the heading of forestalling panic. In other words, Japanese authorities, instead of demanding and disseminating truth, have now taken another step to suppress truth and thus support lies that affect people’s lives.
This conduct is reprehensible by any standards and it is a continuing weakness of Japan’s ruling structure. The Japanese people are some of the most incredible people on earth and they deserve better.
A lot better.
