What’s in your wallet?: The Zairyuu Kaado with IC chip

Debito Arudou’s article, “IC you: bugging the alien” brings up the debate on privacy, immigration, Big Brother, the use and/or abuse of technology, and well, possibly for some, unfounded fears. Debito states “new gaijin id cards could allow police to remotely track foreigners.” I sort of sat on the fence on the new “gaijin (gaikokujin),” or foreigner, identification card debate but you know, the argument that cell phones can also be used for tracking is just as valid. I have carried various ID cards embedded with various chips that hold a variety of information.

I could just as easily track various people just by using their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Loopt and other social networks. it “seems” that some people online are not too caring about who tracks them (as long as it isn’t Big Brother, I guess). What stops the GOJ from requesting copies of the cell phone applications or cell phone registries of foreigners in Japan? This is used in criminal and national security investigations. Oh! And in divorce or cases were one of the spouses is cheating (or possibly cheating) on the other. What stops the GOJ for requesting the utility, bank or other records of foreigners in Japan. Would it be easier for the Immigration Bureau to “require” Ward Offices to submit a list of “registered” foreigners that could be used to track them (to a certain degree)?  I wonder if the RFID “tracking” argument still valid? 

In the past, I fought against fingerprinting when I received my first “civilian” identification card in Japan. It was an interesting battle that I will share when my book is released. There were/are legal ways around the system that I used to “blend” within Japan’s society. Of course, when I ventured to various places and was approached by the police during the “excuse me, show me you passport” or “let me practice my English on the foreigner” exercises, I had fun -when I had time on my hands – or ended up frustrated other times when I passed by the same koban (police box) on my way to/from work only to be stopped and questioned again. In the end, I ended up giving a group of cops in Osaka a case of American beer and a case of macadamia nuts that I brought back from Hawaii. This stopped the questioning/harassment  and actually allowed me to learn more about the “system” I choose to live in and the “system” that the local guys on the beat were required to enforce. 

With that said, please read the article and provide feedback. By the way, please stick to attacking the article and not the writer! Here is Debito’s argument: “On the proposed legislation to make things more “convenient” and “protected” for NJ residents: the New Zairyuu Kaado with biometric data stored on IC Chips. Convenient? Yeah, for the police, not NJ. I make the case that, if the legislation is passed, policing and punishments will only get stricter, and the chipped cards will act as “bugs” encouraging further police checkpoints and racial profiling.”

Here is Debito’s article: “When the Japanese government first issued alien registration cards (aka gaijin cards) in 1952, it had one basic aim in mind: to track “foreigners” (at that time, mostly Korean and Taiwanese stripped of Japanese colonial citizenship) who decided to stay in postwar Japan.

Gaijin cards put foreigners in their place: Registry is from age 16, so from a young age they were psychologically alienated from the rest of Japanese society. So what if they were born and acculturated here over many generations? Still foreigners, full stop.

Even today, when emigrant non-Japanese far outnumber the native-born, the government tends to see them all less as residents, more as something untrustworthy to police and control. Noncitizens are not properly listed on residency registries. Moreover, only foreigners must carry personal information (name and address, personal particulars, duration of visa status, photo, and — for a time — fingerprints) at all times. Gaijin cards must also be available for public inspection under threat of arrest, one year in jail and ¥200,000 in fines.

However, the Diet is considering a bill abolishing those gaijin cards.”

Click here to read the complete article. Further information is on Debito’s blog.

Illustration by Chris McKenzie

Immigration Regulations Softening?

A Democratic Party of Japan legal affairs panel has drafted proposals to soften the rules and punishments stipulated in government-sponsored bills to tighten immigration regulations on foreign residents, DPJ lawmaker Ritsuo Hosokawa said Thursday.

The panel called for eliminating eight provisions in the bills, including one that would oblige foreigners to always carry residency cards, Hosokawa told The Japan Times.

Is the Japanese judiciary a hostage system?

The Tokyo Reporter gives the latest on the man Japan loves to hate: “Known for his fondness for t-shirts and shaking up Japan’s business world, Takafumi Horie, founder of Web portal Livedoor, last week resurfaced at a press luncheon where, three years after his arrest for falsifying financial reports, he denounced Japan’s legal system.

“I think the justice system in Japan is a hostage system,” said the 36-year-old dot-com pioneer at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “The public prosecutors are out of control and I think something should be done.”

“Total Resistance,” a book intended to assist future executives and entrepreneurs “navigate the unique idiosyncrasies of doing business in Japan,” was written over three years, much of that time being when he was behind bars. “It took me a very long time for my feelings and emotions to settle so I could write this book,” he said.”

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Roppongi Security Notice

FROM: American Embassy Tokyo

SUBJ: Warden Message – Roppongi Security Notice

 Date: March 17, 2009

This is to inform the American community that the U.S. Embassy has recommended that the embassy community avoid frequenting Roppongi bars and clubs in Tokyo due to a significant increase in reported drink-spiking incidents. American citizens may choose to avoid frequenting drinking establishments in this area as well.

The number of reports of U.S. citizens being drugged in bars has increased significantly in recent weeks. Typically, the victim unknowingly drinks a beverage that has been secretly mixed with a drug that renders the victim unconscious for several hours, during which time large sums of money are charged to the victim’s credit card or the card is stolen outright. Victims sometimes regain consciousness in the bar or club, while at other times the victim awakens on the street.

How do Japanese get a taste for marijuana?

 

Cannabis has been an integral part of Japanese culture since the beginnings of its history. Cannabis is a sacred herb to the religion of Shinto, and was also used and praised by ancient Zen poets and Buddhist monks.  Japanese merchants dealt in coins which had square holes in the centre, and were carried on strings of hemp. The Japanese five yen coin still has a hole in it, left over from this practice.Here is the latest from Terrie’s Take 506 — The Demon Weed, ebiz news from Japan. Be sure to sign-up for Terrie’s monthly newsletter and read Japan, Inc. magazine for tech and biz information on Japan!

 If there is anything the Japanese authorities are allergic to, following perhaps foreign burglars and divorced foreigners wanting custody of their kids, it would be marijuana — the demon weed that always seems to have been ”bought from a foreigner in Roppongi”. The media is having a field day with the number of arrests frequently, and clearly the police are feeding lots of juicy details as each case breaks. The National Police Agency announced this last week that it arrested 2,778 people for marijuana offenses in 2008, 22.3%  more people than in 2007. 90% of those arrested where first-time offenders — not habitual criminals, and 60% of them were under the age of 30. Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen a parade of high-profile marijuana users get busted. Entertainers, sumo wrestlers (Russian and Japanese), students at prestigious universities (e.g., Keio and Waseda), foreign rugby players, and even large portions of entire university rugby teams.

New “Gaijin” ID Cards

Special permanent foreign residents in Japan will be obliged to carry a different resident status card instead of the current alien registration card, according to a Justice Ministry proposal. The ministry has outlined its proposal on the amendment to the Immigration Control Law and related bills to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Judicial Affairs Division.

Under the proposed bills, cards for special permanent residents will be issued to about 430,000 Korean and other foreign residents in Japan, which they will be obliged to carry as their identification cards.

Re-entry procedures for such residents will be relaxed as much as possible under the proposed bills, such as by exempting them from the need to obtain re-entry permits if they have stayed abroad for two years or less. They will also be allowed to leave Japan for up to six years, instead of the current limit of four years.

Child porn bust

Here is some good news in the fight against child pornographers. Those interested in learning more can click here for additional information on this vicious crime against children.

Japan TImes reports: Seven men and women have been arrested in Fukuoka for allegedly violating the law on child pornography, police said Tuesday.

A joint investigative team of Fukuoka and Tokyo police confiscated hundreds of computer hard drives and other equipment the seven allegedly used to sell illegal video clips on the Internet, the police said.

Some laid-off migrant workers turning to crime

The Mainichi reports in the article, Cracks show in ‘coexistence’ dream as laid-off migrant workers no longer seen as ‘saviors’: “On a late December day in Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, the morning quiet was shattered when a pair of Brazilian sisters assaulted and robbed a local businesswoman. Both sisters had recently been caught in the wave of temporary worker layoffs that has washed through Japan’s manufacturing sector.

Some 17 percent of Oizumi’s 42,300 residents are foreigners, mostly Brazilians, the highest rate of any municipality in the country. Even in a town with such a high foreign residency rate, the ideal of “coexistence” is far from being realized, a truth which forms a dark subtext to the robbery.

The sisters, both wearing black balaclavas that revealed nothing but their eyes, attacked their victim in silence. “I thought I was going to be killed,” said the 58-year-old victim of her terror at that moment.

Bosozoku

The Mainichi reports that “Japan’s biker gangs got both older and smaller in 2008, according to the National Police Agency.

The police agency said that total membership in the country’s biker gangs, or bosozoku, stood at 11,516, an 8.5 percent drop from the previous year and the lowest number recorded since 1975, the earliest year for which statistics are available. Some 70 percent of gangs had less than 10 members, and legal adults made up over half of membership, continuing a trend over the past several years.

Vicious crimes against children increasing

Akira Sakuta, criminal psychologist and guest professor at Seigakuin University reports on the sharp increase in crimes against children. You can read additional information on this by checking out the post Child Prostitution & Child Porn in Japan.

Criminal activities against children have occurred in succession. According to the National Police Agency, the number of reported criminal offenses against children under 13, which was on the decline since 2002, surged by 1,501 cases in 2007.

Although there are not many cases of children are kidnapped or killed, such an evil crime shocks those who have children of their own and generates calls for preventive measures. 

This shows that people are more interested in ensuring the safety of children, given the nation’s declining birthrate, and this is a global common trend, I think.

Of criminal cases involving children, there are many crimes committed by the victims’ relatives or persons close to them. Mental or physical sexual abuse against children will inevitably affect their future lives seriously even though the offenses are not reported to the authorities. According to David Jones, a criminal psychologist, sexual-abuse victims tend to feel uneasy, be seized with fear, show such symptoms as overeating, or find it difficult to go to school or concentrate their attention.

Some victims show signs of refusing to go out, have guilt feelings, become short-tempered, or feel depressed. There are also children who behave badly, tell lies, commit theft, or become aggressive toward friends.

Regarding victims in the adolescent period, drugs might come into their lives. Some might commit suicide or run away from home.

According to criteria for diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-UV-TR), pederosis is categorized as a kind of paraphilia. In many sexual molestation cases, crimes are committed based on pederosis, so pedophiles are the most dangerous type among sexual deviants.

There were sexual activities driven by pederosis from long ago, so it is not true to say that crimes committed by pedophiles have sharply increased recently. Sexual abuse against children under 13 only recently has been recognized as a crime and being severely punished.

In protecting children from such crimes, careful measures of self-defense are necessary. It is also important to impose tighter restrictions on child pornography. Revising the relevant law is necessary to criminalize even the individual possession of child pornography. The government is urged to restrict media that could increase or excite pedophiles, including anime and comics.