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...when the laws themselves are kept secret from citizens

Here you go

Consider yourself warned, citizen.

Note that I believe the denial of the draft text due to "national security" was as bullshit as anything I've ever heard of, but now that it's signed, you can read it in all it's infamy

I voted for O but this would be the very high on the long list of things I would call him to the floor for if I ever got to speak to him.

How about the fact that we have a security alliance [wikipedia.org] with Japan and that the mission of defending South Korea has a UN mandate [wikipedia.org]?

Read the text of the 1960 security treaty with Japan. Neither party is actually required to go to war to defend the other. It's a feel good treaty that gives the USA basing rights.

http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/q&a/ref/1.html

South Korea's defense being a UN Mandate, perhaps the UN could take up the matter in a security council meeting. Perhaps a stern letter to North Korea would work.

Do you also think that we have no obligation to defend Australia, New Zealand or our NATO allies?

Australia fought with the USA in World War II and most of its other wars in the Pacific. You can think of Australia as a key strategic ally in the Pacific, that anchors that ocean in the same way the UK is a key strategic ally in the Atlantic. The USA, UK and Australia have had a REAL military alliance and partnership and so of course the USA should defend Australia.

NATO expansion was a mistake.

watched U.S. Marines deliver food aid after typhoon Yoyang in 2004. I kept wondering, "where's the aid workers from Japan? Where's the aid from China? Where's the aid from Taiwan? Where's ANY OTHER COUNTRY AT ALL?".

If you were still wondering after you got back to somewhere with net access (I'm assuming that was sparse after such a disaster), a few minutes with Google would have told you that Japan sent money, doctors, and relief workers. China, Singapore, Korea, Belgium, Germany, and the U.S. all provided significant aid.

More recently, Japan has sent one million dollar in food aid for victims of Reming.

As for ongoing aid, here is the JICA page for the Philippines. And here's the Ministry of Foreign Affairs page on Japan-Philippines, chock full of stats and press releases.

Nobody was there except the USA.

Maybe you didn't see anyone there besides American military relief. Maybe that's a function of where you were, maybe you weren't looking very hard, I don't know. But several other nations were there, including Japan.

They did not have this attitude about the U.S., and they were glad she was going to marry an American. This is a fair characterization of attitudes there.

People's attitudes don't change the historical reality. Both the U.S. and Japan have, in the past, done horrible things in the Philippines. The U.S. atrocities were a little longer ago and were less horrific. But they were still atrocities. Both the U.S. and Japan now send significant aid to the Philippines.

If you believe American has victimized the Philippines (for example), and this matters to you (you care), are you willing to help the Philippines?

I generally do my international charitable contributions through the Red Cross. My money's tight now (I'm about to spend the spring in Japan, doing some informal study of the culture behind the martial and healing arts I've studied), but if $20 or so can be leveraged to some good, I could PayPal you or something.

watched U.S. Marines deliver food aid after typhoon Yoyang in 2004. I kept wondering, "where's the aid workers from Japan? Where's the aid from China? Where's the aid from Taiwan? Where's ANY OTHER COUNTRY AT ALL?".

If you were still wondering after you got back to somewhere with net access (I'm assuming that was sparse after such a disaster), a few minutes with Google would have told you that Japan sent money, doctors, and relief workers. China, Singapore, Korea, Belgium, Germany, and the U.S. all provided significant aid.

More recently, Japan has sent one million dollar in food aid for victims of Reming.

As for ongoing aid, here is the JICA page for the Philippines. And here's the Ministry of Foreign Affairs page on Japan-Philippines, chock full of stats and press releases.

Nobody was there except the USA.

Maybe you didn't see anyone there besides American military relief. Maybe that's a function of where you were, maybe you weren't looking very hard, I don't know. But several other nations were there, including Japan.

They did not have this attitude about the U.S., and they were glad she was going to marry an American. This is a fair characterization of attitudes there.

People's attitudes don't change the historical reality. Both the U.S. and Japan have, in the past, done horrible things in the Philippines. The U.S. atrocities were a little longer ago and were less horrific. But they were still atrocities. Both the U.S. and Japan now send significant aid to the Philippines.

If you believe American has victimized the Philippines (for example), and this matters to you (you care), are you willing to help the Philippines?

I generally do my international charitable contributions through the Red Cross. My money's tight now (I'm about to spend the spring in Japan, doing some informal study of the culture behind the martial and healing arts I've studied), but if $20 or so can be leveraged to some good, I could PayPal you or something.

A Japanese student visa forbids you to work, although I believe you're allowed to have a part-time job outside of the semester (although I could be wrong.) More info here: http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/04.html

This guy was basically self-employed, so needed a completely different visa.

The article is published by the Daily Mainichi, so I wouldn't worry about checking the original Japanes for accuracy.

• August 2000 UK criminal inteligence paper arguing for indiscriminate traffic data collection ("data retention")
  
• May 2001 G8 discusion paper arguing for indiscriminate traffic data collection ("data retention")

I expect to see more of this in the future. It's the new end run around having a real debate in the U.S. or Europe.

Its called policy laundering. The "data retention"* idea dates back to at least 2000. (it predates 9/11 and madrid by more than a year, obiously) A bit later it got discussed at a G8 meeting. This may when it officially crossed the ocean, though god knows in which direction... The idea of "lawfull interception" of Internet traffic went from the US to the EU through "ILETS". ILETS may be mostly the FBI or UKUSA... who knows.

Now if you look at the years of trouble the UK goverment is going trough with getting "entitlement cards" (mandatory ID cards) then you will be amazed at how smoothly it got this policy trough. And not just in the UK but in the entire European union.

The UK didn`t want the EU parliament to vote on this. It just wanted to push it through as a deal between justice ministers. But the EU Parliament desperately wanted a say in this. So the UK set a deadline (before the end of its rotating presidency). Before this the parliament had to admend and vote the legislation. Commision were formed, debate started and then when everyone was just getting to grips whith the idea... Wham...an agreement, a vote, done.

Now if anybody knows why the two big coalition parties in the parliament suddenly agreed to the artificial deadline, throwing overboard work on an compromise, please respond. The deadline was worthless anyway because the Netherlands had blocked voting on this as a justice minister backroom deal. I hope they got something good out of th UK for this, but who knows what these crazy christian democrats are up to.

Now before everyone shouts "just encrypt everything", remember as long as internet traffic isn`t signed the only identity traffic might possibly be linked to is some easy to fake billing information though an notoriously unprotected identification mechanisms (IP address, IRC nick, E-mail addres). That is unless you start signing your traffic, traffic data isn`t explicitly protected agianst forgery which is why this billion dollar plan produces stuff that isn`t worth as much in court as some people might imagine. But hey, think of the children, right...

* More correctly: "data collection, rentention and mining at the providers cost" The internet typically doesn`t really have designated traffic data though.

They also never apologized and didn't really care that they are some of the greatest villians in modern history.

Actually Japan has done a number of things , including APOLOGISE for it's actions during World War II as well as paying reparations to countries it tried to colonise, with the exception (as far as I know) of North Korea. They also recently apologised for the 'Comfort Women' aka civilian women forced to be prostitues. At the end of the war, some of the Japanese in charge were also executed (I include this, because I am sick of hearing people saying that the Germans had war crime hearings and the Japanese didn't - the truth is, both did, and those responsible were executed).

Now, before you jump down my throat, there are some things they haven't apologise for and tried to cover over. (just to balance it out) My Great Uncle was a POW at Changi and then later on the Burma Railroad (remember that film "Bridge on the River Kwai" ... well, he was one of the Aussies who help build that railroad). After the war my Great Uncle George was head of the Aussie POW's trying to get an apology from the Japanese Government for their mistreatment of Aussie POW's. That was one thing he couldn't get, because the Japanese Government said that it wasn't covered in thier surrender. Unfortunately George died last July, so he will never get to have that apology.

Also, the Japanese Government recently censored a Manga comic because the Japanese writer refered to the Nanjing Massacre. The Japanese Government still considers this to be fake. Read more here. On top of this, a textbook which glosses over the war has now been approved for Japanese schools. (I can't be bothered looking for a link to this, I think most people may have heard about it).

From the comic book, (and the fact that I know some very well versed Japanese people), most Japanese people want the Japanese Government to apologise for these sorts of things, as they really DO care about what happened. The Average Modern Japanese person is truely ashamed and amazed that their countries forces acted in such dispicable ways. It was actually the Japanese people who got the Japanese Government to admit to the fact that Unit 731 really existed, not outside influence from China or anyone else.

Now, I am assuming that you were speaking out of ignorance with what you said, but to a Japanese who is aware of the facts I mentioned above, (as opposed to an ignorant one), your comments smack or racism. (No, I didn't call you a racist, I think you were speaking from ignorance. Re-read your comments now that you know the facts, and you will see how a person could misinterpret your comments).

I hope you take these comments on board in the spirit of how they are ment, and not as a personal attack.

This link might be of some benefit too.

I probably could have added a lot more too, because I am a little knowledgeable on Japan, knowing the language a bit and being able to read and write it.

I hope this is enough to convince you of the truth about the Japanese apologising and that the Japanese People DO care about, and are repulsed by the inhumane behaviour of the occupational forces during WWII. If you meet Japanese people who don't know much about the Japanese WW2 attrocities committed by their country, it isn't their fault. They, like you, are probably unaware of the facts. With the nature of most modern Japanese being to seek peace, so the acts of thier forces during W

I agree with you. Interesting to see Korean view of the world.

Problem would be Korea doesn't have any evidence to support their logic. Korea seems to want Japan to teach "Japan is/was such a evil" like Korean goverment teachs its own people now. Wow.

About "Sea of Japan" issue, Read about this . this might be interesting, too.

According to this page, the WH visa is for "Citizens of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Korea, France, Germany and the United Kingdom". So it's not just the US that was not included in that program.

Also, if you're a U.S. citizen and you want to go to Japan for sightseeing, shopping, recreation, et cetera, you can just take your passport, get on a plane and go. You'll be given a 90 day temporary visa at customs in Japan. If you want to work in Japan though, you'll need to apply for a working visa.

This "working holiday" thing seems to allow young people with not much money, not enrolled in any school and not having secured a job to come to Japan for up to one year. My guess is that a lot of these people end up working in bars in Roppongi.