Big brother is listening, at least many governments of the world do and they are part of a global surveillance initiative claiming to combat terrorism. Your cell phones, internet logs, even your smart microwave and TV will if connected to the internet likely send information about you, and sometimes listen using the embedded microphone in them.

This is the harsh post 9/11 world that we live in and is George Orwell’s nightmare as the dystopian society in 1984 was once seen as impossible, is now more than reality. In 2015, UN’s privacy chief Joseph Cannataci described surveillance in the UK as:

While there are many initiatives to try to eliminate such privacy invasive surveillance tactics, tools of this kind are too good for the government bodies of the world to simply abandon.

Japan has been part of this program however a new bill changes what can be done with this information. This bill is known as the anti-conspiracy bill and with this bill passed, prosecutors will be permitted to spy on people and even arrest them for the mere thought of committing a crime.

There are 277 possible crimes that people can be prosecuted for from copyright violations (presumably discussing or liking anime streaming sites) to terrorism plotting. Criticism leads to believe that people liking posts on social media such as Twitter or Facebook may even get indicted for these crimes even though they could be jokes (inside or not).

Further criticisms also believe that this is yet another means to control citizens to obey the government and to detain those whom do not as Koichi Nakano, a political professor at University of Tokyo believes.
This bill was introduced and passed as a means to counter terrorism, however with over 277 crimes listed, many of which are irrelevant to terrorism, it makes perfect sense why there’s such as strong opposition. The United Nations is also concerned with this bill.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is receiving a tremendous amount of opposition for this bill, and due to his policies which do not reflect post-war Japan, his approval ratings generally linger around 50%, although approval ratings are merely assumptions and these numbers change greatly depending on which news network you listen to.
Do you agree or disagree with Abe’s decision? Tell us why in the comments below!

Sources: Bloomberg

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