The Standing Committee of China’s National
People’s Congress adopted a
revised
state secrets law on April 29. The changes, which take effect October 1, put
greater onus on media and telecommunications companies to defend state secrets
and cooperate with authorities investigating alleged violations of the legislation.
Chinese commentators point out that while individuals are having to
reveal
more and more about themselves online, an official culture of concealment
allows corruption to flourish unreported.
What constitutes a state secret? That remains ill-defined,
and a major source of CPJ’s concern about the law: It can be used to imprison
journalists and others for publishing information authorities find unwelcome,
whether that information is a matter of national security or not. Obliging information technology companies to
collaborate in this process codifies an existing practice: Yahoo notoriously
helped authorities identify freelancer Shi
Tao as the author of an e-mail detailing propaganda department instructions
to the editor of an overseas Web site in 2004. Officials retroactively
classified the information, leading to Shi’s conviction and 10-year prison
sentence for leaking secrets abroad.
A Chinese researcher for The
New York Times was also ensnared in an abusive state secrets prosecution. The Times’ Andrew Jacobs wrote
last month:
It was only in 2007 that Zhao Yan, a researcher in the
Beijing bureau of The New York Times,
emerged from three years of detention after he was convicted of fraud. The
unrelated accusations that led to his arrest—that he had revealed state
secrets—were based on a Times article that correctly predicted the impending
retirement of a senior Chinese leader. The state secrets charge, which was far
more serious than fraud, eventually was dismissed, but not before the
prosecutors introduced documents that had come from a desk in the Times office—an
indication that we were never really alone.
Even when, as in Zhao’s case, state secrets charges are
dropped or replaced, their inclusion is enough to close
trials to observers, shielding irregular prosecutions from scrutiny.
In China,
journalists are debating this issue of transparency, pointing out that officials
invoke state secrets to deflect questions on a range of issues and inhibit
their ability to report. Many follow the state-run Xinhua
news agency in welcoming restrictions the new version places on the level of
authority required to classify and de-classify information. Others say further reform
is needed to prevent some in power from abusing the law to keep their
entertainment budgets from the public eye:
“‘That contains sensitive information,’ or ‘That’s
classified,’ are simply excuses,” writes the Beijing
News today. “If one can still eat and drink well under the auspices of ‘state
secrets,’ why follow the example of Baimiao?”
Baimiao is a Sichuan
township with finances so transparent they have generated the coinage
“Naked Government.” So far, it looks like a possibly successful experiment in
openness. The state secrets law, by contrast, looks set to perpetuate
administrative cover-ups in the rest of the country.
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I would have to correct you. The State Secret laws are part of a cartel activity link between SOE's and their shared information and centralized single party directors.
Rider I
http://rideriantieconomicwarfare.blogspot.com/
Cartels are illegal I believe whether public or private.