[11334] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Government Database Access Now Issue in Japan (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James Love)
Wed May 28 20:02:25 1997
Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 17:41:47 -0500
From: James Love <love@cptech.org>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 05:34:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kazuaki Okabe <kokabe@igc.apc.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <japan-us-foi@essential.org>
Subject: Government Database Access Now Issue in Japan
"Why do we have to pay 450,000yen ($4,000) for a directory of high
ranking government officials?" the argument started. Someone in the
mailing list found the outrageous price for a CD-ROM containing
addresses and phone numbers of officials in national, prefectural, and
local governments in Japan. It is published by not a private company,
but Ministry of Finance's Government Printing Office.
"Outrageous!" "Unbelievable!" others shouted. Some others introduced
that a CD-ROM of more than 50 volumes of United States Code is only
$37. Some say, "taxpayers are ripped of by our government!" Other
proposes, "we should let the U.S. government produce our government's
CD-ROMs."
These are some of the discussions going on in the recently established
Environmental Policy Change Mailing Lists (e-forum). Created by a
militant think-tank researcher Teiichi Aoyama, the Lists organizes
powerful discussion and communication among civic activists,
environmental consultants, researchers, journalists, and concerned
government officials.
While the main focus is on environmental issues, another strong focus
is access to the government information, which is crucial for any
serious discussion of public participation in government processes.
In the discussion lists, we found:
1) Many of the government's white paper CD-ROMs are 10,000yen ($83) each.
2) A CD-ROM for securities and company reports filed with Ministry of
Finance is whopping 776,699yen ($6,500). (In Japan where there is no
independent Security Exchange Commission, security and company reports
are submitted to the Finance Ministry. In the U.S. such data is
provided for free over the Internet from EDGAR database.)
3) Subscription to satellite weather information is 1,000,000yen/month
($8,300) for binary data and 20,000yen/month ($167) for text data. The
original source of its information is the government's Meteorological
Agency but distributed by private agency Kishocho Shien Center.
4) The text of all Japanese laws costs 100,000yen ($830) in magnetic
tape, more if you use it for home page or printed form. The equivalent
U.S. Code is free on the Internet and $37 in CD-ROM format.
5) The Database for Congressional minutes (equivalent of U.S.'s
Congressional Record) is only available to government agencies, not
even to Congressional representatives.
When James Love of Nader group Consumer Project on Technology came to
Japan last summer to share his experiences of government databases
access campaign in the United States, the response of the Japanese
audience was more or less "the Japanese government uses only paper."
Many of us thought the government database issue is far away in the
future. We heard Love's message as preparation for the future.
But now we found out that the issue is right here now. The issue did
not exist last year because very few know the government had databases.
Recently Mr. Haga of Shintoku, Hokkaido, joined the Lists. He
successfully made his town council put its meeting minutes on the
town's home page. This is the first case of online public access to any
legislative record in Japan.
People in the Lists are planning to have an open forum with government
officials to discuss public access to the legislative record.
In order to join the e-forum lists, send email to Aoyama at:
t-aoyama@bbs.bekkoame.or.jp
You and your computer have to read two-bytes code Japanese characters.
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Aki Okabe
4640 California St., San Francisco, CA94118, USA
Phone: 415-387-6253, Fax: 415-379-9815
Internet: kokabe@igc.apc.org
ZZS64943@biglobe.ne.jp (Japanese characters acceptable)
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