A Japanese Internet activist and academic is challenging a new state secrets law by setting up a website aimed at making it easier for government officials to leak sensitive information to the media without getting caught. The website, unveiled on Friday, uses an open source platform called GlobaLeaks developed by the Europe-based Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, said Masayuki Hatta, an economics lecturer at Surugadai University. "I want to create a secure channel that people can use to transfer information without putting themselves in jeopardy," Hatta told Reuters. "I'm not entirely against the protection of sensitive information, but I also believe the new law has many problems."
He said government officials and others could use the website to transfer documents to journalists who could then retrieve the digital leak with an access key. The state-secrets law drafted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government went into effect last week after year-long protests against it. The law sets prison terms of up to 10 years for public servants or others leaking state secrets, while journalists and others who encourage such leaks could be imprisoned for five years.
Critics say the government has not clarified how the law will be applied and say it will have a chilling effect on those who want to report misdeeds. Reporters Without Borders has called the law "an unprecedented threat to freedom of information". Officials at the Justice Ministry and Cabinet Office said they could not comment on Hatta's project. Hatta, who unveiled the website at Tokyo's Waseda University, hopes to make the whistleblower platform a digital clearinghouse for sensitive information but said it would not publish anyth
Amazon staff at three German warehouses will extend their strike until Christmas Eve to increase pressure on the online retailer in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions, labour union Verdi said on Friday. Verdi also filed a lawsuit against a decision by regional authorities to allow Amazon staff in two German cities to work this Sunday as the mail-order group steps up efforts to deliver orders to customers before the Christmas holiday. Industrial action this week had already been extended until Saturday in four of Amazon's nine distribution centres in Germany and until December 24 at one warehouse. More than 2,400 workers took part in walkouts on Friday, Verdi said.
The union has organised frequent strikes at Amazon in Germany since May 2013 as it seeks to force the retailer to raise pay for warehouse workers in accordance with collective bargaining agreements across Germany's mail order and retail industry. Verdi said that the lawsuit filed against Amazon meant that the authorities' approval of the group putting its employees to work this Sunday was effectively void. "As the Federal Administrative Court only recently stated, work on Sunday has to be reserved for strictly exceptional cases, which we do not see in the case of Amazon," Verdi board member Stefanie Nutzenberger said in an emailed statement.
Amazon, which was not immediately available for comment, has repeatedly rejected the union's demands, saying it regards warehouse staff as logistics workers and that they receive above-average pay by the standards of that industry. The US company employs almost 10,000 regular staff at its warehouses in Germany, its second-biggest market behind the United States, as well as more than 10,000 seasonal workers. It can also draw on 19 other warehouses across Europe. Amazon said on Wednesday that its deliveries had not been delayed by industrial action so far and that it had even extended to midday on December 22 the order deadline for gifts to reach customers in time for December 24 by normal delivery.
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