Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau

Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau
警視庁公安部
Keishichō-kōanbu
Agency overview
Jurisdiction Government of Japan
Headquarters Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan
Employees 2,000 officers
Minister responsible
Parent agency Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department building

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau (警視庁公安部, Keishichō-kōanbu) is a bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in charge of public security with jurisdiction over the Tokyo metropolis. It has a force of more than 2,000 officers.

In the Japanese police organization, only the Metropolitan Police Department becomes "the bureau" where the security police branch becomes independent. In other prefectural police forces, the Public Security Section and Foreign Affairs Division are installed in a Security Department. Tokyo is seen as an exception since it had been working with the Japanese National Police Agency for the longest time since they share the same location.[1]

The PSB is not the Japanese equivalent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, despite some claims that it is.[2] It does not concern with ordinary criminal activities. The main focus of the PSB are activities which threaten national security and therefore, the purpose is much similar to Special Branches of British and Commonwealth police forces.

History

In 2014, a report was made thanks to a leak that PSB officers were conducting covert surveillance activities on Muslims residents living in the Greater Tokyo Area.[3]

PSB cases

  • The PSB had been mobilized to investigate all Aum Shinrikyo facilities after the deadly sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.[4] Following the discovery of an Aum cultist who had been employed by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force after sensitive military information had been leaked out, the PSB had investigated the matter.[5] The PSB had been the leading agency to investigate reports that Aum Shinrikyo had acquired names of 3,000 Honda executives and sensitive data from government ministries and other important facilities via Aum-created software.[6][7]
  • An ex-Japanese Air Self-Defense Forces warrant officer had been investigated by the PSB for divulging military secrets under the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement to a Russian GRU operative, who was identified as Aleksei Shchelkonogov.[8]
  • Three activists of the Tachikawa Jieitai Kanshi Tentomura had been said to be prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International when they had arrested by police with the PSB investigating them for conducting anti-war activities after illegally entering an SDF housing complex in Tachikawa.[9]
  • PSB agents had been involved in the arrest of former Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office official Toshihiko Shimizu, accused of providing classified data to a Russian embassy official, supposedly posing as a diplomat,[10][11] under the National Public Service Law.[11]
  • The PSB had failed in securing a Russian man wanted for spying in Japanese territory as a suspected agent of the SVR since the 1960s when he left Japan in 1995 and reentered the country several times before being unaccounted for when the spy used a Japanese name to obtain a Japanese passport in Vienna.[12]

Scandal

After a discovery of sophisticated radios by police during a raid on a JRCL Revolutionary Marxist Faction safehouse on April 10, 1998, PSB officials had reorganized their communications network to better safeguard it against unwanted intrusions.[2][13]

Organization

Department Mandate
General Administration Anti-minor groups such as religious cults, anti-war/globalization groups, Japanese Communist Party and Social movements
First Public Security Division[14] Anti-left wing terrorist investigation[14]
Second Public Security Division Anti-left wing radical investigation, usually in labor cases
Third Public Security Division Anti-right wing radical investigation
Fourth Public Security Division Data management
First Foreign Affairs Division Anti-Russian/Eastern Europe/Communist Bloc espionage and Counter-intelligence
Second Foreign Affairs Division Anti-Chinese/North Korean espionage and counter-intelligence
Third Foreign Affairs Division[15] Anti-Middle East espionage and Counter-terrorism[15]
Public Security Mobile Investigation Unit Investigates places that are under PSB's jurisdiction including criminal/espionage/terrorist cases. Also has a NBC Terrorist Investigation Unit

Known heads of PSB

References

  1. ↑ "Japanese Police". Archived from the original on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  2. 1 2 Steve Macko. "JAPANESE POLICE STILL HAVE TROUBLE WITH LEFTIST RADICALS". Archived from the original on January 11, 2008. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  3. ↑ https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CERD/Shared%20Documents/JPN/INT_CERD_NGO_JPN_17783_E.pdf
  4. ↑ "Day of Judgement". Yomiuri Shimbun. 2004-02-19. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  5. ↑ "Aum Shinri-kyo Updates (CESNUR) - April 10-17, 2000". CESNUR.
  6. ↑ "Aum computer firm got list of 3,000 Honda execs". The Japan Times. 2000-03-03. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  7. ↑ "Sumitomo Bank, Hosei University on Aum-related PC firms' client list". The Japan Times. 2000-03-12. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  8. ↑ "Suspected Russian spy sought by MPD". The Japan Times. 2002-03-23. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  9. ↑ Hiroshi Matsubara (2004-05-13). "Activists claim political oppression". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  10. ↑ "Papers sent to prosecutor on Japanese intelligence official, Russian 'spy' over information leak". 2008-01-27. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  11. 1 2 "Official probed over leak to Russian agent". The Japan Times. 2008-01-17. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  12. ↑ "LEAD: Police send papers on man alleged to have spied for Russia for 30 yrs+date=2009-06-24". Associated Press.
  13. ↑ "Raid on leftist lair yields police radio recordings". The Japan Times. 1998-04-10. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  14. 1 2 "Security Bureau". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  15. 1 2 "To Protect Peace and Freedom of [the] Democracy, For Foreign People/Security". Japanese National Police Agency. Archived from the original on 2011-03-02. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
  16. ↑ "Prosecutors drop NPA shooting case". The Japan Times. 2004-07-29. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  17. ↑ "Security Bureau chief to head MPD". The Japan Times. 2004-01-17. Retrieved 2009-06-24.

Bibliography

  • Katzenstein, Peter J. (2008). Rethinking Japanese Security: Internal and External Dimensions. Routledge.
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