The is the domestic intelligence agency of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is administered by the

Ministry of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

and is tasked with

internal security Internal security is the act of keeping peace within the borders of a sovereign state or other Self-governance, self-governing territories, generally by upholding the national law and defending against internal security threats. This task and rol ...

and espionage against threats to Japanese national security based on the Subversive Activities Prevention Act and the Act Regarding the Control of Organizations Which Committed Indiscriminate Mass Murder.Public Security Investigation Agency.
Retrieved on January 5, 2008.
Retrieved on January 5, 2008. Any investigation conducted by the agency needs to go through the Public Security Examination Commission (PSEC) in order to determine if there is a justification to investigate and clamp down on an organization's activities. As the national agency with the role to collect intelligence information, the PSIA contributes to Japanese government policy by providing relevant organizations with necessary foreign and domestic data (collected through investigations and intelligence activities) on subversive organizations. The PSIA's findings are released publicly through the annually-published Naigai Jousei no Kaiko to Tenbo (Situation in Public Security inside and outside Japan and their prospect) as well as regularly-published Kokusai Terrorism Youran (International Terrorism Report). In recent years, the PSIA is eyed as the basis for the creation of a new foreign intelligence agency.

History

The Public Security Intelligence Agency was established with the enforcement of the Subversive Activities Prevention Law on July 21, 1952. The PSIA took over the role of the SIB, which was established by the Allied Forces during the occupation. Most of the recruits came from the disbanded Tokumu Kikan and led by officials from the pre-occupation Ministry of Justice. Initially focusing on threats from far left groups such as the

Japanese Red Army The was a militant communist organization active from 1971 to 2001. It was designated a terrorist organization by Japan and the United States. The JRA was founded by Fusako Shigenobu and Tsuyoshi Okudaira in February 1971, and was most acti ...

during the days of the Cold War, it began to conduct intelligence work on the

Aum Shinrikyo , better known by their former name , is a Japanese new religions, Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been respo ...

after the

Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway The was a chemical domestic terrorist attack perpetrated on 20 March 1995, in Tokyo, Japan, by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released sarin on three lines of the Tokyo Metro (then ''Teito Rapi ...

in 1995, with criticism that the PSIA did not monitor the group, especially with their attempt to acquire and stockpile biological weapons on Japanese soil.Japan's Growing Intelligence Capabilities, Andrew Oros.
Retrieved on June 9, 2008. The PSIA had cooperated with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau in investigating

for a number of years. When asked about their investigation on the cult, a PSIA report had said "There has been no change in its dangerous nature. Strict surveillance is essential." The PSIA had investigated

when it was revealed that the group had established software firms that could pose security risks to Japan.

Chongryon The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan,
" ''

has been under PSIA surveillance for a long time, suspecting it of supposedly performing espionage activities in

ese soil. The

has sought ¥270 million to fund the PSIA on conducting intelligence against

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...

n espionage activities. Its facilities were also raided by the PSIA while sentencing for its leaders were underway in 2004. The PSIA had been supposed to be integrated with Naicho in order to reorient the agency to a post–

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

and to enhance its resources in the 1990s, but the proposal was not adopted. An investigation into French

Al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

terrorist Lionel Dumont had been the responsibility of the PSIA in 2004 based on rumors that he was supposed to establish a Japanese Al-Qaeda cell. The PSIA raided the headquarters of Fumihiro Joyu's Hikari no Wa on May 10, 2007. Despite insistence from Joyu that his group had ended ties with

, PSIA officials have warned that his group has ties to Shoko Asahara after conducting raids. In the wake of Kim Jong-il's death in 2011, the PSIA reported that they are undertaking intelligence work on North Korea by conducting intelligence work towards Chongryon, as they had remitted money and gifts to North Korea before sanctions were imposed. In 2015, the PSIA offered university students a one-day immersion to work alongside veteran PSIA officers. On July 14, 2016, the PSIA sent officers to Sapporo to investigate Aleph's Shiroshi Ward facility under the Act on the Control of Organizations Which Have Committed Acts of Indiscriminate Mass Murder. In January 2017, Okinawa press reported that the PSIA has conducted investigation into pro-Okinawan independence and anti-USFJ bases activist groups for potential links to China. In December 2019, an anti-Aum Shinrikyo video was created by the agency in order to raise public awareness that the group is still a threat to public safety. On April 9, 2023, the PSIA launched a division dedicated to economic security and protect sensitive technology from being taken out of Japanese soil. Investigation offices for economic security and cybersecurity under its second investigation department were established in April 2022. On April 21, 2023, Hideji Suzuki, the former director of a Japan-China youth exchange association, suggested that the PSIA has a pro-Chinese mole that was behind his arrest in China for allegations of spying. MSS agents showed him photos that were likely taken from PSIA IDs.

Operations

While the PSIA is known to conduct its operations on domestic soil, there are suggestions that they have conducted limited operations overseas. In the 2000s, the PSIA was reported to have conducted undercover operations at the Chinese-North Korean border by distributing flyers to locals in obtaining information regarding Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea. In 2003, it was reported that the PSIA had a mole inside Aum Shinrikyo by the name of Kazumi Kitagawa, who joined the cult after the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo Metro; she later tried to seek asylum in North Korea. She revealed to Aum about her work in the PSIA and her plans to cut ties with them after she accused a PSIA officer of raping her. From 2005 to 2016, reports of Japanese nationals being arrested throughout China for taking photos of sensitive installations or conducting illegal activities under cover of legal occupations suggests that the PSIA has recruited expats working/living in China to conduct limited HUMINT ops. These allegations have never been officially confirmed. According to a National Police Agency official, the PSIA has done a bad job in China if reports do prove that the expats arrested were covertly recruited by the agency.

Organization

The PSIA is formed with the current organization: * Internal Departments ** General Affairs Department *** Trial Office *** Planning and Coordination Office *** Information Management Office *** Public Relations and Communications Office *** Human Resources Section *** Work Promotion Office ** First Intelligence Department (domestic intelligence, headed by career police officer) *** Section 1 (domestic security issues - Citizen group/s investigation, electoral information) *** Section 2 ( Kakurōkyō/

Revolutionary Communist League, National Committee is a Japanese far-left revolutionary group, often referred to as Chūkaku-ha (, "Central Core Faction") in Japanese. Their main goal is to have Japan, and the entire world, adopt communist policies. Chūkaku-ha rejects imperialism and Stalinism ...

investigation) *** Third Division (Japanese Communist Party investigation) *** Fourth Division ( right wing group/s investigation) *** Fifth Division (other domestic pro-left group/s investigations such as Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Revolutionary Marxist Faction)) *** Aum Special Research Office ** Second Intelligence Department (foreign intelligence, headed by career/non-career person) *** Section 1 (Japanese Red Army and international terrorism investigation) *** Section 2 (foreign intelligence investigation, including liaising with foreign agents stationed in Japan) *** Third Division (North Korean investigation) *** Fourth Division (China/Southeast Asia/Russia/Europe/United States investigation) * Institute ** Training Institute (located in Akishima) * Regional Bureaus ** Hokkaido (Hokkaido Bureau), Miyagi (Tohoku Bureau), Tokyo (Kanto Bureau), Aichi (Chubu Bureau), Osaka (Kinki Bureau), Hiroshima (Chugoku Bureau), Kagawa (Shikoku Bureau) and Fukuoka (Kyushu Bureau) *** Public Security Intelligence Offices (Hokkaido, Iwate, Niigata, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Nagano, Ishikawa, Kyoto, Hyogo, Okayama, Kumamoto and Okinawa.)

Foreign ties

The PSIA has ties to several foreign intelligence security agencies, including the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...

, RAW and

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

, with several PSIA agents being invited to train with the CIA under its Intelligence Analysis Course. In October 2018, Chen Wenqiang, head of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, visited the PSIA in order to collaborate on antiterrorism activities prior to the

2020 Tokyo Olympics The officially the and officially branded as were an international multi-sport event that was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo ...

Known Directors-General of PSIA

* Shigetake Ogata – 1993 to 1997, head of Harvest investment groupChongryun HQ sold to ex-intelligence head , The Japan Times
/ref>Chongryun Tokyo HQ sale seems set to fail , The Japan Times
/ref> * Toshiro Yanagi – 2006 to 2009

Criticism

The PSIA has faced criticism in the past for being ineffective, in part because it has little ability to act without approval from the PSEC, an ''ad hoc'' body that meets only when required. According to Philip H.J. Davies and Kristian Gustafson, the PSIA operates similarly to the British security agency

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

since officers have no rights to arrest anyone during a law enforcement operation nor force anyone to be involved in an investigation. The criticism was especially made after public discovery that the agency did not move against Aum Shinrikyo. Due to the strict legal framework surrounding the agency it had not been given permission to monitor the organization directly until 2000, despite having requested permission from the PSEC in 1996.

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

Official Website

* {{Authority control Government agencies established in 1952 1952 establishments in Japan Japanese intelligence agencies Domestic intelligence agencies Chiyoda, Tokyo