Overview
- The National Intelligence Bureau formally began operations on Friday with Kazuya Hara appointed as its director and about 700–730 staff transferred from the previous Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office.
- The bureau will serve as the secretariat to the newly formed National Security Council and has legal authority to require the National Police Agency, the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry and other bodies to hand over intelligence.
- The National Security Council is convening to begin Japan’s first national intelligence strategy and the government plans to set up an expert panel this autumn to draft counterespionage bills for submission to the 2027 regular Diet session.
- Opposition lawmakers, rights groups and protesters have voiced concerns about weak independent oversight, risks to privacy and the bureau’s political neutrality as the LDP advances measures such as foreign-agent registration and expanded communications powers.
- Japan’s move responds to long-running gaps in foreign intelligence and the absence of an anti-espionage law that experts say left the country vulnerable, and Tokyo has sought technical advice from allies even as the reforms promise both tighter security and new civil liberties trade-offs.