The Transportation Ministry said Saturday that the controller, who works at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, could face charges of leaking national secrets. Japanese officials appeared embarrassed by the breach, which also included the flight data of an American military reconnaissance drone.
Tokyo is apparently worried that the episode could raise new doubts in Washington about Japan’s ability to handle delicate information, after a scandal four years ago over the leak of American naval radar secrets. The newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda may personally apologize to President Obama for the breach during a meeting this month in New York.
Japan Investigates Online Posting of Obama Flight Plans by Martin Fackler of the NY Times.
The plans were originally posted online in November 2010. The only reason the government knows about the posting is because of an anonymous tip. It sure makes you wonder what the poster did - did he piss someone off? did he wrinkle the wrong shirt? - to cause someone to alert officials about his illegal post ten months after the fact.
