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Japanese Military Shamed by Portable Storage: Page 2 of 3

The drive was then lent to a sergeant who left it on his desk, from where it was reportedly stolen and then dumped by a GSDF captain.

Japan’s defense minister Shigeru Ishiba today explained his department’s decision not to disclose the theft until now.

“We feared that the information could further spread if some people search for it [on the Internet],” he told a press conference, according to Mainichi Shimbun.

The theft and the preceding comedy of errors nonetheless puts Japan under more pressure to lock down its military data, something which was recently highlighted by Thomas Schieffer, the American ambassador to Japan.

”Both Japan and the United States can reduce their defense costs by reducing the impediments that currently keep them from cooperating more,” he said, during an address to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. “The United States could do more if Japan increased its ability to protect classified material and proprietary information.”