The threat to public safety posed by rising rates of organized crime requires new tools and techniques in the hands of the police. On that there is scant disagreement, except possibly among lawbreakers and potential lawbreakers themselves. It is not so clear, however, that the answer to growing public concern over serious crime in this country lies in giving the police the legal authority to engage in wiretapping of private telephone and electronic communications, even with the revisions that were finally made in the package of bills passed by a Lower House committee on Friday. The package is expected to be cleared by the entire Lower House this week.

Legitimate fears exist over the potential for abuse contained in this aid to crime-fighting. The concerns are by no means entirely eased by the agreement of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Liberal Party to proposals by New Komeito to limit to four the number of criminal offenses in which wiretapping can be used: drug trafficking, crimes involving guns, premeditated murder and the mass smuggling of illegal immigrants into Japan. Originally, such other crimes as arson and kidnapping for ransom were also included. Once agreement was reached at least among those three parties, the bills were assured of passage, since together the parties hold a combined majority in both houses of the Diet.

However, the vociferous dissatisfaction over the content of the bills expressed by leaders of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, together with the Social Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party, is not just opposition for the sake of opposition, which those parties are sometimes justifiably charged with. Awareness of prewar and wartime abuses against individual privacy and the secrecy of personal communications remains strong among knowledgeable members of the public. Indeed, a wiretapping consultant and a former senior official of a hearing-aid manufacturer said separately last week they have reason to believe that some members of the police have been engaged in wiretapping for years.