Meanwhile, the "Law for Protecting State Secrets" has been drafted for controlling information relevant to national security and interests. According to this law, state secrets are categorized into "top secrets," "classified information," and "confidential information;" and their secrecy may not be protected for more than 30, 20, and 10 years, respectively. This draft law also provides that, if necessary, the protection may be extended two times. In other words, even "top secrets" have to be declassified after 90 years. If this law is passed, the public can access classified documents about the "February 28 Incident" [taking place in Taiwan in the late 1930's, during which many local Taiwanese were killed by the military] and the White Terror [during which many intellectuals were incarcerated by the Chiang Kai-shek government as communist sympathizers].
This draft law also provides that lawmakers shall be denied of information, either in written or oral form, if the information they need involves state secrets that have not been declassified; but that lawmakers may peruse the documents, or have oral answers, at secret or closed-door meetings. Separate measures will be drawn up for guarding against leakage of state secrets by lawmakers.
After the two draft laws were adopted, Premier Hsiao Wan-chang [Vincent Siew] indicated that the purpose of drawing up the "Law for Government Information Accessibility" is to create a system whereby the public can access and utilize government information so that they will have a clearer understanding of government affairs. He said this law is the basic one of the series of "sunlight laws" [yang guang fa an], with which the public can supervise the government through exercising their "right to know." He said this law, as well as the "Law of Administrative Procedures" passed at a previous Executive Yuan session, are two laws that oblige the government to make its administrative affairs visible to the public. The premier added that the "Law for Protecting State Secrets" is drawn up to control classified information that must be treated separately. He said all these laws are essential and their passage will have far-reaching significance. The "Draft Law for Government Information Accessibility" obliges the government to take the initiative of publicizing government information relevant to the people's rights and interests. However, if the information falls into the category of state secrets, or if their declassification can endanger national security and economic interests; obstruct the investigation, prosecution, and trial of criminal cases and the execution of verdicts; or can put people's lives, property, and freedom in jeopardy, then they will be classified.
"State secrets" are now protected by an administrative decree of the Executive Yuan, the "Measures for Protecting State Secrets," which will be upgraded to become a national law. Since the "Draft Law for Protecting State Secrets" provides that state secrets shall be "kept to the minimum," people can expect that "classified information" will not be as prevalent and ubiquitous as it is today.
State secrets are categorized as "confidential information" if their leakage can result in "damage" of national security or interests. They are categorized as "classified information" if their leakage can result in "serious damage" of national security and interests. And they are categorized as "top secrets" if their leakage can result in "particularly serious damage" of national security and interest. These secrets may be protected for 10, 20, and 30 years, respectively. The protection may be extended two times. For example, "top secrets" can be protected for 30 years, but they may not be protected for more than 90 years even if their protection has been extended two times, or 60 years. For the sake of protecting classified documents, documents of "top secrets" may not be duplicated when they are protected.