In Japan, recent scandals have highlighted severe problems related to government opacity, including tampering of official records about the discounted sale of land to a nationalist school and Defense Ministry officials' lies related to the dispatch of Self Defense Forces to South Sudan. Transparency and accountability are at the heart of any healthy, well-functioning democracy and although the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) might not be perfect, when it is functioning well, it allows the public access to government documents. As such, it functions as one of the pillars of American democracy - however its usage is often overlooked by academics, researchers and journalists writing about Japan and, in particular, Okinawa.