When did the secrecy legislation begin?

Secrecy legislation began in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The earliest secrecy legislation in China began in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty. The original documents are collected in Tianfu, the earliest central archives institution in China history, and kept by the historian. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, a metal sealed box was also used to collect some of the most important and confidential documents.

Due to the special background and cultural tradition, the logical order of information legislation in China is: secrecy legislation comes first, and public legislation comes last. The Secrecy Law was adopted by the Third Session of the Seventh the NPC Standing Committee as early as1September 5, 1988, and has been implemented since May 1980.

China successfully enacted the legislation of government information disclosure less than 20 years after the promulgation and implementation of the Secrecy Law, which is a gratifying historical progress compared with the interval of 60 years, 70 years or even hundreds of years in old capitalist countries such as Australia and Britain. People in the Western Zhou Dynasty are mainly divided into three categories: slave owners, nobles, freemen and slaves. Their status is different, and their capacity for civil rights and behavior is also different.

The secrecy system of official documents in past dynasties involves many fields:

1, that is, document printing system is used in document production. Bamboo slips before Wei and Jin Dynasties were composed of several pieces of bamboo slips or wood chips, which were connected by ropes. The cover is called "check". A piece of sticky mud was pasted on the knot of "inspection", and a seal was pasted on the sticky mud to show the seal. Thick mud becomes hard when it dries. This printing method is called "mud sealing" or "mud sealing".

Sealed documents are called "jade seals". If there is no such seal, the official document will not take effect. It ensures the validity and confidentiality of official documents and can prevent them from being forged, tampered with or leaked.

This is a necessary security measure in document transmission. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, an important measure was taken to ensure the safety and confidentiality of confidential documents: all official documents transmitted by the upper and lower government offices must be stamped with official seals, while paper official documents after the Jin Dynasty were sealed with special covers, and seals or names were affixed at both ends of the covers to prevent the official documents from leaking.