The Japanese government is considering allowing the peacetime monitoring of private metadata in a way that does not directly identify individuals, in a bid to bolster its pre-emptive cyberattack defenses, government sources said Sunday. Data such as messages themselves, in principle, will not be subject to monitoring, amid concerns that the plans to strengthen surveillance against potential cyberattacks could infringe on privacy, the sources said. Japan’s Constitution forbids the violation of the secrecy of any means of communication. Instead, the government would allow, during normal times, s…