February 19, 1942: A Day that Will Live in Infamy

Two days ago was the 70th anniversary of President Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the internment in "War Relocation Camps" (aka concentration camps) of some 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast.

Two years later the U.S. Supreme Court, in Korematsu v. United States, upheld the order, 6-3. In the majority were the noted civil libertarians and FDR appointees Hugo Black, who wrote the opinion, William O. Douglas, and Felix Frankfurter. The other three were also appointed by Roosevelt. Dissenting were Owen J. Roberts (Hoover appointee), Robert Jackson (FDR appointee), and Frank Murphy (FDR appointee).

Any resemblance to the National Defense Authorization Act’s provision for indefinite detention without due process, signed recently by President Obama, is strictly ominous.

HT: Sandy Ikeda