Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Discussion3

Military justification3

Constitutional justification4

Resistance to order 90665

Supreme Court's take on the internment5

Parallels between Japanese Americans and Arab Americans6

Issues related to Arab Americans treatment7

Airport security7

New York City mosque issue7

Conclusion7

References9

Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Introduction

On 19 February, 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the order 9066, which authorized the detainment of Japanese American, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. There was no prominent resistance or revolt against this US government policy, and the Japanese intern were very helpful during the internment. The Supreme Court considered the internment as constitutional when the internment was over. However, it was a violation of their civil rights and liberties. Some people compare it with the situation that Arab-Americans faced after 9/11 attacks.

Discussion

On February 19, 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed the Executive Order 9066 to intern the Japanese Americans during the World War 2. The internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans took place. Two months after the Japanese bombardment at Pearl Harbor, this order allowed Henry Simpson, the secretary of war, to intern the Japanese American into camps (www.umbc.edu).

Military justification

The military officials justify the internment of Japanese-Americans by a number of reasons. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, there was a perception that Japanese people residing in Hawaii are providing intelligence to Japan to plan the attack.

The FBI carried out an investigation to see whether ethnic Japanese signal shore to ship, but could not prove it. They had a hunch that Japanese farmers were burning or planting crops in the fields to make guiding arrows for the attacking aircraft. Military officials felt that these Japanese along the west coast spied on American submarines and ship and provided this information to ethnic Japanese by radio. They felt that because of the Japanese submarines operations near the west coast determined that they knew timing and plans of American ships also the place of submarine that shelled the coast which was on the north of Santa Barbara revealed that they had knowledge of the replacement need of American coastal gun (www.ww2pacific.com).

Another military justification of the internment of Japanese was the knowledge of Nisei. They thought that since Nisei has immense knowledge about Japan, so they were not trustworthy, and Kirbeis were worse, as they had their education in Japan. This is the reason; they interned them and recruited them (www.americanhistory.si.edu).

Constitutional justification

Executive Order 9066 was issued to authorize the internment of all resident aliens. This document was written for the relocation of Japanese decent resident aliens and the Japanese-American citizens. As a matter of fact, two third of these interned Japanese were US citizens. According to the constitution, the right of the writ of Habeas Corpus will not be terminated, except in rebellious cases or actions involving invasion of safety of public (www.ww2pacific.com).

The constitution was not applicable for a certain race, or to recent national ancestry. The people who wrote the constitution claimed that they felt the existence of the government needed to have the power to intern anyone without any process ...