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The Biggest Lie of the Greatest Generation
Is That Legal? — ... The article presents important new archival findings about Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), which upheld the constitutionality of a racial curfew imposed on Japanese Americans in World War II. The Court concluded that because of the enormous security threat facing the United States -- a threatened invasion of the West Coast by Japan in the months after the Pearl Harbor attack -- the ordinary constitutional prohibition on "discrimination based on race alone" was not controlling. The Court emphasized the threat of an invasion because that is what the ...

Hirabayashi Hoax:
The Volokh Conspiracy — Was there ever a real threat the Japanese would invade the Pacific coast during World War II? Historians think not, but with the benefit of hindsight. In 1943, however, military attorneys argued otherwise, maintaining the threat was serious and justified a racial curfew on those of Japanese descent (including Japanese Americans). These arguments helped persuade the Supreme Court, which held in Hirahayashi v. United States that the curfew was constitutional given the severity of the threat. But did the military ever really fear a Japanese invasion? A new paper by Eric Muller ...

The Beltway, War and Civil Liberties
TalkLeft — ... In Hirabayashi, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a curfew statute passed by the Congress and administered by the President aimed expressly and solely at Japanese-Americans. It was a triple failure of our government and our people and an everlasting stain on FDR, on the leading Congressmen of the time and on those Justices who voted in the majority in Hirabayashi and Korematsu. Justice Robert Jackson dissented in Korematsu: ...

The Goldsmith Variations
Power Line — ... wiretapping program was not blessed by congressional consultation. Neither rhetoric nor public symbols were invoked to support it. During the war, President Roosevelt did not seem particularly moved by constitutional limits or self-imposed restraint. To take just one example, consider the detention of Japanese American citizens that took place on his order. It took place under the authority of Executive Order 9066 without let or hindrance by the Supreme Court in Hirabayashi and Korematsu . Was this because of Roosevelt">Korematsu . Was this ...