Internment Camps Okay?

Makalakumu

Gonzo Karate Apocalypse
MT Mentor
Joined
Oct 30, 2003
Messages
13,887
Reaction score
232
Location
Hawaii
Yeah, so I heard this on Hannity today. The author of the book "In defense of Internment: The case for racial profiling in World War II and the War on Terror" Michelle Malkin was on. She gave an argument regarding internment in World War II and how it should be REINSTATED in the War on Terror.

So I did a little digging...

upnorthkyosa
 
Federal Camps For You and Your Family: Pr. George's Questions Detention Center Plan
Washington Post

It is not the sort of development that political leaders had in mind when they pledged to improve life in Prince George's County: a federal detention center.

And yet three companies have identified sites in the county and expressed their interest in building and running just such a project for the U.S. Justice Department. One has gone so far as to hire lobbyists to argue its case.

The effort hit a snag this week when congressional negotiators added a provision to a budget bill saying that the Justice Department agency soliciting bidders had no authority to do so. Maryland lawmakers said they hope the move will stall, if not kill, the detention center proposal.

The Federal Detention Trustee Office has been seeking a private company to own and operate a 1,750-bed facility for prisoners awaiting trials, sentencing hearings and proceedings to determine immigration status. The detention center could be located in the District or in one of five Maryland counties: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Howard, Montgomery or Prince George's.

Several companies have expressed interest in the project, including two based in Florida, Wackenhut Corrections Corp. and Correctional Services Corp., and Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America. Three sites have been suggested in Prince George's and one in Baltimore County.

But the request for bids has brought fierce opposition from local and congressional officials. Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) recently wrote a letter to the county's congressional delegation saying he was "absolutely opposed to any federal prison being sited for [Upper Marlboro] or any other part of Prince George's County."

"This facility would affect the quality of life and the public safety of all Prince Georgians," he said, a view echoed in a letter from U.S. Sens. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft.

Opponents aimed to stall the detention center effort with a provision added to the 2004 omnibus appropriations conference report saying the Office of Federal Detention Trustee cannot solicit bids for a center. The report could be approved in the weeks ahead.

According to the report, the Office of Federal Detention Trustee can use only existing state, local and private detention space to meet its needs. If additional space is required, the matter should be handled by the Bureau of Prisons, another arm of the Justice Department. Also, the report calls for setting up a task force to study the matter.

Prince George's Council member Samuel H. Dean (D-Mitchellville) was heartened by the news that the agency may have to hold off on its bidding process. "I'm glad that the feds are taking a stand," Dean said. "I was never enthused about a prison coming to the area. So I'm glad to hear that. I'm looking for different types of employment opportunities for this area."

Since the 1980s, state and federal officials have turned increasingly to companies to build and operate prisons, saying the ventures result in more streamlined operations and savings for taxpayers.

But the privately run prisons have also had their share of problems. Guards at a Louisiana juvenile facility operated by Wackenhut, for example, beat inmates and subjected them to humiliating punishments, a Justice Department report found several years ago.

New York officials slapped a $300,000 fine this year on Correctional Services Corp. for failing to report meals, trips and gifts it had bought for more than a dozen state lawmakers in its quest to renew contracts.

"We are not fond of privately run prisons," said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch. "Liberty should not be put in private hands. It is profoundly troubling to have any part of the criminal justice system in the hands of people whose allegiance is not to the state. I wouldn't want private police or private judges."

Private prison companies said their projects bring jobs to a community as they save money for federal and state governments.

Steve Owen, a spokesman for Corrections Corporation of America, said the Nashville-based company has identified several sites for a federal detention center in the Washington region, although he declined to identify them. Tom Rapone, Correctional Services Corp.'s chief financial officer, said the company has told Justice officials that it would bid to locate the detention center in Dundalk, near Baltimore.

A spokesman for Wackenhut did not return two phone calls seeking comment.

In recent months, Wackenhut officials have turned to well-connected players in the Prince George's political world to help them generate support for their proposal to build the facility at Pennsylvania Avenue and Westphalia Road in Upper Marlboro. Wackenhut would need to win zoning approval from the County Council to build on that site.

The company hired the law firm of O'Malley, Miles, Nylen & Gilmore, a fixture in the county for decades, to represent it in meetings with officials. On the advice of John Davey, the firm's managing partner, the company also hired Charles Dukes, chairman of the Prince George's Economic Development Corp., who headed Johnson's transition committee.

Dukes said he notified Johnson of the proposal, and he and Wackenhut officials also met with council member Dean, whose district includes the Pennsylvania Avenue site.

Dean declined to take a position on the project, saying he would listen to all sides and make public his opinion if the matter comes before the council. Wackenhut officials, he said, sought to sell the project by saying it would create jobs in Prince George's.

But Dean said his constituents have also weighed in, telling him they're opposed. "What the community is looking for is quality economic development, and a prison does not constitute that," he said.

The Little Washington Civic Association in Upper Marlboro hosted a community meeting this month to discuss the project, and more than 200 people showed up anticipating a presentation from Wackenhut officials, said Darryl Harris, the organization's president. But Wackenhut officials did not appear.

Harris said the neighborhood already is home to several landfills. "We have so much. Now you're going to make us take a prison on top of that?" he said.

The prison companies also have expressed interest in sites at Cheltenham, where the state already maintains a juvenile facility, as well as in Brandywine along Route 301.

Jorge Martinez, a Justice Department spokesman, said that the agency is in the early stages of identifying a suitable location and that it would review opposition from political and community leaders. "Those views will be incorporated and taken into account," he said.
 
August 14, 2002
COMMENTARY

Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision
Attorney general shows himself as a menace to liberty.

By JONATHAN TURLEY, Jonathan Turley is a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University.


Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace.

Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties.

The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.

Hamdi has been held without charge even though the facts of his case are virtually identical to those in the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units. Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating Navy brig in Norfolk, Va.

This week, the government refused to comply with a federal judge who ordered that he be given the underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. The Justice Department has insisted that the judge must simply accept its declaration and cannot interfere with the president's absolute authority in "a time of war."

In Padilla's case, Ashcroft initially claimed that the arrest stopped a plan to detonate a radioactive bomb in New York or Washington, D.C. The administration later issued an embarrassing correction that there was no evidence Padilla was on such a mission. What is clear is that Padilla is an American citizen and was arrested in the United States--two facts that should trigger the full application of constitutional rights.

Ashcroft hopes to use his self-made "enemy combatant" stamp for any citizen whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy.

Perhaps because of his discredited claims of preventing radiological terrorism, aides have indicated that a "high-level committee" will recommend which citizens are to be stripped of their constitutional rights and sent to Ashcroft's new camps.

Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to reestablish such camps for citizens. Of course, Ashcroft is not considering camps on the order of the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese American citizens in World War II. But he can be credited only with thinking smaller; we have learned from painful experience that unchecked authority, once tasted, easily becomes insatiable.

We are only now getting a full vision of Ashcroft's America. Some of his predecessors dreamed of creating a great society or a nation unfettered by racism. Ashcroft seems to dream of a country secured from itself, neatly contained and controlled by his judgment of loyalty.

For more than 200 years, security and liberty have been viewed as coexistent values. Ashcroft and his aides appear to view this relationship as lineal, where security must precede liberty.

Since the nation will never be entirely safe from terrorism, liberty has become a mere rhetorical justification for increased security.

Ashcroft is a catalyst for constitutional devolution, encouraging citizens to accept autocratic rule as their only way of avoiding massive terrorist attacks.

His greatest problem has been preserving a level of panic and fear that would induce a free people to surrender the rights so dearly won by their ancestors.

In "A Man for All Seasons," Sir Thomas More was confronted by a young lawyer, Will Roper, who sought his daughter's hand. Roper proclaimed that he would cut down every law in England to get after the devil.

More's response seems almost tailored for Ashcroft: "And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast ... and if you cut them down--and you are just the man to do it--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

Every generation has had Ropers and Ashcrofts who view our laws and traditions as mere obstructions rather than protections in times of peril. But before we allow Ashcroft to denude our own constitutional landscape, we must take a stand and have the courage to say, "Enough."

Every generation has its test of principle in which people of good faith can no longer remain silent in the face of authoritarian ambition. If we cannot join together to fight the abomination of American camps, we have already lost what we are defending.
 
Foundations are in place for martial law in the US
By Ritt Goldstein
July 27 2002
Recent pronouncements from the Bush Administration and national security initiatives put in place in the Reagan era could see internment camps and martial law in the United States.

When president Ronald Reagan was considering invading Nicaragua he issued a series of executive orders that provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with broad powers in the event of a "crisis" such as "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a US military invasion abroad". They were never used.

But with the looming possibility of a US invasion of Iraq, recent pronouncements by President George Bush's domestic security chief, Tom Ridge, and an official with the US Civil Rights Commission should fire concerns that these powers could be employed or a de facto drift into their deployment could occur.

On July 20 the Detroit Free Press ran a story entitled "Arabs in US could be held, official warns". The story referred to a member of the US Civil Rights Commission who foresaw the possibility of internment camps for Arab Americans. FEMA has practised for such an occasion.

FEMA, whose main role is disaster response, is also responsible for handling US domestic unrest.

From 1982-84 Colonel Oliver North assisted FEMA in drafting its civil defence preparations. Details of these plans emerged during the 1987 Iran-Contra scandal.

They included executive orders providing for suspension of the constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA.

A Miami Herald article on July 5, 1987, reported that the former FEMA director Louis Guiffrida's deputy, John Brinkerhoff, handled the martial law portion of the planning. The plan was said to be similar to one Mr Giuffrida had developed earlier to combat "a national uprising by black militants". It provided for the detention "of at least 21million American Negroes"' in "assembly centres or relocation camps".

Today Mr Brinkerhoff is with the highly influential Anser Institute for Homeland Security. Following a request by the Pentagon in January that the US military be allowed the option of deploying troops on American streets, the institute in February published a paper by Mr Brinkerhoff arguing the legality of this.

He alleged that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which has long been accepted as prohibiting such deployments, had simply been misunderstood and misapplied.

The preface to the article also provided the revelation that the national plan he had worked on, under Mr Giuffrida, was "approved by Reagan, and actions were taken to implement it".

By April, the US military had created a Northern Command to aid Homeland defence. Reuters reported that the command is "mainly expected to play a supporting role to local authorities".

However, Mr Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security, has just advocated a review of US law regarding the use of the military for law enforcement duties.

Disturbingly, the full facts and final contents of Mr Reagan's national plan remain uncertain. This is in part because President Bush took the unusual step of sealing the Reagan presidential papers last November. However, many of the key figures of the Reagan era are part of the present administration, including John Poindexter, to whom Oliver North later reported.

At the time of the Reagan initiatives, the then attorney-general, William French Smith, wrote to the national security adviser, Robert McFarlane: "I believe that the role assigned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the revised Executive Order exceeds its proper function as a co-ordinating agency for emergency preparedness ... this department and others have repeatedly raised serious policy and legal objections to an 'emergency czar' role for FEMA."

Criticism of the Bush Administration's response to September11 echoes Mr Smith's warning. On June 7 the former presidential counsel John Dean spoke of America's sliding into a "constitutional dictatorship" and martial law.

Ritt Goldstein is an investigative journalist and a former leader in the movement for US law enforcement accountability. He revealed exclusively in the Herald last week the Bush Administration's plans for a domestic spying system more pervasive than the Stasi network in East Germany.
 
Rights panelist foresees internment push
Arabs tell of abuses
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
Knight Ridder News Service
DETROIT - A member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission said Friday that he could foresee a scenario in which the public would demand internment camps for Arab Americans if Arab terrorists strike again in this country.

If there's a future terrorist attack in America ''and they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights,'' commission member Peter Kirsanow said.

The reason, he said, is that ``the public would be less concerned about any perceived erosion of civil liberties than they are about protecting their own lives.''

Kirsanow, who was appointed to the commission last year by President Bush, said that he personally doesn't support internment camps and the government would never envision setting them up. He said he was merely saying public opinion would so strongly favor the idea that it would be difficult to prevent. There would be a ''groundswell of opinion'' for such detentions, he said.

The remarks came during a raucous commission hearing in Detroit in which Kirsanow and another conservative member, Jennifer Braceras, defended U.S. antiterrorism efforts after Sept. 11.

''They had their own political agenda,'' said Kary Moss, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, referring to Braceras and Kirsanow.

A White House spokesman said Friday night that he could not respond specifically to Kirsanow's comments without seeing a full transcript of them, but said that the possibility of Arab internment camps has never been discussed at the White House.

''The president has said repeatedly and often that this is not a war against Arabs or Islam, this is a war against terror,'' White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said. ``We have very close allies in the Arab world who are integral partners in the war against terrorism. . . . The president has said that ours is a war against evil and extremists and that the teachings of Islam are the teachings of peace and good.''

The seven-member commission, based in Washington, D.C., was in Detroit for its monthly meeting, and heard testimony from Arab-American leaders who said the government abused civil rights following Sept. 11.

''It's becoming really ugly,'' said Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, during his testimony.

Hamad and others expressed concern about mass interviews of Arab men, secret immigration hearings and profiling of drivers and airplane passengers.

Kirsanow argued that Arab and Muslim Americans should accept the country's new antiterrorism laws and complain less about infringements upon their civil rights.

If the United States were to be be attacked again by Arabs, ''not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling,'' Kirsanow asserted.
 
"We stand for the maintainance of private property. We shall protect free enterprise as the most expediant, or rather the sole possible economic order."
Adolph Hilter - quoted in the "Great Quotations" compiled by George Seldes, Pages 318-319.

Anyone else see the parellels?
 
Hello,

Articles you post are solid and while I did not see Fox news with Hannity (sp?), I do know something about Michelle Malkin. I read most of her book (albeit between all else I have been doing) and have perhaps a different take on her commentary on the curent war.

Michelle writes a response to Prof. Muller's critique (http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000360.htm) that states (as I read her book), not as a call to do this again (unless you read into the linear history of the Japanese spy network as detailed in MM's book and tie it into current events - a logical conclusion on your part) but a systematic walktrough of why the FDR admin did this in the first place (esp. the US based MAGIC decrypts).

The Internment camp scares me (as it should all of us) for the innocents that were imprisioned. If (and it's a big if) we had a better immigration and boarder management policy so the bad ones don't sully the folks just looking for a better life. I am sure there is an answer...I do not have it.

Regards - Glenn.
 
That is horrible. Internment camps?!?! I thought we were suppossed to learn from history, rather than repeat our mistakes.

I'm glad you've posted these, upnorth - I hadn't seen this issue until now.
 
No, they're not ok. It was done with:

*The American Indian.
*It was done with the Filipinos when we fought to control them as a territory of the U.S.
*Then you have the Japanese camps as well.
*Funny though, it was never done to German Americans durring W.W.II.
*Of course, it continued with the Cuban boat people.

When is this country gonna learn? If possible subversive outsiders are such a threat, then kick em out, and leave it at that.
 
These internment camps aren't just for Muslims. They are for Terrorists. I think you'd be surprised at who the FBI is labeling these days. This is really scary stuff and, thus far, it has flown under the political radar screen.
 
upnorthkyosa said:
These internment camps aren't just for Muslims. They are for Terrorists. I think you'd be surprised at who the FBI is labeling these days. This is really scary stuff and, thus far, it has flown under the political radar screen.
Can you say "McCarthyism"? KT
 
Dr. Kenpo said:
No, they're not ok. It was done with:

*The American Indian.
*It was done with the Filipinos when we fought to control them as a territory of the U.S.
*Then you have the Japanese camps as well.
*Funny though, it was never done to German Americans durring W.W.II.
*Of course, it continued with the Cuban boat people.

When is this country gonna learn? If possible subversive outsiders are such a threat, then kick em out, and leave it at that.

a glaring omission...

http://scottoline.com/internment.html

pete
 
My father had this quote under glass on his desk. This thread reminded me of it:

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Like Fiesty Mouse said.. we need to learn from our mistakes, not repeat them.
 
upnorthkyosa said:
Yeah, so I heard this on Hannity today. The author of the book "In defense of Internment: The case for racial profiling in World War II and the War on Terror" Michelle Malkin was on. She gave an argument regarding internment in World War II and how it should be REINSTATED in the War on Terror.

So I did a little digging...

upnorthkyosa

Yea, I saw here little B.S. appearance too...that chicks a f**kin idiot. End Arguement....

:supcool:
 
Can I get a vote for anyone without the genetics of American Indian to go to a camp or be deported?

Terrorism only works if you let it. Yes there can a real physical danger from violence, and everyone including the country in particular should do its' best, yet to allow them to scare you, means they win. To have camps means you are afraid and they have won.

Just my opinions
 
The following is a list of executive orders that will take away most of your rights as a citizen.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

The following letter from a congressmen contains the following...

""Enclosed is the information you requested pertaining to the Army's policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations. This information has not yet been published (it is currently at the printers), however, it has been funded, staffed, and does reflect current Army policy."

http://www.greaterthings.com/News/Concentration_Camps/images/congress.jpg

Apparently the camps have already been constructed by FEMA and the REX 84 program. This information corresponds with the above executive orders though. Check it out...

upnorthkyosa
 
My ancestors left Russia because of this. It amazes me that, in a democratic nation, one man can wield such power. I'm way past my civics classes. Can anyone tell me if those executive orders can be vetoed by Congress or the Senate or ANYONE??!! KT
 
This is an interesting thread for sure. In reference to argument about supporting internment camps , even the Supreme Court of the United States said that internment camps were infact Constitutional. There were several cases during World War II, but perhaps the most important was Korumatsu vs. the US (1944).

In that case, the Supreme Court upheld the concept of internment camps ordering Korumatsu to go.
Technically speaking, this case has alot of precedence if this issue was every brought up again...which IMO, it hopefully doesn't.

It should be noted that in 1984 or 1988 (I forget the date) President Reagan made an official apology to all Japanese Americans and their families that were formerly kept in internment camps. I think they were also given $20,000.00 as well.

I also wanted to say that yes, in times of crisis or war, the US government can revoke many of our rights that we take for granted (Habeus Corpus). It has been done many times and even as recently as after September 11. Remember, no one was allowed into Manhattan and especially lower Manhattan. Even the people who lived there couldn't get to their homes. I know it was for their protection, but if you think about it, the internment camps were done for that same reason too.

Chuck
 
kenpo tiger said:
My ancestors left Russia because of this. It amazes me that, in a democratic nation, one man can wield such power. I'm way past my civics classes. Can anyone tell me if those executive orders can be vetoed by Congress or the Senate or ANYONE??!! KT
KT,
As far as I know, executive orders are a power given to the president under the war powers act. Technically, the system of checks and balances does not apply here. The veto power is the presidents power to check the Congress' power. The only way which I could forsee these orders being considered unconstitutional was if they went into effect, a citizen was violating one of the orders and was arrested. Then that case was brought up through the system and reached the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court doesn't even have to take the case but if they did and then say the executive order violated the Constitution, then the law would be take away....still the chances of this happening is very, very unlikely.

Chuck
 
Back
Top