Your Own Argument

During the Second World War, the United States was with Japan which ultimately made Germany and the axis powers to declare on the United States. The war with Japan caused the United States to become paranoid of sensitive information being in the hands of the enemy causing the President to give executive permission to the military to do what was necessary to prevent espionage and sabotage. Although the war was also with Germany, Italy and their allies, only hand full of Germans was being watched by the FBI which later was trialed and allowed to defend themselves. In the Japanese-American case, all American citizens with Japanese ancestry had to be evacuated from the west coast into internment camps without trial. “There was no evidence of disloyalty to the U.S. by the Japanese-Americans. Seditious Japanese – as well as Germans and Italians, were already known to the FBI. Questionable Germans were permitted to defend themselves and prove their loyalties, although several thousand were also incarcerated like the Japanese-Americans. The 112,000 Japanese-Americans, however, never had an opportunity to defend themselves; their property was confiscated and apologies and restitution only came in the 1980s under the presidency of Ronald Reagan.”( http://modern-us-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/japaneseamerican_internment_in_1942)

It wasn’t until 1983 when the conviction of Korematsu was on trial with Judge Marilyn H. Patel overturned his conviction which later in 1988 that federal law provided conpensation and apologies to the Japanese-American that been relocated. ”In light of that information, Judge Marilyn H. Patel of Federal District Court in San Francisco overturned Mr. Korematsu's conviction in November 1983. In 1988, federal law provided for payments and apologies to Japanese-Americans relocated in World War II.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/national/01korematsu.html)

Even after the turnover of his conviction, Korematsu still advocate civil rights even to those who are citizen of the United States and even challenged President Bush on his prison camps. “Indeed, the Korematsu case was cited as recently as April 2004. At issue before the Supreme Court was whether U.S. courts could review challenges to the incarceration of mostly Afghan prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Korematsu, then 84, filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying, "The extreme nature of the government's position is all too familiar." (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002226476_webkorematsuobit31.html)