Well, actually, there were Japanese spies on the West Coast who were keeping track of our US military ship and plane movements around West Coast military bases, and they were reporting the information to Japan by short wave radio and special codes. There was a famous interview with one of the former spies in Esquire magazine back in the ‘60s.
Unfortunately, the internment project did turn out to be a “land grab”, which I think was wrong.
This time, the very nature of the enemy is that they have infiltrated this country and pass themselves off as law-abiding, quiet immigrants.
Some of the Japs did the same thing in the US in the early 1940s. They did the same thing in Hawaii and the Panama Canal Zone.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., has bravely proposed that we take the aggressive step of asking aliens in the country to register periodically with the government so we know where they are.
I remember public service announcements on TV back in the ‘60s that reminded legal aliens they had to report in (I think at a local post office where they lived) to account for themselves. I think that was required every 6 months.
Yes, my mother's mentioned this to me. Often. She went to the local post office once with a Egyptian friend here on a diplomatic passport.