[JohnGalt]

One additional note, the ACLU sided with FDR on the internment issue as well.

[CounterCounterCulture]

Really? Oh my!

[CounterCounterCulture]

Interesting how the ACLU takes credit for defending the Japanese-Americans in some of the links I've seen, but found contrarian sources to their charges...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also failed to mount a campaign against the evacuation. The membership of the ACLU was deeply divided over the question of whether it was desirable to bring any test cases. 28 Those who were against challenging the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066 were apparently concerned about undermining Roosevelt's authority. In the end, the ACLU board instructed then Executive Director Roger Baldwin to inform West Coast affiliates that "local committees are not free to sponsor cases in which the position is taken that the government has no constitutional right to remove citizens from military areas." 29 The ACLU authorized only constitutional challenges to General DeWitt's orders based on racial grounds. If lawyers refused to comply with the policy, they would have to withdraw as ACLU counsel. Peter Irons emphasizes that "none of the lawyers who represented the Japanese Americans had the backing of the national ACLU." 30 He explains the ACLU failure to protect the rights of Japanese Americans by suggesting that it had more pressing agenda items, it wanted to support the war efforts against Nazism and Fascism, and it was based in New York, far from Japanese Americans on the west coast.

http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/hrq/17.4renteln.html

---

Panel moderator ACLU-(Northern California) Executive Director Dorothy Ehrlich acknowledged the late Ernest Besig, former ACLU-NC director, who represented Fred Korematsu, over the objection of the national ACLU, and challenged the exclusion and internment of Japanese Americans all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. She explained that racial justice continues to be a priority for the ACLU and, citing Wen Ho Lee, commented about the poisonous mixture of racial profiling and national security. Just as during World War II, Ehrlich noted, people are currently branded as disloyal or subversive if they don't agree that national security interests trump civil liberties.

http://www.aclunc.org/aclunews/news42000/internment.html