12/22/07 "New York Times" A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.
Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.
Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage." The F.B.I would "apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous" to national security, Hoover's proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under "a master warrant attached to a list of names" provided by the bureau.
The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. "The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven per cent are citizens of the United States," he wrote.
"In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus," it said.
Habeas corpus, the right to seek relief from illegal detention, has been a fundamental principle of law for seven centuries. The Bush administration's decision to hold suspects for years at Guant\ufffdnamo Bay, Cuba, has made habeas corpus a contentious issue for Congress and the Supreme Court today.
The Constitution says habeas corpus shall not be suspended "unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it." The plan proposed by Hoover, the head of the F.B.I. from 1924 to 1972, stretched that clause to include "threatened invasion" or "attack upon United States troops in legally occupied territory."
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush issued an order that effectively allowed the United States to hold suspects indefinitely without a hearing, a lawyer, or formal charges. In September 2006, Congress passed a law suspending habeas corpus for anyone deemed an "unlawful enemy combatant."
But the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the right of American citizens to seek a writ of habeas corpus. This month the court heard arguments on whether about 300 foreigners held at Guant\ufffdnamo Bay had the same rights. It is expected to rule by next summer.
Hoover's plan was declassified Friday as part of a collection of cold-war documents concerning intelligence issues from 1950 to 1955. The collection makes up a new volume of "The Foreign Relations of the United States," a series that by law has been published continuously by the State Department since the Civil War.
Hoover's plan called for "the permanent detention" of the roughly 12,000 suspects at military bases as well as in federal prisons. The F.B.I., he said, had found that the arrests it proposed in New York and California would cause the prisons there to overflow.
So the bureau had arranged for "detention in military facilities of the individuals apprehended" in those states, he wrote.
The prisoners eventually would have had a right to a hearing under the Hoover plan. The hearing board would have been a panel made up of one judge and two citizens. But the hearings "will not be bound by the rules of evidence," his letter noted.
The only modern precedent for Hoover's plan was the Palmer Raids of 1920, named after the attorney general at the time. The raids, executed in large part by Hoover's intelligence division, swept up thousands of people suspected of being communists and radicals.
Previously declassified documents show that the F.B.I.'s "security index" of suspect Americans predated the cold war. In March 1946, Hoover sought the authority to detain Americans "who might be dangerous" if the United States went to war. In August 1948, Attorney General Tom Clark gave the F.B.I. the power to make a master list of such people.
Hoover's July 1950 letter was addressed to Sidney W. Souers, who had served as the first director of central intelligence and was then a special national-security assistant to Truman. The plan also was sent to the executive secretary of the National Security Council, whose members were the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state and the military chiefs.
In September 1950, Congress passed and the president signed a law authorizing the detention of "dangerous radicals" if the president declared a national emergency. Truman did declare such an emergency in December 1950, after China entered the Korean War. But no known evidence suggests he or any other president approved any part of Hoover's proposal.
That's mind-blowing stuff. Until lately I would never have imagined freedom in the US hanging by such a thin thread.
Mimus
2007-12-25 01:00:42 EST
On Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:58:13 -0700, timeOday wrote:
> That's mind-blowing stuff. Until lately I would never have imagined > freedom in the US hanging by such a thin thread.
Go back and read about the Palmer Raids, and the Wobblies.
--
Nothing so illuminates the end as the means.
And the means is frequently the real end.
Don Ocean
2007-12-25 10:13:50 EST
timeOday wrote: > That's mind-blowing stuff. Until lately I would never have imagined > freedom in the US hanging by such a thin thread.
Actually that was a war time protocol set up by the Roosevelt administration. Hooover was under wartime orders to do so. You do remember all the Japanese/Americans that were Interned and many German/Americans also. Some Italian/Americans also. You do of course remember that 1950 was still under the Roosevelt staff led by President Harry S Truman. Why do y0u folks only select a small piece of history out of context. It was unconstitutional during WWII as it was when Abraham Lincoln ordered it during the civil war... Which was also an illegal war. You also remember that the Truman administration gave the UN power over our constitution and all rights could be thus suspended. But President Eisenhower on receipt of Office immediately declared a national emergency that set aside that agreement as long as there was a national emergency. This also empowered the presidents executive order to almost Kingly status. That Emergency has been maintained by every president since.. Of course Klinton made overtures to rescind that..But was shouted down. But the executive order has been terribly misused by at least the last three presidents. In peacetime that order is only for administrative uses.
Citizen Jimserac
2007-12-25 10:43:14 EST
On Dec 24, 12:22=A0am, "John" <JohnDs...@nmail.comx> wrote:
It is LONG OVERDUE that we REMOVE J. Edgar HOOVER's name from the FBI Building and start publishing the truth about this pseudo patriotic TOTALITARIAN bastard.
In addition to his other hare brained schemes, Hoover approved snooping on numerous entertainment stars, ruining the lives of some of them in the process.
And, as a final note to the ineptitude and stupidity of both the Hoover FBI AND the State Department, in the period immediately prior to and after Dec. 7, 1941, the FBI CONTINUED TO HARASS and advise potential employers from hiring one Mr. Herbert O. Yardley, a highly qualified expert code breaker and cryptographer WHO HAD BROKEN THE JAPANESE NAVAL CODE in the 1920's.
The wrath of the State Dept. fell on Mr. Yardley for publishing, in the early 1930's the popular book "The American Black Chamber" about his code breaking exploits during the First World War. But he was only publishing books because he and his entire staff were disbanded by a Secretary of State to whom Yardley had apparently not shown proper deference.
They made CERTAIN that Mr. Yardley never got another government cryptography position again - DESPITE PERL HARBOR and all that followed. A man eminently qualified to break Japanese codes. Not even a junior position. An example of petty spitefulness and stupidity that may well have cost nearly 4,000 people their lives.
Citizen Jimserac
Don Ocean
2007-12-25 11:18:52 EST
What is interesting is that this post was from a place in Florida that the Jews/Communists cluster: Which makes it just another antiAmerican SOB.
Comrad Jimserac wrote: > On Dec 24, 12:22 am, "John" <JohnDs...@nmail.comx> wrote: > > > It is LONG OVERDUE that we REMOVE J. Edgar HOOVER's name from > the FBI Building and start publishing the truth about this pseudo > patriotic > TOTALITARIAN bastard.
Sounds like you Communists didn't liek being outed? ;-p
> > In addition to his other hare brained schemes, Hoover approved > snooping on numerous entertainment stars, ruining the lives of some of > them > in the process.
More proven communists.. Cry baby, cry..
> > And, as a final note to the ineptitude and stupidity of both the > Hoover FBI > AND the State Department, in the period immediately prior to and > after Dec. 7, 1941, the FBI CONTINUED TO HARASS and advise > potential employers from hiring one Mr. Herbert O. Yardley, > a highly qualified expert code breaker > and cryptographer WHO HAD BROKEN THE JAPANESE > NAVAL CODE in the 1920's.
Thats a crock of bullshit.. He was a spy.. He profited by selling secrets.
> > The wrath of the State Dept. fell on Mr. Yardley for publishing, in > the > early 1930's the popular book "The American Black Chamber" about his > code > breaking exploits during the First World War. But he was only > publishing
He wasn't even an American, you idiot! Wild Bill Donovan wanted him Dead! Roosevelt nixed that.. Where the Hell do Idiots like you come form?
> books because he and his entire staff were disbanded by a Secretary > of State to whom Yardley had apparently not shown proper deference.
I told you he was in the secrets selling business.
> > They made CERTAIN that Mr. Yardley never got another government > cryptography position again - DESPITE PERL HARBOR and all that > followed. A man eminently qualified to > break Japanese codes.
Like we needed that.. We had all the code breakers we wanted and we sure as hell didn't need someone who was going to tell the Japs we had broken their coedes.. That SOB should have been shot in the first place. ;-p
Not even a junior position. > An example of petty spitefulness and stupidity that > may well have cost nearly 4,000 people their lives. > > Comrad Jimserac >
Mimus
2007-12-25 14:29:34 EST
On Tue, 25 Dec 2007 09:13:50 -0600, Don Ocean wrote:
> It was > unconstitutional during WWII as it was when Abraham Lincoln ordered it > during the civil war...
A common and easily-disproven falsehood in the latter part, and why that falsehood is so widely promulgated I've never been able to understand:
If you would take the time to read the US Constitution, which is widely available and very short, you would read that the President can suspend habeas corpus in time of invasion or insurrection (_not_ just war), which latter one would have to be a total idiot and/or liar to deny the Rebellion was.
--
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.
< Frederick Douglass
Don Ocean
2007-12-25 20:18:06 EST
mimus wrote: > On Tue, 25 Dec 2007 09:13:50 -0600, Don Ocean wrote: > >> It was >> unconstitutional during WWII as it was when Abraham Lincoln ordered it >> during the civil war...
Wrong! You cannot have a war then without the consent of all states! WWI was also illegal as 3 states refused to allow any of its citizens to be sent to Europe as part of the Rainbow coalition. Senators were at one time not elected, but appointed by the Governor of the state to represent that state and its popularly elected Governor. Which would in this day and age preempt corrupt bribery by AIPAC etc.
> > A common and easily-disproven falsehood in the latter part, and why that > falsehood is so widely promulgated I've never been able to understand:
Apparently your not much of a scholar.. The History of the world is the history of its wars.
> > If you would take the time to read the US Constitution,
Read it? I have memorized it.. I have an $80 replica of it hanging over my desk.. Purchased many years ago from Walter Knott himself at Freedom Hall in Buena Park California.
which is widely > available and very short, you would read that the President can suspend > habeas corpus in time of invasion or insurrection (_not_ just war), which > latter one would have to be a total idiot and/or liar to deny the > Rebellion was.
What a gullible fool you are.. Secession from the Union was an absolute state right. Fort Sumter was within a state and the Federal troops were ordered to leave. They did not.. Thus the firing on Fort Sumter. The civil war was once again a power play by the Aristocracy of America to maintain their hold on the industrial and agricultural riches of this Country. It was also illegal to draft people into the military.. Lincoln did just that. At no time...Due to the balance of powers is the President free to run amok.. We have Congress, the Senate and the Judiciary along with the Supreme court to curb foolhardy actions. The President can be also sued by its citizens... That is if they don't hang him first. I recommend the reading of the Federalist papers..Available on net... And the full bill of rights.. Also available on net and The Scottish Rite sells an excellent book containing the Bill of rights.. So you can have it right by your computer at all times. ;-) >