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-- 1950 - FBI had plan to suspend Habeas Corpus and arrest 12,000 Americans

1950 - FBI had plan to suspend Habeas Corpus and arrest 12,000 Americans

The greatest danger to our republic is not foreign enemies, not osama bin laden, or other foreign enemies. Our greatest enemy is unconstitutional oversized government.

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Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950 By TIM WEINER Published: December 23, 2007 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�namo 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�namo 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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/w...n/23habeas.html

i'm not at all advocating Hoover's idea, but if you are so quick to pull out the Constitutuional argument how do you reconcile the words of our Founding Fathers: habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.� with the idea that our greatest enemy could come from within?

EDIT> or what i should say is, how do you even begin to pull the Constitutional argument as a reaction to this? it's absurd if you really consider yourself an originalist.

Our greatest enemy is over-sized government? That's seriously what you took away from that article?

all i see is government working as it should- ie the FBI can desire to do whatever they want, but they are still held in check by the executive.

call me crazy, but i am much more concerned with plans that are actually executed.

i also find arguments that refer to the "founding fathers" to be inherently crap. i mean, i know you're all brought up to revere them and all, but australians would be hard pressed to name our first prime minister, and yet our democracy is still superior to yours.

the problem with the whole "founding fathers" reference is that they might have been awesome men for their day, but they werent fucking seers. why we need to refer to them several hundred years later is a little beyond me. ive read but i certainly dont quote plato.

there's nothing wrong with paying homage to your heritage, but your constitution was written eons ago, and referring to it when you need to decide what is wrong or right is pretty problematic imo. the UK and australia do not have a constitution in the same vein as the US one, and i think both countries are profoundly better off because of it.

let the shitfight begin!!

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Originally posted by Q5echo i'm not at all advocating Hoover's idea, but if you are so quick to pull out the Constitutuional argument how do you reconcile the words of our Founding Fathers: habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.� with the idea that our greatest enemy could come from within?

I don't see any invasion of rebellion in America today, yet Bush has already suspended habeas corpus for all Americans. If the government deems your actions or ideas "subversive", you can be pulled off the street, stripped of your rights, and held without representation indefinitely. The last time habeas corpus was suspended was during the U.S. Civil War...which was the ultimate definition of "rebellion".

The fact that this has happened today should concern every citizen, especially so-called "conservatives"...who used to be wary of giving government this type of power.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/right...abeuscorpus.htm

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Originally posted by Capitalizt I don't see any invasion of rebellion in America today, yet Bush has already suspended habeas corpus for all Americans. If the government deems your actions or ideas "subversive", you can be pulled off the street, stripped of your rights, and held without representation indefinitely. The last time habeas corpus was suspended was during the U.S. Civil War...which was the ultimate definition of "rebellion". The fact that this has happened today should concern every citizen, especially so-called "conservatives"...who used to be wary of giving government this type of power. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/right...abeuscorpus.htm

wow, About.com really got you scared. thats the problem with the internets i guess

where do i begin. a lawyer obviously didn't write that About.com set of answers because a lawyer instinctively knows there aren't 350,000,000 sets of handcuffs to "suspended habeas corpus for all Americans". see a lawyer would know that what the MCA really intended was for "suspension of habeas corpus" only applicable to AN (singular) American if deemed an "unlawful enemy combatant". mind you, we're talking about American citizens now, not foreigners, not residents, no one but American citizens.

now if you want to discuss the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" during the GWOT thats fine but evidence would still would need to be presented to an independent judiciary regarding American defendants described as "unlawful enemy combatants"

i realize it's easy to fantasize about some Orwellian environment with guys in black suits and dark sunglasses picking up your crazy Uncle Rufus for making illegal fireworks in his barn and him never being seen again, but the reality is that for any American citizen to be picked up by the Feds and tried for anything in any court requires some thorough coordination by many independent agencies.

thank God for an independent judiciary because i guarantee you that no court in the land would uphold the suspension of Habeas rights of an American citizen on a whim for longer than the time it would take process for arraignment and set bail.

and to say that Bush by his lonesome suspended Habeas Corpus is kind of a misnomer because the Habeas clause appears in Art.1 of the Constitution meaning that it really belongs to the Congress.

Q5, my point is..as unlikely as it is that any American will be picked up on a whim and held without trial, the fact that the government CAN do this and LEGALLY should be a great concern to you. Congress passed the law and the President signed it. So for all intents and purposes, habeas corpus is dead. The Supreme Court has not accepted any cases challenging the military commissions act, so it remains the law of the land.

A few years ago, I couldn't imagine agreeing with this guy, but he is dead right on the issue:

and here was i thinking insulting the US constitution would give me a battle

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN and here was i thinking insulting the US constitution would give me a battle

It's got some fight left in it yet!!

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i also find arguments that refer to the "founding fathers" to be inherently crap.

These are usually brought up in disputes over how to interpret the U.S. Constitution. I don't see a problem with using historical context -- what the writers and ratifiers of the Constitution said and did -- to figure out how to read an old document. That's just good interpretive practice...

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN all i see is government working as it should- ie the FBI can desire to do whatever they want, but they are still held in check by the executive. call me crazy, but i am much more concerned with plans that are actually executed.

You're crazy .

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Originally posted by Q5echo wow, About.com really got you scared. thats the problem with the internets i guess where do i begin. a lawyer obviously didn't write that About.com set of answers because a lawyer instinctively knows there aren't 350,000,000 sets of handcuffs to "suspended habeas corpus for all Americans". see a lawyer would know that what the MCA really intended was for "suspension of habeas corpus" only applicable to AN (singular) American if deemed an "unlawful enemy combatant". mind you, we're talking about American citizens now, not foreigners, not residents, no one but American citizens. now if you want to discuss the definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" during the GWOT thats fine but evidence would still would need to be presented to an independent judiciary regarding American defendants described as "unlawful enemy combatants" i realize it's easy to fantasize about some Orwellian environment with guys in black suits and dark sunglasses picking up your crazy Uncle Rufus for making illegal fireworks in his barn and him never being seen again, but the reality is that for any American citizen to be picked up by the Feds and tried for anything in any court requires some thorough coordination by many independent agencies. thank God for an independent judiciary because i guarantee you that no court in the land would uphold the suspension of Habeas rights of an American citizen on a whim for longer than the time it would take process for arraignment and set bail. and to say that Bush by his lonesome suspended Habeas Corpus is kind of a misnomer because the Habeas clause appears in Art.1 of the Constitution meaning that it really belongs to the Congress.

That's total bullshit.

quote:

Chapter 47A�Military commission: Subchapter I--General provisions: Sec. 948a. Definitions "The term `unlawful enemy combatant' means � `(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al-Qaida, or associated forces); or `(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense."

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Originally posted by Q5echo i'm not at all advocating Hoover's idea, but if you are so quick to pull out the Constitutuional argument how do you reconcile the words of our Founding Fathers: habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.� with the idea that our greatest enemy could come from within? EDIT> or what i should say is, how do you even begin to pull the Constitutional argument as a reaction to this? it's absurd if you really consider yourself an originalist.

Um, because suspending Habeas Corpus in a time of neither rebellion or invasion is an OBVIOUS violation of the constitution; the law of the land. Would you like me to argue out of my ass??

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Our greatest enemy is over-sized government? That's seriously what you took away from that article?

Uh, YA...

What was our republic founded for? To escape and provide safe haven from big government...

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i also find arguments that refer to the "founding fathers" to be inherently crap. i mean, i know you're all brought up to revere them and all, but australians would be hard pressed to name our first prime minister, and yet our democracy is still superior to yours. the problem with the whole "founding fathers" reference is that they might have been awesome men for their day, but they werent fucking seers. why we need to refer to them several hundred years later is a little beyond me. ive read but i certainly dont quote plato. there's nothing wrong with paying homage to your heritage, but your constitution was written eons ago, and referring to it when you need to decide what is wrong or right is pretty problematic imo. the UK and australia do not have a constitution in the same vein as the US one, and i think both countries are profoundly better off because of it. let the shitfight begin!!

Um, our constitution was basically the first of its kind anywhere in the world, and from it came a great majority of other nation's own constitutions. It works. And when we have some legal problem, and we have to refer to the constitution, we can get so much more clarification of what the founders meant when they wrote the document. Why just read the document, but have no context to its words?

Why refer to it? Well, I guess I'm say what I said to q5echo... Do you want me to argue out of my ass ??

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Originally posted by Krypton Uh, YA... What was our republic founded for? To escape and provide safe haven from big government...

I have no idea where you get that stuff from.

First of all, as pertains to the article, do you really think the desire of J. Edgar Hoover to take away rights of habeas corpus under the Cold War is a product of big government? Or is it the product of a man who had monopolized control over a federal agency wanting to enact security measures that went against American principles of liberty and freedom (who, by the way, was unsuccessful)? I fail to see the "dangers of big government" inherent in this article. The suspension of habeas corpus has nothing to do with whether government is big or small, centralized or decentralized. The American government under Lincoln was decidedly smaller, and yet it was suspended then. Was that, too, a product of "big" government? I think you are looking to ascribe whatever you can to the same boogeyman.

And second, the purpose of the republic was not for small government, as you suggest. In fact, Alexander Hamilton (remember him? he wrote half of the Federalist Papers which are where we get our interpretation of the founding fathers' intent regarding the Constitution) labored extensively for a strong federal government headed by a king. Strong, big, centralized government. That was a serious debate that the founding fathers had, so to argue that we declared our independence to set up a small central government from the outset just displays a real unfamiliarity with the founding fathers and their writings.

Third, it really scares me that the people who go on and on about the Constitution and the Founding Fathers know virtually nothing about the debates that they had to produce that document. If you don't know the context, how can you blindly support the principles embodied in the Constitution or the Federalist Papers? If I knew you, I would get you this for Christmas:



And ask specifically that you read the papers written by Alexander Hamilton, including Federalist 84, where Hamilton argues against the Bill of Rights are completely unnecessary. I can't recall which paper argues for the expansion of federal power, but that's in there as well. If you're going to make a Constitutionalist argument, it is ridiculous if you aren't intimately familiar with those documents, which are readily available to anybody at their local Barnes and Noble.

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Originally posted by Lesbianosaur I have no idea where you get that stuff from. First of all, as pertains to the article, do you really think the desire of J. Edgar Hoover to take away rights of habeas corpus under the Cold War is a product of big government? Or is it the product of a man who had monopolized control over a federal agency wanting to enact security measures that went against American principles of liberty and freedom (who, by the way, was unsuccessful)? I fail to see the "dangers of big government" inherent in this article. The suspension of habeas corpus has nothing to do with whether government is big or small, centralized or decentralized. The American government under Lincoln was decidedly smaller, and yet it was suspended then. Was that, too, a product of "big" government? I think you are looking to ascribe whatever you can to the same boogeyman. And second, the purpose of the republic was not for small government, as you suggest. In fact, Alexander Hamilton (remember him? he wrote half of the Federalist Papers which are where we get our interpretation of the founding fathers' intent regarding the Constitution) labored extensively for a strong federal government headed by a king. Strong, big, centralized government. That was a serious debate that the founding fathers had, so to argue that we declared our independence to set up a small central government from the outset just displays a real unfamiliarity with the founding fathers and their writings. Third, it really scares me that the people who go on and on about the Constitution and the Founding Fathers know virtually nothing about the debates that they had to produce that document. If you don't know the context, how can you blindly support the principles embodied in the Constitution or the Federalist Papers? If I knew you, I would get you this for Christmas: And ask specifically that you read the papers written by Alexander Hamilton, including Federalist 84, where Hamilton argues against the Bill of Rights are completely unnecessary. I can't recall which paper argues for the expansion of federal power, but that's in there as well. If you're going to make a Constitutionalist argument, it is ridiculous if you aren't intimately familiar with those documents, which are readily available to anybody at their local Barnes and Noble.

The big government that comes from excessive taxes and a lack of civil rights. A country such as the US requires a large government, but we need to set limits. Those limits are within the constitution, which is why I go to it every time I encounter something such as the unjustified suspension of Habeas Corpus, or a plan to do so.

I never said our republic was found to start a small government. I said, it was to escape from big government, i.e. excessive king's taxes, lack of civil rights, religious rights, etc.

I know enough about the founding father's philosophy to cite them in debate, but I'll keep an eye out for the book...

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Originally posted by Krypton I know enough about the founding father's philosophy to cite them in debate, but I'll keep an eye out for the book...

The other thing is that the founding fathers were hardly a uniform voting block. They argued about the nature and role of government just as much or more than we do today. It really bothers me when people refer to their whims and desires as if they are one somehow holy viewpoint.

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