Citizens are often required to give up certain civil liberties in times of war in the name of national security. The debate between balancing the demands of fighting a war and protecting civil liberties was apparent in early 1942, when thousands of Japanese, many of them American citizens, were sent to concentration camps and kept there for the duration of the war. In 1944, the Supreme Court held this action to be constitutional within “the war power of Congress and the Executive.” In an eloquent dissent, Justice Robert H. Jackson agreed that it would be “dangerous idealism” to hold every war command to a test of constitutionality. However, he also argued that declaring the internment of Japanese-Americans constitutional simply because it was necessary to the war effort was "a far more subtle blow to liberty than the promulgation of the order itself.” What do many decades of experience tell us about what we should do in this post–September 11 era to balance the needs of war/national security with the demands of civil liberties? Where is the balance between the Court’s majority and Justice Jackson’s dissent?

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In February 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which authorized the Secretary of War to declare certain areas within the United States as military zones and to restrict acce... View the full answer