By Victoria Hagerott
Many comparisons can be made between the United States’ reactions to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Throughout history, the United States has continually violated civil liberty in the name of national security. Understanding how the United States may react to future threats is crucial to protecting civil rights.
Pearl Harbor started the United States’ involvement in the most significant and deadliest war in history.[1] In 1939, the Nazi invasion of Poland sparked the Second World War, which eventually involved thirty countries.[2] The United States remained neutral during the first two years of the war and eventually entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.[3] Three days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States government rounded up more than 1,500 Japanese men it deemed “especially dangerous.”[4] These men, all of whom were illegal immigrants, were held by the justice department for a period of months to years before being released.[5] Two months later, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the Secretary of War authority to designate zones “from which any and all [Japanese] persons may be excluded” and report to “temporary” detention centers known as assembly centers.[6] Ten hastily constructed assembly centers in California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Arkansas housed over 110,000 Japanese Americans.[7] The order also authorized the War Department to provide “transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations” to those affected by the order.[8] Congress passed the first Civilian Exclusion Order about a month after Executive Order 9066.[9] Congress passed a total of 108 Civilian Exclusion Orders, which required anyone of Japanese descent who resided in specific geographical locations to report to incarceration camps.[10] By the late summer and fall of 1942, the government moved these “temporary” detention centers further inland to indefinite incarceration centers or internment camps.[11]
In 1943, the government started the process of releasing internees from the camps.[12] Once granted “leave clearance,” internees could not return to their homes or anywhere on the West Coast but were allowed to live further inland, acquire paid work, and communicate with no one of Japanese ancestry.[13] To secure release, people had to pass a test confirming their loyalty to the United States.[14] The test consisted of twenty-eight questions, many of which concerned test-takers about the possibility of a future draft.[15] For example, question twenty-seven asked if the test taker would serve in combat duty whenever ordered. Question twenty-eight asked if the taker would declare loyalty to the United States and renounce any allegiance to the Emperor of Japan.[16] Pearl Harbor and the ensuing internment camps are the clearest and most recent analog to the attacks on 9/11.[17] Before 9/11, Pearl Harbor had been the deadliest attack on American soil.[18]
The United States and the Middle East had been in conflict long before 9/11.[19] In 1993, Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the attacks on 9/11, tried to collapse the Twin Towers in New York by placing a bomb underneath the World Trade Center.[20] The attack on the Twin Towers failed, but the attack killed six Americans and a thousand more were injured.[21] In 1996, Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, declared a religiously sanctioned war against the United States.[22] In 1998, Al-Qaeda bombed the United States embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.[23] The simultaneous attacks killed more than two hundred Americans and wounded over four thousand people.[24] In 2000, a small boat filled with explosives detonated next to the Navy ship, U.S.S. Cole, killing seventeen Navy sailors and injuring forty crew members.[25] Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda believed that attacking America’s symbols of power was the most effective way to topple American influence in the Middle East.[26] September 11, 2001, was a series of four airplane hijackings led by Al-Qaeda, which killed nearly 3,000 people.[27]
Like Pearl Harbor, 9/11 was considered an act of war against the United States.[28] The immediate response to 9/11 was to begin a “Global War on Terror.”[29] Almost immediately after the attacks on September 11, the United States government detained hundreds of South Asians and Muslims as “persons of interest.”[30] These persons were held in detention centers for months or years without legal representation.[31] Those immediately detained after the attacks were never charged in connection with the hijackings. [32]
On the first anniversary of 9/11, Congress implemented the National Security Entry/Exit Registration System.[33] Male citizens, sixteen years of age or older, who fell within the nationalities of one of four groups were required to report to federal authorities for Call-In Special Registration.[34] The four groups required to report for registration consisted of predominantly Islamic countries – apart from North Korea.[35] Men who identified with one of the groups were to be fingerprinted, photographed, and required to answer questions under oath without a lawyer present.[36] Questions included knowledge or membership in terrorist groups or if they wanted to file for asylum.[37] Additionally, after 9/11, President George W. Bush authorized the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which included forms of torture such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation.[38]
The war in the Middle East continued into the Biden administration and concluded when President Biden announced a complete withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021.[39] President Biden explained that the reasons for which the United States was present in Afghanistan had become blurry and unknown in the years since 9/11.[40]
As discussed, Pearl Harbor, WWII, and 9/11 have many similarities. In both situations, legislators reacted with fear. After events like 9/11, following an experiential mode of rational decision-making, the brain will look for an event that sparked a similar emotional response. In this case, the closest analog to 9/11 is Pearl Harbor.[41] The experiential mode of rational decision-making states that the brain will react similarly.[42] However, this is not what happened. Since the experiential and analytical parts of the brain work together, there was a different outcome for 9/11.[43] Analytical decision-making operates on rationality.[44] After WWII, the government determined that it was not a rational response to place all Japanese Americans into internment camps.[45] The government apologized for its reactions to Pearl Harbor and the internment camps, further emphasizing this conclusion.[46] With 9/11, the brain determined it was not rational to put all Muslim Americans into internment camps. With both the experiential and analytic parts of the brain operating together, legislators came up with what they believed to be a more rational solution to their fear, which was the Special Registration program.[47]
The United States has habitually repressed civil rights in the name of national security. Often, people see civil liberties and national security at odds with each other, with people having to give up their rights if they want any form of protection.[48] Fear causes government agencies to create litigation that violates civil rights. Fear also causes citizens to believe that these violations are an acceptable and rational way to deal with threats to national security. Some would say that the United States acted more rationally after 9/11 than they did after Pearl Harbor and during World War Two. As time advances and the possibility of attacks on the United States remains a threat, the literature suggests that the United States will react the same. Threats to the United States led to civil rights infractions. Hopefully, civil rights infractions will become less severe with each threat, and the United States can get to the point where violating one’s civil rights is not their first line of defense against attacks.
[1] History, https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[2] Id.
[3] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-united-states-isolation-intervention (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[4] Eric L. Muller, Inference or Impact – Racial Profiling and the Internment’s True Legacy, 1 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 103, 109 (2003).
[5] Id.
[6] Robert Aitken & Marilyn Aitken, Japanese American Internment, 37 Litig. 59, 60 (2011) (discussing Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Internment); National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[7] Muller, supra note 4 at 110.
[8] Id.
[9] Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.fdrlibrary.org/executive-order-9066#:~:text=Executive%20Order%209066%20was%20signed,Americans%20during%20World%20War%20II (last visited Dec. 1, 2023); Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Civilian_exclusion_orders (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[10] Densho Encyclopedia, supra note 9.
[11] Muller, supra note 4 at 110.
[12] Id. at 113.
[13] Id. at 114.
[14] Id.
[15] Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Loyalty_questionnaire/ (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[16] Id.
[17] Muller, supra note 4 at 124.
[18] University of Virginia Miller Center, https://millercenter.org/remembering-september-11/september-11-terrorist-attacks (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[19] Id.
[20] FBI Famous Cases and Criminals, https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/osama-bin-laden (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[21] Id.
[22] United States Department of State Fact Sheet, https://1997-2001.state.gov/www/regions/sa/bin_laden_charges.html (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[23] FBI Famous Cases and Criminals, supra note 20.
[24] Id.
[25] Id.
[26] 9/11 Memorial and Museum, https://www.911memorial.org/911-faqs (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[27] History, https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/9-11-attacks (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[28] Id.
[29] Id.
[30] Donna Lieberman, Infringement on Civil Liberties after 9/11, 56 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 1121, 1123 (2011).
[31] Id.
[32] Id.
[33] N.Y. Advisory Comm. to the U.S. Comm’n on Civil Rights (2004).
[34] Id.
[35] Id.
[36] Id.
[37] Id.
[38] Larry D. Miller, Torture and the Human Mind, 47 The US Army War Coll. Quarterly: Parameters, 113, 113–115 (2017) (discussing President Bush’s enhanced interrogation techniques).
[39] U.S. Department of Defense, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2573268/biden-announces-full-us-troop-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-by-sept-11/ (last visited Dec. 1, 2023).
[40] Id.
[41] Paul Slovic, What’s Fear Got to Do with It – It’s Affect We Need to Worry About, 69 MO. L. R.E.V. 971, 973 (2004)
[42] Id.
[43] Slovic, supra note 41 at 975.
[44] Id. at 973
[45] National Archives, supra note 6.
[46] Id.
[47] Slovic, supra note 41 at 975.
[48] Morgan Schofer, Human Rights and National Security, Post 9/11, 26 Sec. & Hum. Rts. 294, 302 (2015).