2. The US Government began monitoring and surveillance of the Japanese well before Pearl Harbor
In 1936 President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the United States Navy, through the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), to begin surveillance of the Japanese in Hawaii. The ONI began monitoring their communities, newspapers and magazines printed in their language, and infiltrating political and social meetings and activities. ONI was tasked with identifying Japanese-American leaders and influential businessmen who would be interned in the event of “trouble” between the Empire of Japan and the United States. At the time, the main American battle fleet was stationed on the West Coast of the United States at anchorages at San Pedro and San Diego, California. ONI expanded their activities to Japanese communities along the West Coast and in 1939 was joined by the US Army’s Military Intelligence Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The surveillance of the Japanese and the resulting information led the US government to create a Custodial Detention Index, which was a list of “subversives” classifying them into three categories. Maintained by the FBI, it was built using often illegal means, including the use of wiretaps, the interception of personal mail, and other covert means without the use of court ordered warrants. The CDI also included those suspected of pro-Fascist, Nazi, and Communist activities. Individuals were place on the list on suspicion alone, verification was not necessary, and they remained on the list for the duration of their natural life. At the same time, two independent investigations commissioned by President Roosevelt reported that Japanese-American loyalty, or rather disloyalty, was not an issue. One investigator, Curtis Munson, informed the president an, “extraordinary degree of loyalty among this generally suspect ethnic group” in reference to Japanese-American loyalty to the United States.