Supreme Court Justice Scalia On US Concentration Camps: "Kidding Yourself If You Don't Think It Will Happen Again."

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Head Researcher, Justin O'Connell]

Have you been one of those people who scoff when somebody mentions to you that the US government is capable of deplorable acts? Does it seem absurd to you when someone mentions that the government could build and use concentration camps against its own citizens? 

Well, it turns out, the joke’s on you. Concentration camps just went mainstream in the US.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told law students in Hawaii that the Supreme Court does not uphold the Constitution, and that they should anticipate the court to issue more rulings along the same lines as those enabling the internment of US citizens not charged with a crime, just like as happened during World War II. Why? To answer this question,  Justice Scalia quotes Marcus Tullius Cicero, who said that “laws are silent in times of war” (inter arma silent leges).

Scalia was asked by one law student about his thoughts on the Korematsu v. United States case. In this case, two men were convicted of refusing to comply with an order to report to a prison camp even though the men had committed no crime. Scalia said the court was wrong, “but you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again.” He went on:

That’s what was going on — the panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot. That’s what happens. It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again, in time of war. It’s no justification, but it is the reality.

Scalia, as the longest-serving Justice on the Supreme Court, effectively told the students that the Supreme Court of the United States does not follow the Constitution in times of war. In the 21st century, with its unending “War On Terror”, this means that, at any time, a similar decree to Executive Order 9066, the executive order which sent thousands of US citizens to concentration camps, could fall from above.

How would internment in the US work today, a time when the US government no longer fights “conventional wars” but the “unconventional” war on terror in which everybody is a potential suspect and all continents potential battlefields?  You’ll notice in the following video that Japanese internment became a necessity not because the US had become a battlefield, but because it had the potential to become one. As we can see from the militarization of local police units, and the continued fusion between the Department of Homeland Security, state and local agencies, anywhere across the US is considered a potential battlefield today.

And, increasingly, it seems everybody is considered a potential terrorist. There are many documents released by government agencies which characterize potential terrorists as individuals displaying a wide-range of perfectly American activities:

-someone who complains about bias

-believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia

-is frustrated with mainstream ideologies

-lack positive identity with country, unit, family, or friends

-is sympathetic to radical groups

-visits extremist websites or blogs

-attends rallies for extremist causes

-associates with known radicals

There have been numerous drills aimed towards native born “terrorists,” like this one in Florida. Another drill in Boston targeted a terrorist cell called “Free America Citizens.”

So, ask yourself, are you a part of the Tea Party? Occupy Wall Street? A Ron Paul Support? An evangelical Christian? Do you retain a modicum of individuality? If so, you’ve been labeled an extremist. Your government wants to lock you up for having an over-active mind. 

Let’s get right down to the heart of darkness. What this means is that, at any moment, men dressed in executioner-black uniforms can bust into our houses, apartments, condos or studios, kidnap us and/or our loved ones, and send us/them to a concentration camp for an undetermined amount of time. Who is to stop them? Two-thirds of the nation live in “Constitution Free Zones.” (I am not even going to cite this one, it should be common knowledge)  So, the Constitution won’t stop this process.

Further, Scalia does not have a problem with internment of innocent US citizens, even though he seems to be the one sounding the alarm. In 2004, he used the above Cicero quote when he slammed a decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld which allowed the detention of an US citizen without charge. He said:

Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it.

“FEMA camps”, as the conspiracy goes, have gone mainstream, and can no longer be considered the paranoid utterances of conspiracy theorists. They’re a probability. Or, in Scalia’s head, they are a guarantee.  We are guaranteed to get locked up. Or, if not us, our children.  To learn more about “FEMA camps,” watch this following video:

A US Army internal document provides some additional insight:

The document makes it clear that it applies “within U.S. territory” and involve, “DOD support to U.S. civil authorities for domestic emergencies, and for designated law enforcement and other activities,” including “man-made disasters, accidents, terrorist attacks and incidents in the U.S. and its territories.”

The manual states, “These operations may be performed as domestic civil support operations,” and adds that “The authority to approve resettlement such operations within U.S. territories,” would require a “special exception” to The Posse Comitatus Act, which can be obtained via “the President invoking his executive authority.” The document also makes reference to identifying detainees using their “social security number.”

Aside from enemy combatants and other classifications of detainees, the manual includes the designation of “civilian internees”; that is, citizens who are detained for, “security reasons, for protection, or because he or she committed an offense against the detaining power.”

Your God-given powers of ratiocination should be informing you one thing: the government of the United States has no problem trampling over your natural rights. It will throw you in a concentration camp. A Supreme Court Justice of the United States just confirmed it. One need to look no further than sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes the indefinite detention of American citizens on US soil without due process, to know the future, in many ways, will likely be a bleak one.

Are faint images of your public education telling you that the Japanese internment camps (which also targeted Germans and Italians) weren’t so bad? If so, a slave mentality is strong in you. I suggest you break your conditioning ASAP. Your life depends on it.  The following poem circulated one Japanese internment camp, where temperatures could fall below 40 degrees fahrenheit:

That Damned Fence

By: Uknown

They’ve sunk the posts deep into the ground

They’ve strung out wires all the way around.

With machine gun nests just over there,

And sentries and soldiers everywhere.

We’re trapped like rats in a wired cage,


To fret and fume with impotent rage;


Yonder whispers the lure of the night,


But that DAMNED FENCE assails our sight.

We seek the softness of the midnight air,


But that DAMNED FENCE in the floodlight glare


Awakens unrest in our nocturnal quest,


And mockingly laughs with vicious jest.

With nowhere to go and nothing to do,


We feel terrible, lonesome, and blue:


That DAMNED FENCE is driving us crazy,


Destroying our youth and making us lazy.

Imprisoned in here for a long, long time,


We know we’re punished–though we’ve committed no crime,


Our thoughts are gloomy and enthusiasm damp,


To be locked up in a concentration camp.

Loyalty we know, and patriotism we feel,


To sacrifice our utmost was our ideal,


To fight for our country, and die, perhaps;


But we’re here because we happen to be Japs.

We all love life, and our country best,


Our misfortune to be here in the west,


To keep us penned behind that DAMNED FENCE,


Is someone’s notion of NATIONAL DEFENCE!

Scalia has created a truly historical event, possibly knowingly: a Supreme Court Justice saying internment will happen again is a big deal. From sea-to-shining-sea, non-conspiratorial minded history buffs (generally, these types prescribe to what’s termed the “coincidental view of history”) are shaking their head and saying, “I sure hope that doesn’t happen.”

These are the ones that will still feel patriotism from behind “that damned fence.” For the rest of us, we still have the luxury of getting out now. Or, accepting your “guaranteed” fate, you can inform yourself and subscribe to the TDV newsletter by clicking here, where you will gain access to TDV Groups and many other resources to help you survive and even prosper in the USSA.