FBI's Cold War Arrest Plan Revealed

(AP)  Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a plan to suspend the rules against illegal detention and arrest up to 12,000 Americans he suspected of being disloyal, according to a newly declassified document.

Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, less than two weeks after the Korean War began. But there is no evidence to suggest that President Harry S. Truman or any subsequent president approved any part of Hoover's proposal to house suspect Americans in military and federal prisons.

Hoover had wanted Truman to declare the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage," The New York Times reported Saturday in a story posted on its Web site.

The plan called for the FBI to apprehend all potentially dangerous individuals whose names were on a list Hoover had been compiling for years.

"The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven percent are citizens of the United States," Hoover wrote in the now-declassified document. "In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the writ of habeas corpus."

Habeas corpus is the right to seek relief from illegal detention, and is a bedrock legal principle.

All apprehended individuals eventually would have had the right to a hearing under Hoover's plan, but hearing boards comprised of one judge and two citizens would not have been bound by the rules of evidence.

The details of Hoover's plan were among a collection of Cold War-era documents related to intelligence issues from 1950-1955. The State Department declassified the documents on Friday.

[downsteamjim]

P.S. I''m no fan of JEdgar. I despise fascism, communism, and irrational musllims. Merry Christmas

[downsteamjim]

Hoover spent most of his time as director for Democrat administrations. T.Tinsly, why did Ambassordor Kennedy have to give up his position? Also who received the wiretaps of MLK?

[Krazcarl]

ttinsly...either your gay or not thesre is no middle ground he persequted folks to look good not because he was straight he was a cancer in our goverment ask the young men he molested.

[motherhen11]

I don''t believe that J. Edgar Hoover was gay for one minute! He was gay for a lifetime. Hoo hoo.

[watcher269-2009]

Hoover was Gaay!

here is another story about the FBI creating a 1Billion dollar database

Yet another incursion into the realm of our civil liberties. We have been slowly destroying our privacy for seven years. In that time have you grown to feel safer? It has stopped terrorists is the argument for what is being done. Really? Stop for a minute and think: If you and three friends were determined to create a terrorist event, do you seriously believe you couldn''t pull it off? Think carefully about that before answering. Particularly if you were willing to die in the process? We have not had a terrorist event for the past seven years, because the people who commit such acts have not found it in their interest to do so. That''s a reality that is politically inconvenient to talk about.

[cfin5]

Hmmm. Sounds familiar to me. Next they''ll be arresting many times more American citizens for being "disloyal globalists".......One more reason for needing a constitutional advocate in the Big Chair like Ron Paul.

[Krazcarl]

Nancy_naive...everyone knows that Hoover was a cross dressing queer even pulled boys out of juvy for hisw fun and had enough dirt on presidents they all backed down so he was given his little fiftom for over 40 years and still few have the backbone to say he was a piece of garbage...

[jw218389]

You should see Bush''s list.

Anyone that''s not a goose stepping Neo Con is headed for a FEMA concentration camp.

Remember: Werk macht frei...

[Razzl]

Most of us who lived through earlier eras of reactionary authoritarians recognize the genuine danger that Bush and Cheney represent to the republic, and must fight as hard as possible to defeat and punish them because the younger generation doesn''t have the experience to recognize the warning signs of the ambitions of the would-be oppressors...

[talk2chief]

RowdyTexan2

LOL. No. No. I think we are on the same wavelength. Besides who can predict future jobs and profits from things yet invented.