I love the revisionist history on this point too - taking it from our modern "advanced" way of thinking. None of us here know the fear created, particularly on the west coast, by Pearl Harbor. We weren't there - we didn't feel it. My parents told me that the fear was palpable daily. There was no certainty at all about what the Japanese had the capability of doing and the west coast was in shock and terror. When Roosevelt ordered that program, no one had the ability to judge it from the safety of decades or from the certain knowledge that we had won that war. It is revisionist thinking based on the safety and security of absolute knowledge in the future. I refuse to judge that generation harshly for that decision or for the decision to end the war with atomic bombs. People DON'T know what the future holds and the best you can do in times of crisis is make your decisions based of the needs of the moment...not on the legacy as viewed from the safety of the future decades ahead.
My mother lived through that, as well as her parents. They were fairly staunch Republicans, not fans of FDA. But the war made everybody an American.
There were blackouts, to darken potential targets in Lost Angeles. There were submarine nets placed at the mouth of the LA/Long Beach Harbors and after the war the floats were stacked alongside PCH in Seal Beach for decades, for me to witness and remember as a landmark.
The Japanese shelled an oilfield north of Santa Barbara, called Ellwood.
A majority of Americans were horrified at Pearl Harbor, and not fond of the Japanese Americans, or worried over the inconvenience of internment. That mostly came AFTER THE FACT. My father worked building the Heart Mountain internment facility in Wyoming, before enlisting in the USMC at age 17.
I can state without reservation that the feelings of Japanese of any type was not a priority. Little known was the internment of smaller numbers of German and Italian identity people.
Had we interned Dr. Hassan, people would still be alive. Same for the Beltway snipers, same for the Boston Marathon bombers, etc.
People that say "we can't do that" don't have living memories of when we did do big things. For instance we occupied Germany AND we "vetted" everybody. It was called "denazification" to ensure dangerous people were not put into positions where they could do harm. Same went for Japan.
My opinion is we have lost some of our once vaunted "competence" as we dumb down tasks, expectations etc. Maybe the DHS could not vet potential refugees, but active duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines Coast guarders, National Guardsmen etc. could.
