Damsel In Distress?
Posted by Michelle Moquin on October 25th, 2010
Not quite. In the days where there was a damsel in distress, there was always a prince ready to rescue her. Or at least that’s what the fairy tales eluded to. Now, in these days, damsel or not, we’re a little bit short on princes.
Non the less, we could all use a little help now and then, and certainly if we could give some…even better.
Just be sure that the person in distress really needs assistance, and is just not out to scam you, here’s a few tips from Scambusters that will help you differentiate between those truly in distress, and those not…those scammers banking on your good will in hopes of you handing over your hard earned cash:
Distress Scams
A distress scam occurs when a con artist spins a tall story in hopes of getting you to hand over some cash.
Claims of ill health, family tragedies or legal problems, are sadly often just cunning ruses to play on your emotions.
When this happens it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction, but in this week’s issue we detail the most common storylines and offer some pointers on the actions you could take.
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How Distress Scam Storylines Aim To Win Your Sympathy
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In a parking lot, on a sidewalk, in your workplace or even on the phone, it’s likely one day you’ll encounter a distress scam.
You know the sort of thing: someone tells you a story of despair and asks for your money to help put things right.
All too often these are con artist tricks — and they succeed because they sound like they’re real.
Or, because you’re not sure, the crook knows that you’ll hand over the money because you have a conscience.
But often, you can sniff out a distress scam or take a safer course of action to provide help.
Here are some of the most common stories you’ll hear in a distress scam — and some suggestions on what you can do about them.
Gotta get home
This one tops the distress scam charts — most often a panhandler at a rest stop, off-ramp or gas station with a sign saying they ran out of fuel or their car broke down and they need money to get home.
Sometimes, they might have “props,” like an empty fuel can or a nearby car with the hood up.
You can be 95% sure this is a con artist trick and, if you give, know that you’re probably paying for some other kind of “fuel.”
A different version is the acquaintance who claims a family member is seriously ill or died and they need money to travel home for a bedside farewell or even a funeral.
Dealing with this is difficult. You might be able to seek more details that you can check out independently, or offer to help them financially when they get back. Unless you’re 100% sure, just don’t donate a large sum.
Another variation is the hacked email or Facebook distress scam, in which a genuine friend’s account is taken over by scammers who contact you, claiming to be them and to have been mugged while on vacation.
Supposedly having lost all their money, they now ask you to wire cash for them to buy an air ticket home.
Avoid this by checking the real whereabouts of the supposed victim, with them or with acquaintances.
In trouble with the law
This distress scam is most often seen in the notorious grandparent con trick, in which the victim receives a phone call supposedly from a grandchild, claiming they’ve been arrested and need cash to post bail.
You can read more about this scam in an earlier Scambusters issue.
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Alternatively, a phone call to an employer pretends to be from a police officer, saying one of his employees has been arrested and, again, needs cash for bail.
In both cases, as with the email/Facebook hack mentioned above, simply check the story by either independently calling the real law enforcement agency supposedly involved or by confirming the whereabouts of the individual concerned.
Serious illness or disability
This is another common type of distress scam.
The con artist claims either to be sick (often supposedly suffering from cancer or other terminal illness) and unable to pay for treatment, or to be raising money for another person similarly afflicted or perhaps for a disabled child.
It takes many forms, most often in the workplace or a social group such as church or a club. An individual, sometimes even a person who has been well known to the group for years but more likely a newcomer, announces the sickness and asks acquaintances for financial support.
Another frequent version is a collection box in a company reception lobby or a convenience store, supposedly to raise money for a sick or disabled child.
This usually has been left by a visitor, who spins a plausible tale to the company or store and returns later to collect the box.
It’s difficult to question these people without appearing distrustful or even heartless, but you have to probe tactfully with questions — about where they’re being treated or the name of their specialist doctor, for instance.
People who tell lies in these circumstances often give themselves away by their behavior. Find out more about how to spot a liar in this earlier Scambusters report.
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With collection boxes, the best advice is not to donate large sums or, if you’re particularly concerned to help, take the details off the box and check them out.
Vacation beggars
It’s difficult enough trying to judge the real degree of need of people you meet on the streets of your own country, but when you travel abroad, the problem multiplies.
Beggars frequent well-known tourist spots, sometimes distressingly exhibiting some kind of disability or even an accompanying child with a serious deformity, especially in Third World countries.
In this latter case, such children are actually passed from one begging shift to the next, while the beggars themselves are experts at pulling a mournful expression.
The fact is that you can’t tell if these cases are genuine or not and you are actually far better making donations to legitimate charities devoted to helping people in need in these countries.
Remember too that begging is often used in tourist locations to distract you while an accomplice steals from your pocket or purse.
Other tall stories
Not all parking lot and sidewalk con artist scams rely entirely on tales of woe.
For example, there’s the crook who shows you what they claim is a valuable item or even a bar of gold they invite you to buy for a knockdown price because they need the money
urgently.
Another person turns up (really an accomplice) and vouches for the value of the item to try to persuade you to buy.
Solution: Just don’t.
Or there’s the supposed charity giveaway scam, where the crook shows you what appears to be a big wad of cash (actually just a roll of paper with a dollar bill around the outside) that they’re trying to give away to needy people.
The scammer says they’re leaving the country and need to entrust the cash to someone else to give away. But, to prove your trustworthiness and supposedly convince them you won’t steal their money, they want you to give them a bundle of your own cash.
Sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? But people fall for this all the time. Bottom line: This is 100% a scam. People just don’t do this for real.
Distress scams like the ones listed here succeed because the crooks are often very plausible; they seem genuine – but that’s the essence of con artist tricks and is especially
effective when it preys on your conscience.
Also, as we always warn, any request for you to wire money should put you on the alert.
The best general policy is to be skeptical of anyone who asks you for money, when appropriate to do what you can to check out their stories, and, if you really feel moved to do so, to only donate small sums of money.
And if your conscience is pricked, donate money to a relevant charity such as those for the homeless or cancer treatment and research. You may not be helping the individual who’s asking for the cash but you know that your donation will be put to good and genuine use.
Readers: I think that just about covers it all don’t you? Anything to add? Blog me. Anything to share? Blog me. Anything else…you know what to do.
Nora: I meant no disrespect. I know you know that. Perhaps I should’ve worded myself better: “I would not want to be in your shoes.” Most women in America have it very easy compared to many women in this world. And yes, I agree, men do need to feel what they deliver in so many ways. I also think Madaline has walked in your shoes (literally) which is why, her idea would be to obliterate many men and boys over 12, if it were her choice. If I thought that was the best solution, I would do it. There are days when I am so upset about the plight of women, and the lack of solutions, that I think strongly about Maddie’s idea.
Ruth: You and me both. The stakes are high. I just HOPE the Dems realize just how much.
Elke: Lucky man!
Love the quotes on love and joy. Here’s one I like:
“Joy is prayer. Joy is strength. Joy is love. Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”—Mother Teresa, Catholic nun and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
On that beautiful note, I’ve got to go.
Carry on…
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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October 25th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Outpatient Surgery Survival Guide
David Sherer, MD
Of the approximately 35 million annual surgeries in the US, outpatient procedures account for at least 60% of them.
Advances in pain management and surgical techniques (such as laparoscopic procedures, which require only a small incision) mean that patients who once would have spent several days in the hospital now can be discharged the same day from an outpatient facility.
Complication rates typically are very low for these procedures, but patients can further reduce their risks — and recover faster after the surgery — by taking an active role… in advance. Before scheduling your procedure, be sure to…
Check out the facility. It is important that the facility where you have the procedure has a so-called crash cart — the equipment and drugs that are used for cardiac emergencies. Crash carts are mandatory in hospitals but optional in many outpatient clinics.
Also important: Ask your surgeon if the facility stocks dantrolene (Dantrium).
It’s an antidote for malignant hyperthermia, an anesthesia-related complication that occurs only rarely but can be fatal unless dantrolene is given immediately.
Check out the surgeon. Before scheduling a procedure, make sure that the surgeon…
Is board-certified in that particular specialty. To find out, ask the doctor. If you are uncomfortable doing so, you could mention that you read in this article that board-certification is important and that is why you are asking.
Does many procedures. If you’re having cataract surgery, for example, someone who does 40 or 50 cataract procedures a week is likely to have better results, with fewer complications, than someone who does the procedure only occasionally.
Review and report your medications. Your surgeon and anesthesiologist should know about every drug (and supplement) that you’re taking. Bring a list of your medications and supplements (and/or the bottles) when you meet with the doctor.
Why it matters: You might need to adjust the doses or frequency of drugs or supplements that you’re currently taking. If you have asthma, for example, the stress of surgery can cause a flare-up.
You might be advised to use an inhaler prior to the procedure. Diabetics who use insulin, on the other hand, might be told to skip (or reduce) a dose before surgery.
The combination of presurgical fasting and a normal dose of insulin could cause blood glucose to fall too low.
In addition, some commonly used drugs and supplements, such as aspirin and ginkgo, inhibit blood clotting and can be risky when taken within several days of some procedures.
Ask about pain control. Don’t assume that your surgeon will aggressively manage pain — many do not.
Uncontrolled pain releases the stress hormone cortisol, which impairs immunity and slows healing. People in pain also move around less, which increases the risk for blood clots.
In the past, surgeons mainly depended on narcotics (such as codeine) for postsurgical pain relief. These drugs are effective but may cause side effects, including urinary retention, nausea and even itching.
Ask your surgeon (or the anesthesiologist) to discuss non-narcotic alternatives, such as nerve blocks (which can control pain for several days).
One type of nerve block is the “ON-Q,” which dispenses a drip of anesthetic into surgical wounds. It also can offer patient-controlled analgesia, which allows patients to manage their own pain with the push of a button.
PRESURGERY PREPARATIONS
As you get closer to the time of the surgery, do the following…
Stop smoking for at least 72 hours before the procedure — longer is better. Not smoking prior to surgery will improve circulation and wound healing as well as ciliary function — the ability of hairlike projections in the lungs to remove mucus — important for the prevention of postsurgical pneumonia.
Eat lightly the day before the procedure. Clear soups, rice, fruits and vegetables are ideal. Anesthesia frequently causes constipation.
Easy-to-digest foods leave less residue in the digestive tract and help reduce postsurgical gas and cramping.
Don’t chew gum prior to surgery. It stimulates the secretion of gastric juices that can interfere with your breathing and cause choking (asphyxia) during the procedure.
Don’t shave the area that is undergoing the surgery. Even a new blade can cause thousands of invisible abrasions/nicks that can allow bacteria to enter.
Shaving ahead of time gives bacteria a chance to multiply and cause an infection. If a surgical site needs to be shaved, someone on the operating team will do it right before making the incision.
POSTSURGERY CARE
What you can do to feel better and recover faster…
Stay warm. The blankets used in medical settings are notoriously thin.
If you’re cold when you wake up in the recovery room, ask for extra blankets. Patients who maintain a normal body temperature, known as normothermia, during and after surgery heal more quickly and get fewer infections than those who are cold.
Breathe deeply and cough. The drugs used for general anesthesia can impair normal lung movements and increase the risk for pneumonia.
Recommended: As soon as you’re physically able, take deep breaths for a few minutes every hour or two. Make yourself cough, even if you don’t have to.
Coughing and other exaggerated respiratory movements help clear the airways. This is particularly important for those who are older, sedentary or overweight.
Move as soon as you can. Moving soon after a procedure reduces the risk for blood clots, improves muscle strength and helps clear the lungs.
If you can, stand up and walk. If you’re not able (or allowed) to stand, move in bed. Stretch your arms and legs… roll from one side to the other… or merely flex your muscles.
Don’t put up with nausea. It is among the most frequent — and the most feared — side effects of anesthesia. Anesthesiologists now can choose from among six to eight different drugs to prevent it.
If you feel sick when you wake up, tell your doctor. If one drug doesn’t work, another one probably will.
Personal interviewed David Sherer, MD, anesthesiologist with the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group in Falls Church, Virginia, and the former physician-director of risk management.
His research interests include the use of anesthesia in starting intravenous lines and the importance of patient autonomy for hospital and outpatient care. He is author, with MaryAnn Karinch, of Dr. David Sherer’s Hospital Survival Guide: 100+ Ways to Make Your Hospital Stay Safe and Comfortable (Claren).
October 25th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Oh man, I just lost my paragraph long comment, computers are cutting me no slack lately, sigh, sorry about call yesterday, today also booked – let’s chat later in the week, Wed/Th? I’m diggin’ your new pic also : ) Luv, Zen Lill
October 25th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
We should be damned worried about the Right attempting to prevent Muslims from building in Manhattan.
Less we forget what they did to Japanese Americans. Note an all white male Supreme Court offers NO protection via the Constitution when it comes to the rights of OTWs.
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The petitioner, an American citizen of Japanese descent, was convicted in a federal district court for remaining in San Leandro, California, a ‘Military Area’, contrary to Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the Commanding General [323 U.S. 214, 216] of the Western Command, U.S. Army, which directed that after May 9, 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry should be excluded from that area. No question was raised as to petitioner’s loyalty to the United States. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed,1 and the importance of the constitutional question involved caused us to grant certiorari.
It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can.
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This convoluted logic to arrive at a way to over look the Constitutional protections given to OTWs is still in play today. Ergo the different “burdens of proof” required by the Court today when racism is of question.
When it is sexism or something else the “burden of proof” is on the Defendant. But when it is racism, the “burden of proof” is on the plaintiff. Making it to expensive for the wronged party to prove his case.
That is no different from the judges above saying That to curtail the civil rights (profile) a single racial group is sometimes legal providing of course the race is not white.
No one would have proposed curtailing the rights of white boys in pick-up trucks when they blew up the Federal building.
But of course it makes sense to do it to American citizen when the perpetrators were foreigners but of the same religion.
BOUGHT AND PAID FOR OR JUST PLAIN BIGOTS, you choose, it makes no difference to the OTW who has his rights taken by the bastards.
Robert
October 25th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
I do not pose to argue with most of your conclusion. But I would like to set the record straight. Not ALL white men on the Court agreed to deprive Mr. Toyosaburo Korematsu of his freedom or constitutional protections.
Three dissented. There opinions eloquently stated the right of a violation of his Constitutional rights.
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Mr. Justice ROBERTS.
I dissent, because I think the indisputable facts exhibit a clear violation of Constitutional rights.
This is not a case of keeping people off the streets at night as was Kiyoshi Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S.Ct. 1375, [323 U.S. 214, 226] nor a case of temporary exclusion of a citizen from an area for his own safety or that of the community, nor a case of offering him an opportunity to go temporarily out of an area where his presence might cause danger to himself or to his fellows. On the contrary, it is the case of convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States. If this be a correct statement of the facts disclosed by this record, and facts of which we take judicial notice, I need hardly labor the conclusion that Constitutional rights have been violated.
The Government’s argument, and the opinion of the court, in my judgment, erroneously divide that which is single and indivisible and thus make the case appear as if the petitioner violated a Military Order, sanctioned by Act of Congress, which excluded him from his home, by refusing voluntarily to leave and, so, knowingly and intentionally, defying the order and the Act of Congress.
The petitioner, a resident of San Leandro, Alameda County, California, is a native of the United States of Japanese ancestry who, according to the uncontradicted evidence, is a loyal citizen of the nation.
A chronological recitation of events will make it plain that the petitioner’s supposed offense did not, in truth, consist in his refusal voluntarily to leave the area which included his home in obedience to the order excluding him therefrom. Critical attention must be given to the dates and sequence of events.
December 8, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan.
February 19, 1942, the President issued Executive Order No. 9066,1 which, after stating the reason for issuing the [323 U.S. 214, 227] order as ‘protection against espionage and against sabotage to national- defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities’, provided that certain Military Commanders might, in their discretion, ‘prescribe military areas’ and define their extent, ‘from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions’ the ‘Military Commander may impose in his discretion.’
February 20, 1942, Lieutenant General DeWitt was designated Military Commander of the Western Defense Command embracing the westernmost states of the Union,-about one-fourth of the total area of the nation.
March 2, 1942, General DeWitt promulgated Public Proclamation No. 1,2 which recites that the entire Pacific Coast is ‘particularly subject to attack, to attempted invasion … and, in connection therewith, is subject to espionage and acts of sabotage’. It states that ‘as a matter of military necessity’ certain military areas and zones are established known as Military Areas Nos. 1 and 2. It adds that ‘Such persons or classes of persons as the situation may require’ will, by subsequent orders, ‘be excluded from all of Military Area No. 1′ and from certain zones in Military Area No. 2. Subsequent proclamations were made which, together with Proclamation No. 1, included in such areas and zones all of California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Utah, and the southern portion of Arizona. The orders required that if any person of Japanese, German or Italian ancestry residing in Area No. 1 desired to change his habitual residence he must execute and deliver to the authorities a Change of Residence Notice.
San Leandro, the city of petitioner’s residence, lies in Military Area No. 1. [323 U.S. 214, 228] On March 2, 1942, the petitioner, therefore, had notice that, by Executive Order, the President, to prevent espionage and sabotage, had authorized the Military to exclude him from certain areas and to prevent his entering or leaving certain areas without permission. He was on notice that his home city had been included, by Military Order, in Area No. 1, and he was on notice further that, at sometime in the future, the Military Commander would make an order for the exclusion of certain persons, not described or classified, from various zones including that in which he lived.
March 21, 1942, Congress enacted3 that anyone who knowingly ‘shall enter, remain in, leave, or commit any act in any military area or military zone prescribed … by any military commander … contrary to the restrictions applicable to any such area or zone or contrary to the order of … any such military commander’ shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. This is the Act under which the petitioner was charged.
March 24, 1942, General DeWitt instituted the curfew for certain areas within his command, by an order the validity of which was sustained in Hirabayashi v. United States, supra.
March 24, 1942, General DeWitt began to issue a series of exclusion orders relating to specified areas.
March 27, 1942, by Proclamation No. 4,4 the General recited that ‘it is necessary, in order to provide for the welfare and to insure the orderly evacuation and resettlement of Japanese voluntarily migrating from Military Area No. 1 to restrict and regulate such migration’; and ordered that, as of March 29, 1942, ‘all alien Japanese and persons of Japanese ancestry who are within the limits of Military Area No. 1, be and they are hereby [323 U.S. 214, 229] prohibited from leaving that area for any purpose until and to the extent that a future proclamation or order of this headquarters shall so permit or direct.’ 5
No order had been made excluding the petitioner from the area in which he lived. By Proclamation No. 4 he was, after March 29, 1942, confined to the limits of Area No. 1. If the Executive Order No. 9066 and the Act of Congress meant what they said, to leave that area, in the face of Proclamation No. 4, would be to commit a misdemeanor.
May 3, 1942, General DeWitt issued Civilian Exclusion Order No. 346 providing that, after 12 o’clock May 8, 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien, were to be excluded from a described portion of Military Area No. 1, which included the County of Alameda, California. The order required a responsible member of each family and each individual living alone to report, at a time set, at a Civil Control Station for instructions to go to an Assembly Center, and added that any person failing to comply with the provisions of the order who was found in the described area after the date set would be liable to prosecution under the Act of March 21, 1942, supra. It is important to note that the order, by its express terms, had no application to persons within the bounds ‘of an established Assembly Center pursuant to instructions from this Headquarters ….’ The obvious purpose of the orders made, taken together, was to drive all citizens of Japanese ancestry into Assembly Centers within the zones of their residence, under pain of criminal prosecution. [323 U.S. 214, 230] The predicament in which the petitioner thus found himself was this: He was forbidden, by Military Order, to leave the zone in which he lived; he was forbidden, by Military Order, after a date fixed, to be found within that zone unless he were in an Assembly Center located in that zone. General DeWitt’s report to the Secretary of War concerning the programme of evacuation and relocation of Japanese makes it entirely clear, if it were necessary to refer to that document,-and, in the light of the above recitation, I think it is not,-that an Assembly Center was a euphemism for a prison. No person within such a center was permitted to leave except by Military Order.
In the dilemma that he dare not remain in his home, or voluntarily leave the area, without incurring criminal penalties, and that the only way he could avoid punishment was to go to an Assembly Center and submit himself to military imprisonment, the petitioner did nothing.
June 12, 1942, an Information was filed in the District Court for Northern California charging a violation of the Act of March 21, 1942, in that petitioner had knowingly remained within the area covered by Exclusion Order No. 34. A demurrer to the information having been overruled, the petitioner was tried under a plea of not guilty and convicted. Sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation for five years. We know, however, in the light of the foregoing recitation, that he was at once taken into military custody and lodged in an Assembly Center. We further know that, on March 18, 1942, the President had promulgated Executive Order No. 91027 establishing the War Relocation Authority under which so-called Relocation Centers, a enphemism for concentration camps, were established pursuant to cooperation between the military authorities of the Western Defense Command and the Relocation Authority, and that the petitioner has [323 U.S. 214, 231] been confined either in an Assembly Center, within the zone in which he had lived or has been removed to a Relocation Center where, as the facts disclosed in Ex parte Mitsuye Endo, 323 U.S. 283, 65 S.Ct. 208, demonstrate, he was illegally held in custody.
The Government has argued this case as if the only order outstanding at the time the petitioner was arrested and informed against was Exclusion Order No. 34 ordering him to leave the area in which he resided, which was the basis of the information against him. That argument has evidently been effective. The opinion refers to the Hirabayashi case, supra, to show that this court has sustained the validity of a curfew order in an emergency. The argument then is that exclusion from a given area of danger, while somewhat more sweeping than a curfew regulation, is of the same nature,-a temporary expedient made necessary by a sudden emergency. This, I think, is a substitution of an hypothetical case for the case actually before the court. I might agree with the court’s disposition of the hypothetical case. 8 The liberty of every American citizen freely to come and to go must frequently, in the face of sudden danger, be temporarily limited or suspended. The civil authorities must often resort to the expedient of excluding citizens temporarily from a locality. The drawing of fire lines in the case of a conflagration, the removal of persons from the area where a pestilence has broken out, are familiar examples. If the exclusion worked by Exclusion Order No. 34 were of that nature the Hirabayashi case would be authority for sustaining it. [323 U.S. 214, 232] But the facts above recited, and those set forth in Ex parte Metsuye Endo, supra, show that the exclusion was but a part of an over-all plan for forceable detention. This case cannot, therefore, be decided on any such narrow ground as the possible validity of a Temporary Exclusion Order under which the residents of an area are given an opportunity to leave and go elsewhere in their native land outside the boundaries of a military area. To make the case turn on any such assumption is to shut our eyes to reality.
As I have said above, the petitioner, prior to his arrest, was faced with two diametrically contradictory orders given sanction by the Act of Congress of March 21, 1942. The earlier of those orders made him a criminal if he left the zone in which he resided; the later made him a criminal if he did not leave.
I had supposed that if a citizen was constrained by two laws, or two orders having the force of law, and obedience to one would violate the other, to punish him for violation of either would deny him due process of law. And I had supposed that under these circumstances a conviction for violating one of the orders could not stand.
We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that had the petitioner attempted to violate Proclamation No. 4 and leave the military area in which he lived he would have been arrested and tried and convicted for violation of Proclamation No. 4. The two conflicting orders, one which commanded him to stay and the other which commanded him to go, were nothing but a cleverly devised trap to accomplish the real purpose of the military authority, which was to lock him up in a concentration camp. The only course by which the petitioner could avoid arrest and prosecution was to go to that camp according to instructions to be given him when he reported at a Civil Control Center. We know that is the fact. Why should we set up a figmentary and artificial situation instead of addressing ourselves to the actualities of the case? [323 U.S. 214, 233] These stark realities are met by the suggestion that it is lawful to compel an American citizen to submit to illegal imprisonment on the assumption that he might, after going to the Assembly Center, apply for his discharge by suing out a writ of habeas corpus, as was done in the Endo case, supra. The answer, of course, is that where he was subject to two conflicting laws he was not bound, in order to escape violation of one of the other, to surrender his liberty for any period. Nor will it do to say that the detention was a necessary part of the process of evacuation, and so we are here concerned only with the validity of the latter.
Again it is a new doctrine of constitutional law that one indicted for disobedience to an unconstitutional statute may not defend on the ground of the invalidity of the statute but must obey it though he knows it is no law and, after he has suffered the disgrace of conviction and lost his liberty by sentence, then, and not before, seek, from within prison walls, to test the validity of the law.
Moreover, it is beside the point to rest decision in part on the fact that the petitioner, for his own reasons, wished to remain in his home. If, as is the fact he was constrained so to do, it is indeed a narrow application of constitutional rights to ignore the order which constrained him, in order to sustain his conviction for violation of another contradictory order.
I would reverse the judgment of conviction.
Mr. Justice MURPHY, dissenting.
This exclusion of ‘all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien,’ from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over ‘the very brink of constitutional power’ and falls into the ugly abyss of racism.
In dealing with matters relating to the prosecution and progress of a war, we must accord great respect and con- [323 U.S. 214, 234] sideration to the judgments of the military authorities who are on the scene and who have full knowledge of the military facts. The scope of their discretion must, as a matter of necessity and common sense, be wide. And their judgments ought not to be overruled lightly by those whose training and duties ill-equip them to deal intelligently with matters so vital to the physical security of the nation.
At the same time, however, it is essential that there be definite limits to military discretion, especially where martial law has not been declared. Individuals must not be left impoverished of their constitutional rights on a plea of military necessity that has neither substance nor support. Thus, like other claims conflicting with the asserted constitutional rights of the individual, the military claim must subject itself to the judicial process of having its reasonableness determined and its conflicts with other interests reconciled. ‘What are the allowable limits of military discretion, and whether or not they have been overstepped in a particular case, are judicial questions.’ Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 401, 53 S.Ct. 190, 196.
The judicial test of whether the Government, on a plea of military necessity, can validly deprive an individual of any of his constitutional rights is whether the deprivation is reasonably related to a public danger that is so ‘immediate, imminent, and impending’ as not to admit of delay and not to permit the intervention of ordinary constitutional processes to alleviate the danger. United States v. Russell, 13 Wall. 623, 627, 628; Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 How. 115, 134, 135; Raymond v. Thomas, 91 U.S. 712, 716. Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, banishing from a prescribed area of the Pacific Coast ‘all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien,’ clearly does not meet that test. Being an obvious racial discrimination, the [323 U.S. 214, 235] order deprives all those within its scope of the equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. It further deprives these individuals of their constitutional rights to live and work where they will, to establish a home where they choose and to move about freely. In excommunicating them without benefit of hearings, this order also deprives them of all their constitutional rights to procedural due process. Yet no reasonable relation to an ‘immediate, imminent, and impending’ public danger is evident to support this racial restriction which is one of the most sweeping and complete deprivations of constitutional rights in the history of this nation in the absence of martial law.
It must be conceded that the military and naval situation in the spring of 1942 was such as to generate a very real fear of invasion of the Pacific Coast, accompanied by fears of sabotage and espionage in that area. The military command was therefore justified in adopting all reasonable means necessary to combat these dangers. In adjudging the military action taken in light of the then apparent dangers, we must not erect too high or too meticulous standards; it is necessary only that the action have some reasonable relation to the removal of the dangers of invasion, sabotage and espionage. But the exclusion, either temporarily or permanently, of all persons with Japanese blood in their veins has no such reasonable relation. And that relation is lacking because the exclusion order necessarily must rely for its reasonableness upon the assumption that all persons of Japanese ancestry may have a dangerous tendency to commit sabotage and espionage and to aid our Japanese enemy in other ways. It is difficult to believe that reason, logic or experience could be marshalled in support of such an assumption.
That this forced exclusion was the result in good measure of this erroneous assumption of racial guilt rather than [323 U.S. 214, 236] bona fide military necessity is evidenced by the Commanding General’s Final Report on the evacuation from the Pacific Coast area. 1 In it he refers to all individuals of Japanese descent as ‘subversive,’ as belonging to ‘an enemy race’ whose ‘racial strains are undiluted,’ and as constituting ‘over 112,000 potential enemies … at large today’ along the Pacific Coast. 2 In support of this blanket condemnation of all persons of Japanese descent, however, no reliable evidence is cited to show that such individuals were generally disloyal,3 or had generally so conducted themselves in this area as to constitute a special menace to defense installations or war industries, or had otherwise by their behavior furnished reasonable ground for their exclusion as a group.
Justification for the exclusion is sought, instead, mainly upon questionable racial and sociological grounds not [323 U.S. 214, 237] ordinarily within the realm of expert military judgment, supplemented by certain semi-military conclusions drawn from an unwarranted use of circumstantial evidence. Individuals of Japanese ancestry are condemned because they are said to be ‘a large, unassimilated, tightly knit racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion.’ 4 They are claimed to be given to ‘emperor worshipping ceremonies’5 and to ‘dual citizenship.’ 6 Japanese language schools and allegedly pro-Japanese organizations are cited as evidence of possible group disloyalty,7 together with facts as to [323 U.S. 214, 238] certain persons being educated and residing at length in Japan. 8 It is intimated that many of these individuals deliberately resided ‘adjacent to strategic points,’ thus enabling them ‘to carry into execution a tremendous program of sabotage on a mass scale should any considerable number of them have been inclined to do so.’9 The need for protective custody is also asserted. The report refers without identity to ‘numerous incidents of violence’ as well as to other admittedly unverified or cumulative incidents. From this, plus certain other events not shown to have been connected with the Japanese Americans, it is concluded that the ‘situation was fraught with danger to the Japanese population itself’ and that the general public ‘was ready to take matters into its own hands.’ 10 Finally, it is intimated, though not directly [323 U.S. 214, 239] charged or proved, that persons of Japanese ancestry were responsible for three minor isolated shellings and bombings of the Pacific Coast area,11 as well as for unidentified radio transmissions and night signalling.
The main reasons relied upon by those responsible for the forced evacuation, therefore, do not prove a reasonable relation between the group characteristics of Japanese Americans and the dangers of invasion, sabotage and espionage. The reasons appear, instead, to be largely an accumulation of much of the misinformation, half-truths and insinuations that for years have been directed against Japanese Americans by people with racial and economic prejudices-the same people who have been among the foremost advocates of the evacuation. 12 A military judg- [323 U.S. 214, 240] ment based upon such racial and sociological considerations is not entitled to the great weight ordinarily given the judgments based upon strictly military considerations. Especially is this so when every charge relative to race, religion, culture, geographical location, and legal and economic status has been substantially discredited by independent studies made by experts in these matters. 13
The military necessity which is essential to the validity of the evacuation order thus resolves itself into a few intimations that certain individuals actively aided the enemy, from which it is inferred that the entire group of Japanese Americans could not be trusted to be or remain loyal to the United States. No one denies, of course, that there were some disloyal persons of Japanese descent on the Pacific Coast who did all in their power to aid their ancestral land. Similar disloyal activities have been engaged in by many persons of German, Italian and even more pioneer stock in our country. But to infer that examples of individual disloyalty prove group disloyalty and justify discriminatory action against the entire group is to deny that under our system of law individual guilt is the sole basis for deprivation of rights. Moreover, this inference, which is at the very heart of the evacuation orders, has been used in support of the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy. To give constitutional sanction to that inference in this case, however well- intentioned may have been the military command on the Pacific Coast, is to adopt one of the cruelest of the rationales used by our enemies to destroy the dignity of the individual and to encourage and open the door to discriminatory actions against other minority groups in the passions of tomorrow. [323 U.S. 214, 241] No adequate reason is given for the failure to treat these Japanese Americans on an individual basis by holding investigations and hearings to separate the loyal from the disloyal, as was done in the case of persons of German and Italian ancestry. See House Report No. 2124 (77th Cong., 2d Sess.) 247-52. It is asserted merely that the loyalties of this group ‘were unknown and time was of the essence.’ 14 Yet nearly four months elapsed after Pearl Harbor before the first exclusion order was issued; nearly eight months went by until the last order was issued; and the last of these ‘subversive’ persons was not actually removed until almost eleven months had elapsed. Leisure and deliberation seem to have been more of the essence than speed. And the fact that conditions were not such as to warrant a declaration of martial law adds strength to the belief that the factors of time and military necessity were not as urgent as they have been represented to be.
Moreover, there was no adequate proof that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the military and naval intelligence services did not have the espionage and sabotage situation well in hand during this long period. Nor is there any denial of the fact that not one person of Japanese ancestry was accused or convicted of espionage or sabotage after Pearl Harbor while they were still free,15 a fact which is some evidence of the loyalty of the vast majority of these individuals and of the effectiveness of the established methods of combatting these evils. It [323 U.S. 214, 242] seems incredible that under these circumstances it would have been impossible to hold loyalty hearings for the mere 112,000 persons involved- or at least for the 70,000 American citizens-especially when a large part of this number represented children and elderly men and women.16 Any inconvenience that may have accompanied an attempt to conform to procedural due process cannot be said to justify violations of constitutional rights of individuals.
I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must accordingly be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.
Mr. Justice JACKSON, dissenting.
Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity and a citizen of California by [323 U.S. 214, 243] residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that apart from the matter involved here he is not law- abiding and well disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived.
Even more unusual is the series of military orders which made this conduct a crime. They forbid such a one to remain, and they also forbid him to leave. They were so drawn that the only way Korematsu could avoid violation was to give himself up to the military authority. This meant submission to custody, examination, and transportation out of the territory, to be followed by indeterminate confinement in detention camps.
A citizen’s presence in the locality, however, was made a crime only if his parents were of Japanese birth. Had Korematsu been one of four-the others being, say, a German alien enemy, an Italian alien enemy, and a citizen of American-born ancestors, convicted of treason but out on parole- only Korematsu’s presence would have violated the order. The difference between their innocence and his crime would result, not from anything he did, said, or thought, different than they, but only in that he was born of different racial stock.
Now, if any fundamental assumption underlies our system, it is that guilt is personal and not inheritable. Even if all of one’s antecedents had been convicted of treason, the Constitution forbids its penalties to be visited upon him, for it provides that ‘no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attained.’ Article 3, 3, cl. 2. But here is an attempt to make an otherwise innocent act a crime merely because this prisoner is the son of parents as to whom he had no choice, and belongs to a race from which there is no way to resign. If Congress in peace-time legislation should [323 U.S. 214, 244] enact such a criminal law, I should suppose this Court would refuse to enforce it.
But the ‘law’ which this prisoner is convicted of disregarding is not found in an act of Congress, but in a military order. Neither the Act of Congress nor the Executive Order of the President, nor both together, would afford a basis for this conviction. It rests on the orders of General DeWitt. And it is said that if the military commander had reasonable military grounds for promulgating the orders, they are constitutional and become law, and the Court is required to enforce them. There are several reasons why I cannot subscribe to this doctrine.
It would be impracticable and dangerous idealism to expect or insist that each specific military command in an area of probable operations will conform to conventional tests of constitutionality. When an area is so beset that it must be put under military control at all, the paramount consideration is that its measures be successful, rather than legal. The armed services must protect a society, not merely its Constitution. The very essence of the military job is to marshal physical force, to remove every obstacle to its effectiveness, to give it every strategic advantage. Defense measures will not, and often should not, be held within the limits that bind civil authority in peace. No court can require such a commander in such circumstances to act as a reasonable man; he may be unreasonably cautious and exacting. Perhaps he should be. But a commander in temporarily focusing the life of a community on defense is carrying out a military program; he is not making law in the sense the courts know the term. He issues orders, and they may have a certain authority as military commands, although they may be very bad as constitutional law.
But if we cannot confine military expedients by the Constitution, neither would I distort the Constitution to approve all that the military may deem expedient. This is [323 U.S. 214, 245] what the Court appears to be doing, whether consciously or not. I cannot say, from any evidence before me, that the orders of General DeWitt were not reasonably expedient military precautions, nor could I say that they were. But even if they were permissible military procedures, I deny that it follows that they are constitutional. If, as the Court holds, it does follow, then we may as well say that any military order will be constitutional and have done with it.
The limitation under which courts always will labor in examining the necessity for a military order are illustrated by this case. How does the Court know that these orders have a reasonable basis in necessity? No evidence whatever on that subject has been taken by this or any other court. There is sharp controversy as to the credibility of the DeWitt report. So the Court, having no real evidence before it, has no choice but to accept General DeWitt’s own unsworn, self-serving statement, untested by any cross-examination, that what he did was reasonable. And thus it will always be when courts try to look into the reasonableness of a military order.
In the very nature of things military decisions are not susceptible of intelligent judicial appraisal. They do not pretend to rest on evidence, but are made on information that often would not be admissible and on assumptions that could not be proved. Information in support of an order could not be disclosed to courts without danger that it would reach the enemy. Neither can courts act on communications made in confidence. Hence courts can never have any real alternative to accepting the mere declaration of the authority that issued the order that it was reasonably necessary from a military viewpoint.
Much is said of the danger to liberty from the Army program for deporting and detaining these citizens of Japanese extraction. But a judicial construction of the due process clause that will sustain this order is a farm more [323 U.S. 214, 246] subtle blow to liberty than the promulgation of the order itself. A military order, however unconstitutional, is not apt to last longer than the military emergency. Even during that period a succeeding commander may revoke it all. But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes. All who observe the work of courts are familiar with what Judge Cardozo described as ‘the tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic.’ 1 A military commander may overstep the bounds of constitutionality, and it is an incident. But if we review and approve, that passing incident becomes the doctrine of the Constitution. There it has a generative power of its own, and all that it creates will be in its own image. Nothing better illustrates this danger than does the Court’s opinion in this case.
It argues that we are bound to uphold the conviction of Korematsu because we upheld one in Kiyshi Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S.Ct. 1375, when we sustained these orders in so far as they applied a curfew requirement to a citizen of Japanese ancestry. I think we should learn something from that experience.
In that case we were urged to consider only that curfew feature, that being all that technically was involved, because it was the only count necessary to sustain Hirabayashi’s conviction and sentence. We yielded, and the Chief Justice guarded the opinion as carefully as language [323 U.S. 214, 247] will do. He said: ‘Our investigation here does not go beyond the inquiry whether, in the light of all the relevant circumstances preceding and attending their promulgation, the challenged orders and statute afforded a reasonable basis for the action taken in imposing the curfew.’ 320 U.S. at page 101, 63 S.Ct. at page 1386. ‘We decide only the issue as we have defined it-we decide only that the curfew order as applied, and at the time it was applied, was within the boundaries of the war power.’ 320 U.S. at page 102, 63 S.Ct. at page 1386. And again: ‘It is unnecessary to consider whether or to what extent such findings would support orders differing from the curfew order.’ 320 U.S. at page 105, 63 S.Ct. at page 1387. (Italics supplied.) However, in spite of our limiting words we did validate a discrimination of the basis of ancestry for mild and temporary deprivation of liberty. Now the principle of racial discrimination is pushed from support of mild measures to very harsh ones, and from temporary deprivations to indeterminate ones. And the precedent which it is said requires us to do so is Hirabayashi. The Court is now saying that in Hirabayashi we did decide the very things we there said we were not deciding. Because we said that these citizens could be made to stay in their homes during the hours of dark, it is said we must require them to leave home entirely; and if that, we are told they may also be taken into custody for deportation; and if that, it is argued they may also be held for some undetermined time in detention camps. How far the principle of this case would be extended before plausible reasons would play out, I do not know.
I should hold that a civil court cannot be made to enforce an order which violates constitutional limitations even if it is a reasonable exercise of military authority. The courts can exercise only the judicial power, can apply only law, and must abide by the Constitution, or they cease to be civil courts and become instruments of military policy. [323 U.S. 214, 248] Of course the existence of a military power resting on force, so vagrant, so centralized, so necessarily heedless of the individual, is an inherent threat to liberty. But I would not lead people to rely on this Court for a review that seems to me wholly delusive. The military reasonableness of these orders can only be determined by military superiors. If the people ever let command of the war power fall into irresponsible and unscrupulous hands, the courts wield no power equal to its restraint. The chief restraint upon those who command the physical forces of the country, in the future as in the past, must be their responsibility to the political judgments of their contemporaries and to the moral judgments of history.
My duties as a justice as I see them do not require me to make a military judgment as to whether General DeWitt’s evacuation and detention program was a reasonable military necessity. I do not suggest that the courts should have attempted to interfere with the Army in carrying out its task. But I do not think they may be asked to execute a military expedient that has no place in law under the Constitution I would reverse the judgment and discharge the prisoner.
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They asked for a reversal of the judgement and freeing of the prisoner. I know that this meant very little to Mr. Korematsu since he didn’t get Justice, but it says that not all white men were dishonest on the Court.
Harris