Editing Federal Bureau of Investigation (section)

==== Japanese American internment ====
In 1939, the Bureau began compiling a [[FBI Index#Custodial Detention Index|custodial detention list]] with the names of those who would be taken into custody in the event of war with Axis nations. The majority of the names on the list belonged to [[Issei]] community leaders, as the FBI investigation built on an existing [[Office of Naval Intelligence|Naval Intelligence]] index that had focused on [[Japanese American]]s in Hawaii and the West Coast, but many [[Internment of German Americans|German]] and [[Internment of Italian Americans|Italian]] nationals also found their way onto the [[FBI Index]] list.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kashima |first=Tetsuden |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Custodial_detention_/_A-B-C_list/ |title=Custodial detention / A-B-C list |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 21, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020034626/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Custodial_detention_/_A-B-C_list/ |archive-date=October 20, 2014}}</ref> Robert Shivers, head of the Honolulu office, obtained permission from Hoover to start detaining those on the list on December 7, 1941, while bombs were still falling over [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]].<ref name=Niiya-FBI>{{cite web |last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Federal%20Bureau%20of%20Investigation/ |title=Federal Bureau of Investigation |publisher=Densho Encyclopledia |access-date=August 21, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020035117/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Federal%20Bureau%20of%20Investigation/ |archive-date=October 20, 2014}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=May 2019}} Mass arrests and searches of homes, in most cases conducted without warrants, began a few hours after the attack, and over the next several weeks more than 5,500 Issei men were taken into FBI custody.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/history/ |title=About the Incarceration |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 21, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140813044546/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/history/ |archive-date=August 13, 2014}}</ref> 

On February 19, 1942, President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin Roosevelt]] issued [[Executive Order 9066]], authorizing the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. FBI Director Hoover opposed the subsequent mass removal and confinement of Japanese Americans authorized under Executive Order 9066, but Roosevelt prevailed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/J._Edgar_Hoover/ |website=Densho Encyclopedia |title=J. Edgar Hoover |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141106032500/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/J._Edgar_Hoover/ |archive-date=November 6, 2014}}</ref> The vast majority went along with the subsequent exclusion orders, but in a handful of cases where Japanese Americans refused to obey the new military regulations, FBI agents handled their arrests.<ref name=Niiya-FBI /> The Bureau continued surveillance on Japanese Americans throughout the war, conducting background checks on applicants for resettlement outside camp, and entering the camps, usually without the permission of [[War Relocation Authority]] officials, and grooming informants to monitor dissidents and "troublemakers". After the war, the FBI was assigned to protect returning Japanese Americans from attacks by hostile white communities.<ref name=Niiya-FBI />