"Were the ethnic Japanese spying?  It's impossible to disprove something like that, there is always the possibility of some plot existing that we don't know about.  It's like trying to prove there are no UFO's."
        We know about the spying and so did the President and LtGen DeWitt. Which is one big reason that the enemy aliens were first asked to relocate and those who did not were forcibly removed for the combat zone. See Jap Spys. The Japanese spying was not particularly effective, it started late and was not well funded, depending upon loyalty to the Emperor. The limited funds were expended on German spys who could blend in better. And to a few labor leaders who were never identified, either they escaped prosecution to avoid labor unrest (See Brewster) and hopefully were taken care of privately. Information gathered was of the sort : aircraft production, new plants being built, number of employees, trainloads and ship movements. Military information was gathered from Niesi in uniform about troop deployments. Information flow was through Mexico, then to Japan. Reporting from Hawaii was more direct and the Pearl Harbor attack fleet received ship anchorage location and weather reports within an hour.

        " I have read that the Japanese were spying on Hawaii though submarine periscopes and with over flights of sub launched planes.   If they had had a decent spy network, they probably would not have had to resort to these risky, expensive, and not very effective approaches."
        In wartime you do what you have to ; information about the enemy is vital. Japan had thirty-three fleet submarines on the Pearl Harbor attack, plus six mini-subs. Submarines were topically used to report fleet movements as soon as they left port. The USN submarine force was tasked to see what they could of enemy islands and the mainland. It was risky to saunter near the enemy, but it had to be done.

        "On a skeptical note, I would love to hear more about these efforts -- I don't see how a little sub-launched pontoon plane could have survived in the skies over Pearl Harbor, especially once radar had been perfected and deployed."
        The point is there was not effective radar and half of the Japanese submarines at the start of the war were equipped with scout planes and they were effective in determining the state of the sites surveyed. The technique was to approach from high in the clouds and take a quick peak at ships in harbor and look for new airfields being built and to count the number and type of ships and planes found. Radar and interception capabilities did rapidly improve. Later-built subs did not carry seaplanes. Three giant submarine aircraft carriers were completed towards the end of the war, but were converted to other uses.

        "Were the internees the only ones relocated in WW2?  This is a retoric question asked by the editor.
        German and Italian aliens had to relocate outside the radius of specific military bases and war industrial plants. Japanese had to relocate outside of a zone reaching 40 miles inland from the Pacific Coast. There were others -- millions. A large part of the American population relocated during the war. For example, Ken Burn's, "The War", profiles Mobile, Alabama, a city of less than 100,000 that had an influx into the city and surroundings of 150,000 workers. Boarding house rented space at four to a room. Working in 12-hour shifts, some of these people also sleep in shifts in the same bed. "During the war, the phenomenal influx of workers created a huge housing shortage. Citizens rented out extra rooms and also converted porches, garages and even chicken coops into rentals." This was true in every American war town.   Plus 20 million men and woman relocated to barracks ; millions of wives followed their husbands to domestic posts. After training, millions of men swung in hammocks aboard ships, or lived in tents and fox holes. A large part of the American people moved into new and often uncomfortable surroundings. This does not include the hundreds of millions made homeless in Europe and Asia or interered to cemeteries.
    Relocation of 100,000 enemy aliens and dependents to temporary government housing is only a trival part of the massive movement of people by that war.

        Reader Observation
        Found your website most interesting. My father's brother-in-law was captured on Bataan survived the war and returned from the POW camps weighing 58 pounds ; he committed suicide in 1952. Regarding the relocation of enemy citizens it should be noted that in 1922 J Edgar Hoover led the Palmer Raids against the Bolsheviks and the Red Terror in the US. {10,000 arrested} . In 1936 FDR utilized the FBI and the military intelligence to identify the Russian, the German, and the Italian citizens that represented a threat to the US and they were either exiled or imprisoned. Although focus has been on the Japanese internment all of the foreign threats were identified and dealt with long before the Japanese were interred.
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