Korematsu had always considered himself an ordinary American man leading an ordinary American life. He was born in Oakland in 1919. After graduating from Oakland High School, he worked as a welder in San Francisco. He had a convertible and an Italian-American girlfriend.

When FDR issued the order, Korematsu, then 22, stayed behind, unwilling to leave his girlfriend, while his family was taken to Tanforan, a former racetrack south of San Francisco, for "processing." He was arrested in May of 1944.

"I am an American citizen," Korematsu said. "They locked us up simply because of our ancestry."

One month after his arrest, Korematsu filed a case to challenge Executive Order 9066. In December, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him, stating that Korematsu "was not excluded from the military area because of hostility to him or his race." He was convicted and stayed in the Topaz camp in Utah until 1946.

Korematsu, 84, sees a similarity between the way the American government treated 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II and the way it is treating the country's Arab Americans now.

"Today, the war on terrorism has been used to justify acts contrary to what many feel are basic civil liberties, including detention of immigrants without charges and profiling and surveillance of Arabs and Muslims," said host Tom Izu, executive director of the California History Center. "The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was not justified by military necessity. It was done out of fear and insecurity."

Izu said the Bush administration's treatment toward Arab Americans is a product of "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership," the same causes identified by a bipartisan commission established by Congress in 1980 to investigate the 1942 executive order.

Panelist Jimi Yamaichi, 80, said he, too, is worried that war hysteria has prevailed in the United States since the Sept. 11 tragedy. He was especially upset by North Carolina congressman Howard Coble's recent comment that he agreed with Roosevelt's internment policy.

On Feb. 4, Coble, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said in a radio call-in program that although he didn't think Arab Americans should be interned, he believed some Arab Americans are intent on doing harm to the United States as some Japanese-Americans were then.

From 1942 to 1946, Yamaichi, his parents, three brothers and five sisters stayed at the relocation center in Heart Mountain, Wyo., and at the Tule Lake internment camp while one of his brothers was fighting in the Army.

Richard Konda, attorney and executive director of the Asian Law Alliance, said, "Not until 1984 did a U.S. district court find that the FBI had suppressed evidence so that they could convict Mr. Korematsu. After Sept. 11, hundreds of Arab Americans were detained without charges."

Maha ElGenaidi, president of the Islamic Networks Group, agreed.

"This is a period of history that is not pleasant," ElGenaidi said. "What we need to do is to find a balance between civil liberty and national security."

Korematsu received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton in 1998, 54 years after his conviction.