President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave military authorities a significant amount of power to carry out Executive Order 9066. This order called for the removal of citizens with Japanese, German, or Italian ancestry into internment camps during World War II. This was done shortly after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
To carry out this order, the Secretary of War was given the power to deem certain areas as military zones. Any area named a military zone by the Secretary of War was one in which citizens could be forced into internment camps. This gave the military the ability to manipulate which areas were military zones in order to target specific groups of people.
