NEW YORK, Dec 23: Former director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) J Edgar Hoover in 1950s submitted a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty, the New York Times reported on Sunday citing newly declassified papers. Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.

Hoover wanted President Harry Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage”. The FBI would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau, the newspaper said.

The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. “The index now contains approximately 12,000 individuals, of which approximately 97 per cent are citizens of the United States,” he wrote.

“In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus,” it said.

Habeas corpus, the right to seek relief from illegal detention, has been a fundamental principle of law for seven centuries. The Bush administration’s decision to hold suspects for years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has made habeas corpus a contentious issue for Congress and the Supreme Court today.

The Constitution says habeas corpus shall not be suspended “unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it”. The plan proposed by Hoover, the head of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, stretched that clause to include “threatened invasion” or “attack upon United States troops in legally occupied territory”.

The newspaper pointed out that after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, President Bush issued an order that effectively allowed the United States to hold suspects indefinitely without a hearing, a lawyer, or formal charges.

In September 2006, Congress passed a law suspending habeas corpus for anyone deemed an “unlawful enemy combatant”.

But the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the right of American citizens to seek a writ of habeas corpus. This month the court heard arguments on whether about 300 foreigners held at Guantánamo Bay had the same rights. It is expected to rule by next summer.