Ex-presidents silent so far on domestic spying

Hear that deafening sound outside Fort Meade, Md.?

It’s the sound of ex-presidents protesting George W. Bush’s National Security Agency spying on Americans.

Will that change?

Likely not.

Here’s why.

Gerald Ford tried to stonewall Frank Church’s Senate Intelligence Committee and Otis Pike’s House Select Committee, not to mention the far more explosive House Government Information Subcommittee of Bella Abzug. Remember that these hearings occurred not only after Watergate but after the stench of Ford’s pardon of Nixon, and yet a theoretically “weakened” Ford still did some hard-core stonewalling. Read “The Puzzle Palace”, by James Bamford, pages 375-88, including Rumsfeld’s involvement during his first tour as Secretary of Defense.

Jimmy Carter? He did push for, and sign into law, the Foreign Intelligence Security Act in 1978. There’s a possibility he will speak in public, rather than just trying to call W on the carpet in private. We shall see.

George H.W.? Please. He certainly won’t say anything in public, and as ex-head of the CIA, probably has no private qualms about this one, either. So, scratch that.

Clinton? As I’ve posted before in comments, he doubled the number of FISA requests before Bush doubled them again. Now, I’m not saying he did anything illegal, and I do take note this initial doubling occurred after the the 1993 WTC attack, but in his/Hillary’s national health care meetings showed, he’s not necessarily the world’s greatest friend of government openness. (You’ll also note that neither one of the Clintons appear to have huge qualms about the Patriot Act.)

In part, this will be a battle of executive privilege questions, which is why even Carter may not speak out in public. We shall see.