US Army and Intel: Shutdown already damaging national security

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and Ray Odierno, the US Army’s chief of staff, have both decried the impact of the government shutdown. Clapper has called employees’ unpaid furlough a recruitment ‘dreamland’ for foreign spy agencies. “I’ve never seen anything like this. In my view I think this, on top of the sequestration cuts, seriously damages the safety and security of the nation,” the DNI told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that was intended as a discussion of NSA surveillance powers. Officials say that about 70 percent of all intelligence personnel have been forced to take unpaid leave, including 4,000 computer specialists. “This affects our global capability to support the military, to support diplomacy, and to support our policymakers. And the danger here, of course, that this will accumulate over time — the damage will be insidious.



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