Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Alex Brandon/AP
Jury duty, though mandatory and democratic, can disrupt many citizens’ important work.
On Thursday evening, the point was made by James Clapper, director of the Office of National Intelligence, who was keynote speaker at the Presidential Distinguished Rank Awards banquet put on by the Senior Executives Association.
Six months ago, Clapper received a jury summons from Fairfax County. He asked his executive assistant, Stephanie, to get him out of it. “She called the county clerk and explained about ODNI’s 17 intelligence agencies, its $50 billion budget and all the pressures,” Clapper said. “But the lady was having none of it.”
The clerk did, however, notice Clapper’s age—now 75--and mentioned a special exemption for people over 70. So it was determined, the spymaster said: “We’ll take the geezer exemption.”
In more serious comments, Clapper commended the 43 executives in the State Department’s Benjamin Franklin Diplomatic Reception room who were honored for saving the government a total of $121 billion. He gave a capsule history of the SEA and its formation in 1980 to push for higher pay—noting “how tough it is” to get a spending-conscious White House to join the effort. And he expressed relief that he has testified at his “ninth and last” congressional hearing, working in a mention of the term “root canal.”
Finally, Clapper offered some biographical detail about how he first got interested in intelligence.
As a 12-year-old, he was in Philadelphia watching old movies on late-night TV. Suddenly, while channel-surfing he came across Philadelphia police radio, he recalled. Fascinated, Clapper used a toothpick to lock the channel in and began charting the crimes mentioned on a city map using file cards, a memory that stuck. “It illustrates something about what intelligence is all about,” Clapper said. “You draw inferences from limited information, and it takes patience and persistence, to take advantage of our adversaries’ vulnerabilities.”