America’s spies, like the rest of the nation, are looking ahead to a period of austerity. The intelligence community is facing “double digit” percentage cut to its $80 billion annual budget, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said today.

“Coincidentally today we handed in our homework assignment, if you will, to [the White House Office of Management and Budget], and it calls for cuts in the double-digit range with a ‘B’ over 10 years,” Clapper told the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s conference in San Antonio, Texas.

As the federal government attempts to...