WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- The partial government shutdown is hampering federal law-enforcement operations, undermining investigators' ability to pay informants and witnesses and compromising national security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Agents Association has said.
The Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, is among the nine Cabinet-level U.S. departments affected by the partial government shutdown, now in its 33th day with no solution in sight.
In a report released Tuesday, the association described the shutdown impact on FBI agents' jobs, with numerous anonymous accounts from FBI agents and other related personnel.
The association is releasing the report to ensure that Congress, the administration, and the public are aware of the "real and daily challenges" faced by FBI agents and the "risks to national security posed by a prolonged shutdown," it said in the report.
"With the government shutdown, we cannot secure safe places to meet with our informants and we cannot pay them for their information," one account reads.
"The operational impacts of this shutdown are immeasurable ... we have postponed the indictment of subjects due to the shutdown," another reads.
FBI special agent Thomas O'Connor, president of the association, said, "The FBI needs to be fully funded so that we can do our jobs -- stop terrorist attacks, prevent criminal activity, arrest bad guys."
The FBI said in a statement that the report is a product of the "nonprofit professional association," and was not issued by the bureau itself.
