Turns out I'm right. I thought about the military and contractors as well. "A Top Secret clearance, meanwhile, costs the government nearly 20 times more, at an

Turns out I'm right. I thought about the military and contractors as well. "A Top Secret clearance, meanwhile, costs the government nearly 20 times more, at an average of $3,959 per background check. At that rate, investigating the 1.5 million people with Top Secret passes may have cost as much as $5.9 billion over several years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/24/5-1-million-americans-have-security-clearances-thats-more-than-the-entire-population-of-norway/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/03/24... "As of last October, nearly five million people held government security clearances. Of that, 1.4 million held top-secret clearances. More than a third of those with top-secret clearances are contractors, which would appear to include Mr. Snowden." https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323495604578535653583992418 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323495604578535... Now we can get into semantics until the cows come home but even tens of thousands of people are way too many. Imagine 1+ million people.