It’s really clear you’ve never worked in security. Maybe sit this one out.
How can we interpret this as NSA competence?
Do please share your expertise from working in security about how this guy having access to secrets is a positive indicator of competence. I'm more than willing to change my views given a good argument based on strong evidence.
The NSA has a responsibility to remove weaknesses from their ranks, mission accomplished. If the problem you see is "Well agencies ought never give new people access to state secrets" then you can't have any changes ever - it's a dead organization.
The other competency I see is that none of the documents, which are of course going to be used in court, are available to the general public. They proved a weakness without leaking any information to parties outside the intel community. They essentially demonstrated that even if they hire a complete moron, state secrets will not leave protected facilities.
Hiring this guy to serve beer seems to me like it's not a super-competent move. But they did, then they stung him and he's likely going to jail and they get to talk up their success on thwarting "the baddies." Until you read the details and laugh at the idiocy of it. According to you it's because they can't determine who to trust before giving them security clearance. No way to do it. Can't even take a reasonable guess.
Do they still use totally discredited and shown to be utterly ineffective witch-doctor bullshit like "polygraph" machines? Or have they stepped up from throwing bones and reading tea-leaves? Or they've stopped and just give anyone clearance because there's no other way to do it as you seem to be claiming.
Is that your experience of working in security? Please share.