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Came here to say the same thing. Why is the government collecting secrets of its workers' sex lives? Why is it being stored? All data is subject to theft. The bigger question is why it was collected and stored in the first place. The government is responsible here.

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So they'd have blackmail material to use against potential leakers or defectors. They certainly did in the Edward Snowden case (remember the whole "girl is a stripper" thing that was meant to damage him but backfired?).

These are investigations for clearances. They ensure that the candidate doesn't have anything that can be exploited by a foreign government. The article mentioned this. Before you get a clearance you'll have to go through a very thorough background check. In the case of top secret information they'll dig into your entire life and even give you what's called a "full lifestyle polygraph", meaning no topic is off limits.

I was more answering their second question: "Why is it being stored?"

You've got to really want a job to go through that bullshit.

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