[CCIP]

But top-level? Perhaps my understanding of this is a bit shallow, but I did get the impression that this sort of security applies to people with access to very sensitive facilities and information.

And that said, it's not like every KGB employee was involved in purging undesirables either.

My point is more that when you have such an apparatus operating, by design, without transparency to the people it is responsible to (i.e. the electorate), that is cause to be concerned. I don't doubt most of these people don't actually work in intelligence or do anything remotely sinister or even unusual. But you do have to be at least somewhat worried by the fact that such a massive and well-shieleded institutional infrastracture exists in the country. The Soviet "organs" weren't really malicious most of the time and in the vast majority of their employees/agents weren't either, but when political winds blew a certain way, the infrastructure allowed for some very frightening things to happen, and then to be hidden, ignored, and otherwise dissolved in the mass pervasiveness of the state security establishment. This is how police states operate - not with Big Brother(s) and spooks in scary suits, but more through the sheer reach and 'normality' of the system as a whole.

Noone needs this kind of massive security apparatus - or let's be more specific, the average American does not need this security apparatus. It is expensive, and also goes in contravention to his guaranteed freedoms. At a certain scale, compromises are always needed - but not on a gigantic scale like this. And while janitors may not be concerning, the bigger picture should be.