60 after his CIA security clearance ran out, he applied to renew it. A new clearance required a new background check and filling out (again) the government’s 127-page standard form 86. Since 1996, background investigations for the NSA, like much of the computer work at the NSA, had been outsourced to a private company. It had proceeded from the effort of the Clinton Administration to cut the size of the government by privatizing tasks that could be more efficiently done by for profit companies. US Investigations Services, or USIS as it is now called, which won the contract for background checks, was initially owned by the hedge fund Carlyle Group who later sold it to another hedge fund, Providence Equity Partners. For the hedge funds, profits were the measure of success. To increase its profits from the contract with the NSA, USIS had to move more quickly in concluding background checks since it did not get paid more extensive investigation. In 2006, the government learned USIS’s background checks were often prematurely ended. In Snowden’s case, as USIS did not have access to Snowden’s CIA personnel files, it did not learn about the pending security investigation of him. Nor did it learn from the Internet that he was a disgruntled employee. So Snowden’s new clearance was approved in the summer of 2011, allowing him to continue working for Dell on secret intelligence projects. Meanwhile, in August 2011, Mills began her own blog entitled “L’s Journey.” In it, she described herself as “a world-traveling pole-dancing super hero.” By now, she was an accomplished photographer, specializing in taking self-portraits. Many of her posted pictures were provocative poses of herself in her underwear and various states of undress. She wrote: “T’ve always wanted to be splashed on the cover of magazines, with my best air-brushed look.” Her wish would be gratified two years later in way she did not anticipate. For his part, Snowden seemed happy to encourage her fantasy about bein