Why? If security concerns have changed today, why should new recruits be subject to a level of scrutiny that current employees aren’t. Everyone that works there works under today’s increased need for security.
Here’s another way to look at it. Should all employees have to be exposed to potential danger, just to please the current employees who haven’t had to go through as rigid a security process? Don’t they have rights?
It's the equivalent of saying that, because the University of California has secret defense contracts pertaining to nuclear weapons, all UC employees everywhere, including lefty professors teaching women's studies, undergraduate students in work-study programs, etc., must provide the government with complete information on their entire past, including every bank account they've ever had, every employer they've ever had, every health practitioner they've ever consulted, all their medical records, whether they've ever had an abortion, a sexually transmitted disease, ever seen a mental health practitioner and for what, identify all their relatives and their relative's employers, etc., as a condition of continuing to work for UC.
Since you pay taxes to the federal government, is it entitled to the same information about you?
At some point the government's demand for information goes over the line. Here I agree it went over the line. Check my pings. I'm a hawk. The government's position here is plain ridiculous.