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You hit on something profound. The PFC was allowed access. There has to be higher ups who allowed this. Follow the trail. Many on here with security clearances say this is not possible. Hmmm!

Look PFCs do more then cut grass and march around in circles. I have seen plenty of PFC clerks & junior assistant system administrators who had extraordinary access to classified material. They were the humans in the IT beast that did the grunt work to keep it running. They are not decision makers regarding the data or it's meaning they just keep the lights blinking. (But looks like the data center he worked also had incredibly lax security procedures!) The problem is we are in a age where NO social pathology renders one unfit for high security clearances. Radical unthinking egalitarianism trumps all.
There used to be something called “life style unsuitability” that would block granting such access apparently that category no longer exists or security officials don't feel like fighting the bureaucratic battles to invoke it. The person requesting such access would be quietly assigned another job. Notice how the fact that Manning is a gay dram queen gets left out of the discussion. (Gay drama queen there is a redundant statement!)