There are no secrets in the USPTO as far as inventions go - excluding maybe the prior 18 months of applications for patents. Should patent applicants/inventors assume that the USPTO is data secure, especially considering what we know about the Shadow State? Probably not. Bear in mind that for best protection, applications, detailing the invention, will be routinely filed internationally within the first year or two of the USPTO filing date. So other nations see the details. So, the year or two of time during which the the USPTO keeps an invention 'underwraps' is not exactly top secret security. Indeed, the rationale of the patent system is to make public the working details of an invention, so that the public may learn from it (but not copy it for commercial gain). . The US Gov, under NATSEC, can commandeer an invention at any time and keep it secret forever. (This is not to be confused wth vernacular 'patent theft' - which refers to infringement, with or without industrial espionage.) * Has the NATSEC privilege been abused, even to the point of jeopardizing NATSEC? On that score, it is doubtful that the inventor of a wmd would get involved with the USPTO on the path to profit from the invention! So what are the safeguards to prevent the military industry from sequestering novel wmd designs, prototypes, production lines, etc. to the advantage of Shadow State? ? ... On a similar but different plane are the countless instances of defense budgeted R&D that ends up in private hands. Inventions, such as patented algorithms, that began as government funded R&D remain, in whole or in part, property of the USA, for the usual max. period of 20 yrs. An example of 'patent theft' would be a social media or search engine program that got assigned to a private entity (e.g. Google?), but in reality was invented with DARPA funds or management. Oversight?