Basically, it's a colossal power grab, but in a mode of being that the current politics isn't calibrated against. In the story of the world that DC politics tells, the computers are just those machines that the interns waste time on, and that make the filing system go more quickly. Even in NYC business, simple passwords generally known among the office staff are a power move.
"But there is more than one history of the world." (John Crowley)