> But the security people must know enough about the potential
> to decide if the scientists are violating their contract or
> whatever.
Not necessarily. In most organizations separate employees have a limited field of expertise. They are specialized in a certain aspect of the whole, and have only a vague idea about how the end product works (or indeed what it is). It's a fairly effective safety feature.
> This only creates yet *another* layer of people
> between the "rich and powerful" and the technology.
See above. But, in the end it's fairly trivial who of the select group with full access to the project, the intelligence to fully understand its potential, and the guts to use the technology on themselves will take that final step and upload. To the rest of the world it simply spells "trouble". To avoid the rather unpleasant situation of being at the mercy of a superintelligence there's only one good solution: be the first, or at least among the first in case this is a gradual process.