When someone says they work in national security

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work for one of these agencies and just tell people where I work. They’ve changed their approach to this in recent years.

Where but not what, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I call BS. People really working in that field will usually be very vague, using terms like ‘government contractor’ ‘consultant’ or similar..

The guy I know who actually does this is so vague that I can’t even figure out which agency. We have known each other for more than 30 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS. People really working in that field will usually be very vague, using terms like ‘government contractor’ ‘consultant’ or similar..

DH is retired CIA. He preferred to just say he was a project manager. If really pressed about his employer, the “official“ party line - right down to what appeared on his W2 for many years - was that he worked for the State Department.

Yep, people hearing where will form different thoughts if cia versus state. The latter sounds boring paper pushing type

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS. People really working in that field will usually be very vague, using terms like ‘government contractor’ ‘consultant’ or similar..

The guy I know who actually does this is so vague that I can’t even figure out which agency. We have known each other for more than 30 years.

They'll say what they do (project manager for example) but not where they work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS. People really working in that field will usually be very vague, using terms like ‘government contractor’ ‘consultant’ or similar..

The guy I know who actually does this is so vague that I can’t even figure out which agency. We have known each other for more than 30 years.

They'll say what they do (project manager for example) but not where they work.

Could be anything.

[Anonymous]

I always figure if it's the truth, they're certainly shouldn't be telling me about it.

And if they're telling me about it, they are probably trying to run a scam or simply lying. Or really really bad at their job.

It's definitely not an answer that's going to make me even more interested. Just more skeptical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I call BS. People really working in that field will usually be very vague, using terms like ‘government contractor’ ‘consultant’ or similar..

On the great TV series “Get Smart,” the guy always said he was a greeting card salesman. That stopped the prying immediately.

But in real life, national security workers will often say they work in communications. It’s vague & boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS. People really working in that field will usually be very vague, using terms like ‘government contractor’ ‘consultant’ or similar..

On the great TV series “Get Smart,” the guy always said he was a greeting card salesman. That stopped the prying immediately.

But in real life, national security workers will often say they work in communications. It’s vague & boring.

That and project or program manager. Program officer too

[Anonymous]

I once went to an optical computing conference and my name tag for some reason said "US Government" I got a lot of attention cuz they thought I was CIA or DIA.
I wasn't. 😀

[Anonymous]

It is a very broad term and can also be used in sales/consulting to market solutions targeted to defense/intel customers. Firms may have an umbrella of customers including DHS, DoD etc they call “national security programs.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I call BS. People really working in that field will usually be very vague, using terms like ‘government contractor’ ‘consultant’ or similar..

DH is retired CIA. He preferred to just say he was a project manager. If really pressed about his employer, the “official“ party line - right down to what appeared on his W2 for many years - was that he worked for the State Department.

I actually work at State and met someone else who said they work at State but then was incredibly vague about which office, which is unusual. I was determined to figure it out so I tried to search for them in the internal directory, weren't there. Then it all clicked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are you thinking they do? Do you ask?

They are usually lying. Anyone that actually does any secret squirrel stuff doesn't say they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If someone told me now, it’s ICE. If it was before I would guess state department

Always picture Chevy Chase in "Spies Like Us" when combine those two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are you thinking they do? Do you ask?

When someone says they “work in national security,” the last thing you should do is treat it like an opening to some parlor game. In that world, ambiguity isn’t flair — it’s policy. Some people are vague because they have to be. Others are vague because they want to sound like they have to be. And unless you hold a clearance and a need-to-know, you’re not going to be able to tell the difference.

If you’re smart, you don’t press. Anyone actually doing sensitive work won’t — and can’t — tell you much. You ask them specifics and you’ll watch them retreat behind the same line I saw for decades: “I do policy. I support operations. I help manage risk.” It sounds like nothing because it’s designed to be nothing.

What should you assume? That they’re doing something somewhere in the vast ecosystem that keeps the country from falling apart while the rest of us argue about middle-school lotteries and leaf blowers. Could be cybersecurity. Could be defense analysis. Could be vetting contractors. Could be a desk job so dull it would make your eyes cross. Ninety percent of national security work is unglamorous, methodical, and absolutely essential.

So do you ask? You can — but don’t expect the truth, the whole truth, or anything close to a Tom Clancy plot. In that line of work, the people who talk the least are usually the ones doing the most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If someone told me now, it’s ICE. If it was before I would guess state department

Look, we’ve got to be clear about something that keeps getting blurred—often intentionally—in these conversations. Working for ICE is not the same thing as “working in national security.” It’s just not. Those two things live in totally different universes of mission, scope, and public accountability.

When people talk about “national security,” they’re talking about the institutions tasked with protecting the country from foreign threats—intelligence agencies, counterterrorism units, cyber defense, the folks tracking geopolitical risk. It’s about espionage, state actors, international terrorism, military strategy. That’s the lane.

ICE, meanwhile, is an immigration enforcement agency. Its job is domestic—administrative, civil enforcement of immigration law. ICE is not in the Situation Room; it’s not briefing the President on Russian nuclear posture or Chinese cyber operations. It’s not even in the same bureaucratic orbit. It’s carrying out arrests, detentions, and deportations inside the United States. That’s law enforcement—domestic law enforcement—not national security.

And, yes, sometimes immigration intersects with national security concerns. But that doesn’t magically transform every ICE employee, or even most of them, into some kind of clandestine national-security operative. By that logic, the TSA agent checking your shampoo is a counterterrorism strategist and the FDA inspector checking a lettuce shipment is protecting the homeland.

The broader issue is this: invoking “national security” lends a kind of unearned gravitas, a shield against scrutiny. It suggests secrecy, expertise, even heroism. And that’s exactly why the conflation is so misleading. Because ICE has its own mission, its own controversies, its own record—and it shouldn’t be laundered through the language of national security to avoid public accountability.

So, no. Working for ICE is not “working in national security.”
It’s working in federal immigration enforcement. And we can have a serious conversation about that—what it is, what it isn’t, and what it should be—without pretending it’s something else.