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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What are you thinking they do? Do you ask? [/quote]
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.[/quote]

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