ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Intelligence contractor

Okay kiddo, so you know how sometimes people hire other people to do jobs for them? Like how Mom hires a plumber to fix the sink? Well, some really important people also hire other people to do jobs for them - but the jobs they need done are super secret and often have to do with keeping the country safe.

These important people are from a group called the government, and the people they hire are called intelligence contractors. These intelligence contractors are really smart people who have special skills and know how to keep secrets. They work with the government to gather information or do special jobs that help protect the country.

These jobs might include things like hacking into computer systems to find out if someone is planning something bad, or even going to other countries and gathering information about what their leaders are planning. Because these jobs are so important and secret, the people who do them have to be very careful and very smart so that they don't get caught or give away any secrets.

So, intelligence contractors are like really smart secret agents who work for the government to keep the country safe from bad guys who might want to do bad things.