At my current place of employment, "hacking tools" are banned. On that list is netcat. It is installed on every unix desktop and server, and I use it daily. I have decided to just not point out the stupidity of this -- they might do something that's even more stupid as a response.
"If you want me to defend you from the bad people on the net, then don't send me to a gun fight with only a knife."
Yes, that Randall Schwartz.
And no blame, but it's probably a good idea to say, "We're scanning for weak passwords" first. The sysadmin at the library I used to work at ran password crackers occasionally, and sent out an e-mail once saying that he suddenly knew a lot of staffs' boyfriends names. It's a delicate issue.
"hacking tools" are banned.
If you are asked about it. The best way is to respond that you use it as a a diagnostic tool or analysis tool.
As for arguing it's not a hacking tool - A person could take something as innocent as VBScript for Office and write viruses with it. Nothing you can do about your tools ability to be abused.