The Defense Department has extended the public comment period on a controversial package of proposed rules related to contractor safeguarding of unclassified information, according to a Federal Register notice.
The comment period, which was supposed to end next Monday, will instead run through Nov. 30. The Pentagon gave no reason for the extension (apart from allowing more time for public input, of course). But, as Federal Times reported back in July, the package has drawn objections both from contractors (on the grounds that it would be unnecessarily burdensome) and open-government advocates (who suspect an end run around the Obama administration’s efforts to put checks on agencies’ handling of “controlled unclassified information”).
