Critical Infrastructure Information Docket - July 14, 2003 Vol. 4 No. 14

July 14, 2003 Vol. 4 No. 14:

Published: 07/14/2003

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Critical Infrastructure Information Docket

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently finished receiving public comments on its proposed rule for the handling of Critical Infrastructure Information (CII). While the June 16th deadline for comments was over a month ago, DHS is still not providing access to the public comments it received, nor has the agency announced any plans to do so.

Review of public comments is an important step in maintaining government accountability and should occur as soon as possible. Various pieces of legislation recently passed, such as the E-Government Act and E-Rulemaking, consistently recognize the importance of access to public comment dockets and encourage the use of ongoing online dockets as the best practice.

According to a DHS official, the agency’s current thinking is that the docket of received public comments on the proposed CII rule will be made public when the final rule is published. The DHS official acknowledged that the agency had received extensive comments on the proposed CII rule. Opening the docket of public comments simultaneously with the release of the final rule makes it much harder for the public to track and evaluate the rule.