The Department of Homeland Security has issued a final rule that will allow it to withhold portions of its internal records that relate to its enforcement of civil and criminal law, its ongoing investigations, its national security and intelligence activities and its effort to protect the President of the United States.
DHS cites numerous reasons for exempting such information from disclosure, including that such disclosures might contain personally identifiable information, might alert a subject of an investigation to the existence of that investigation, might release inaccurate information and might impede law enforcement.
The specific system of records that will be covered by the new rule, which becomes effective on August 18, 2010, is known as the Department of Homeland Security/ALL – 027, The History of the Department of Homeland Security System of Records.
When the proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on February 23, 2010, the public was asked to submit comments. According to the final rule, which was published in the Federal Register on August 18, only four comments were submitted by the public, all of them supporting the proposed new rule.
The new rule was signed by Mary Ellen Callahan, the department’s chief privacy officer.
Full article by Jacob Goodwin, Government Security News
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