Comment on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses Task Force Draft Report; Availability; FR Doc. #2011-27082; Unknown Submitter

The safeguarding of material regarding the acquisition of equipment and services for the Department of Defense is necessary in order to promote the interests of the public welfare and governmental and private entities who benefit from such transactions. The discretion of federal agencies to acquire the resources necessary for the execution of their functions is not only necessary, but expected by the public in order to meet the demands for which they are created to satisfy. The protection of such information is of equal public interest. The proposed rule provides an all-inclusive yet very specific means of insuring those interests, as the terminology and expectations are clearly defined, leaving little room for interpretation of its requirements. It guidelines are concurrent with the precedent of executive orders and the specificity of the proposed rule, by all appearances, fails to inherently favor or disadvantage any particular parties who are to be affected. Furthermore, the expectations of affected parties are by all means reasonable, as they are concurrent with standardized business practices. The basic first-protections, such as virus protection and security software, are of minimal costs, even to smaller businesses, and although these practices should theoretically already be in practice, it provides a necessary protocol for addressing the violation of such practices. I fully support the implementation of the necessary protection of unclassified information, industry and agencies to which this rule will be applied.