New Rule To Nip Future Snowdens Is Potential Headache For Contractors

The Department of Defense has issued a new rule requiring contractors with access to classified information to attempt to identify and then report potential security threats from their own employees. The rule requires the reporting of “relevant and credible information” about actual or potential threats. That’s a formulation that leaves a lot of room for interpretation, notes Sheppard, Mullin attorney Laura Jehl in the National Defense Industrial Association magazine, and it puts contractors in a difficult situation that could easily lead to litigation. “Contractors subject to the new rule,” she writes, “will need to think carefully about how to balance their compliance obligation with employee workplace rights and civil liberties.”