On September 2, 2008, the US Department of Commerce, following three years of review and comments from "public, research communities, manufacturers, voluntary standards organizations, and Federal, State, and local government organizations", announced that FIPS 6-4 was one of ten FIPS standards withdrawn by the department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).[1] Deemed "obsolete, or have not been updated to adopt current voluntary industry standards, federal specifications, federal data standards, or current good practices for information security",[1] the NIST replaced FIPS 6-4 with "INCITS 31 – 2009" codes for the "Identification of the States and Equivalent Areas within the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Insular Areas".[2]