In the newspaper industry, deadlines actually mean something. Editorial content and advertisements must come in by a certain time and workflow must be optimized to meet a strict production schedule, or else, no newspaper.

This concept is simple enough, if occasionally cruel.

But it appears the Byzantine world of business regulation, intertwined as it has become with consumer protection, has no need to pay heed to simple deadline rules.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission pushed back its own June 1 deadline for enforcement of federal Red Flag rules meant to protect against identity theft.

It marked the fifth time the deadline has been pushed back since November of 2008, when the rules were first supposed to take effect.

Which begs the question: If the supposed deadlines were so artificial and easily ignored in the first place, why create them at all?

The latest delay, according to reports, was prompted by requests from several members of Congress working on limiting the scope of the Red Flags rules, in the wake of allegations that the strict rules might unfairly penalize some industries.

We’re all in favor of delaying or stopping imperfect legislation in favor of getting things right, or at least trying to address as many concerns as possible.

But in this case, the Red Flags rules were a part of a larger, and already-passed, law that went into effect Jan. 1, 2008 – the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (or, cutely, the FACT Act).

It seems logical that the time for tinkering with and perfecting the well-intended identity theft protection guidelines was then, before the law was passed. Now, roughly two and a half years after the fact and in the wake of a monumental economic collapse that had barely begun at the time of their passage, the time for the rules may have already come and gone.

At the time of their initial passage, in 2008, the rules required financial institutions, and other organizations that extend consumer credit, to develop and implement written policies for detecting and preventing identity theft – certainly a worthwhile endeavor.

But in those intervening two years, foreclosures have skyrocketed, some of this country’s largest and most storied businesses have failed, millions have lost their jobs and the world sank into a deep pool of debt.

Also in those two years, no doubt, millions of people have had their identities stolen.

If even a handful had been spared the hardship because of what was supposed to have been the letter of the law, then Red Flags may have been a success. Sadly, we’ll never know.

Now, the issue itself seems on the verge of being swallowed up by a larger financial industry oversight overhaul. Once a hot-button topic, identity theft seems to have taken a back seat to foreclosure prevention, truth in lending efforts and anti-predatory, pro-consumer reform.

The problem with disregarding deadlines is that when the final deadline does come to pass, more than two years of stops and starts and faint protest dilutes the initial impact of the rules.

So what we’re left with after two years (three, actually, when taking into account the new enforcement “deadline” of Jan. 1, 2011) is a rule we’ve essentially been ignoring since its passage. How does the FTC expect businesses to respect the rules when they themselves have shown such little regard for their own enforcement?

Without deadlines, newspapers can’t function. Sometimes, it’s a pity the federal government can’t, or won’t, play by the same rules.