Bills Introduced – 3-14-14

The Senate left early for their week-long trip back to their home states for personal contacts, voter schmoozing and fund raising. The House stuck around long enough to introduce 26 bills before they also left town for a week. Of those bills only two may be (remotely perhaps) of particular interest to readers of this blog:

HR 4258 Latest Title: To reauthorize and update certain provisions of the Secure Water Act. Sponsor: Rep Napolitano, Grace F. (D,CA)

HR 4263 Latest Title: To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to authorize the Department of Homeland Security to establish a social media working group, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Brooks, Susan W. (R,IN)

The Secure Water Act was actually a drought protection measure, but there is a remote possibility that this bill may include some actual security measures or, slightly more likely, some chemical protection measures. We will have to wait and see.

The Department’s use of social media is mixed at best, with some organizations (TSA is a good example) aggressively using social media and others not so much. The Department has taken some heat for monitoring social networks for situational awareness (NOTE: This blog has appeared on the lists of sites monitored; I welcome the attention). It will be interesting to see which side of that focus this bill falls.