§195d Social media working group

Summary

Create a social media working group inside the Department. Its job is to help spread information by social media and to give guidance and best practices on using social media before, during, and after natural disasters, terrorist attacks, or other man-made disasters. The Group must include experts from federal, State, local, tribal, territorial, and nongovernmental groups, including the Department’s Offices of Public Affairs, Chief Information Officer, and Privacy Office; FEMA and its Office of Disability Integration and Coordination; the American Red Cross; the Forest Service; CDC; USGS; and NOAA. The Secretary (or a designee) will chair the Group and must pick a rotating co-chair from State or local members. The chair will also add more members so the added members are at least equal in number to the regular members, include at least 3 private-sector representatives, and include people from law enforcement, fire services, emergency management, public health, universities, and nonprofit disaster relief groups. The chair must set term limits. The Group must meet within 90 days after November 5, 2015, and then at the chair’s call but at least twice a year; meetings may be virtual. Each year the Group meets it must send Congress a report with reviews of social media tools, lessons learned, training, coordination with the private sector, and recommendations to improve Department use of social media and public access to information. The Group ends 5 years after November 5, 2015, unless the chair certifies to the Senate and House homeland committees that it should continue; the chair may renew every 5 years.