It’s being branded by proponents as an attempt at transparency, but critics of a new law say the United States government just got the green-light to use propaganda made for foreign audiences on the American public.
Until earlier this month, a longstanding federal law made it
illegal for the US Department of State to share domestically the
internally-authored news stories sent to American-operated
outlets broadcasting around the globe. All of that changed
effective July 2, when the Broadcasting Board of Governors became
officially allowed to let US households tune-in to hear the type
of programming that has previously only been allowed in outside
nations.
The BBG is the independent government agency that broadcasts
Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other networks created
“to inform, engage and connect people around the world in
support of freedom and democracy,” and a new law on the books
for the first time allows the agency to provide members of the
American public with program materials originally meant to be
disseminated abroad.
The Smith-Mundt Act has ensured for decades that government-made
media intended for foreign audiences doesn’t end up on the radio
networks broadcast within the US. An amendment tagged onto this
year National Defense Authorization Act removed that prohibition,
however, and as of earlier this month those news stories meant
for nations abroad can now be heard easily by American ears.
Back in 1972, Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright equated those
government stories with propaganda when he said they “should
be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the
graveyard of Cold War relics.” A couple of current lawmakers
were singing a different tune when they proposed the Smith-Mundt
Modernization Act of 2012 last year, though, which became
official just two weeks ago.
When Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Adam Smith (D-WA) introduced
their changes last year, they said their bill would modify “a
Cold War-era law that hampers diplomatic, defense and other
agencies’ ability to communicate in the twenty-first
century.” Amid much debate, however, their argument quickly
became one that focused less on ensuring Uncle Sam has his say
within the media and more on making sure taxpayer-funded program
became available to those footing the costs.
“Effective strategic communication and public diplomacy should
be front-and-center as we work to roll back al-Qaeda’s and other
violent extremists’ influence among disaffected populations,”
Rep Smith wrote in May 2012 in support of his bill. “An
essential part of our efforts must be a coordinated,
comprehensive, adequately resourced plan to counter their radical
messages and undermine their recruitment abilities. To do this,
Smith-Mundt must be updated to bolster our strategic
communications and public diplomacy capacity on all fronts and
mediums — especially online.”
But a Buzzfeed article published days later by late journalist
Michael Hastings opened a can of worms on Smith and Thornberry,
and the lawmakers were forced to quickly diffuse critics who said
their bill made it so that the government could effectuate
propaganda on its own public. On his part, Thornberry told
Foreign Policy that the BuzzFeed article and the subsequent
blowback was “one level of sloppiness on top of another”
caused by an uninformed Hastings story being hijacked by pundits
from other publications all the more ignorant. “And once
something sensational gets out there, it just spreads like
wildfire,” said Thornberry.
“The idea that the State Department could be so effective as
to impact domestic politics is just silly,” Thornberry told
Foreign Policy last year. “This gives Americans the chance to
see what the State Department is saying to people all over the
world,” he insisted.
Weighing in to Foreign Policy one year later, BBG spokeswoman
Lynne Weil said recently that the maneuver is nothing more than
to show Americans how their money is being spent abroad. “Now
Americans will be able to know more about what they are paying
for with their tax dollars – greater transparency is a win-win
for all involved,” she said.
In the wake of others’ comments, though – and the actual text of
the legislation itself – critics can’t help but suggest that the
latest amendment courtesy of Smith and Thornberry have opened the
door for the use of propaganda to persuade the American public at
a time when the popularity of both Congress and the president are
lower than what either would prefer.
Those opinions and others could change, of course, if the
American government can infiltrate the radio waves and introduce
news aimed at specific demographics that previously has only been
pushed outside of the US. The statement from Smith and Thornberry
last year suggested that the Cold War-era legislation previously
prevented a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based radio station with a
large Somali-American audience from broadcasting a piece produced
by the BBG’s Voice of America that rebutted efforts from
Somalia’s al- Shabaab extremist group to recruit members within
the US.
“Even after the community was targeted for recruitment by
al-Shabaab and other extremists, government lawyers refused the
replay request, noting that Smith-Mundt tied their hands,”
wrote the lawmakers.
“Somalis have three options for news,” a former US
government source with connections to the BBG told Foreign
Policy: word of mouth, al-Shabaab or VOA Somalia.
“Those people can get Al-Shabaab, they can get Russia Today,
but they couldn’t get access to their taxpayer-funded news
sources like VOA Somalia,” the source said. “It was
silly.”
“Previously, the legislation had the effect of clouding and
hiding this stuff,” the source said. “Now we’ll have a
better sense: Gee some of this stuff is really good. Or gee some
of this stuff is really bad. At least we’ll know now.”
According to a document from the Office of the Federal Register
published this week by Cryptome, the Smith-Thornberry act
“does not require or prompt the public to take any action;
rather, it functions to relieve the prohibition that prevented
the Agency from responding to requests for program materials from
the US public, US media entities or other US organizations.”
“This rule benefits the public, media, and other organizations
by allowing them to request and access BBG program materials,
which previously could not be disseminated within the US,” it
reads.
The rule applies only to media published by the State Department
and does not involve any initiatives created or funded through
the Pentagon.
Republished with permission from: RT