12/23/2016 / By Don Wrightman
There’s an insidious law for us to ponder, courtesy of Barack Obama. An online radio host pointed out back in 2013 that the law would grant the federal government huge power to saturate Americans with domestic propaganda at the taxpayer’s expense. “This law allows the federal government to have sweeping power to push television, radio, newspaper and social-media propaganda onto the U.S. public,” warned Michael Evans, host of America’s Voice Now. He said that the law would remove protection for Americans from the ideologies of Obama’s administration. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 was specifically what Evans was referring to; it was inserted into the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.
A so-called anti-propaganda law formerly prevented the U.S. government’s broadcasting arm from reaching American viewers. On July 2, 2013, the implementation of the new reform marked an end to shielding Americans from government delivered programming. The government now had the green light to unleash thousands of hours of weekly government funded radio and television programming for domestic consumption.
The U.S. government previously broadcast news and opinions to foreign countries through outlets like Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. The new law allowed them to expand their broadcasting business to influence citizens within the U.S. America had been protected from this over the years, but all good things pre-Obama had to come to an end, right?
“The types of information that we promulgate overseas to foreigners is disinformation. It is meant to confuse, distract, redirect. It is not meant to be an informative source of news,” Evans explained. “Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. There is already, for all intents and purposes, an organization in the United States that does this. It’s called MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News. They are an arm of propaganda. But if you think things were bad before with those groups, wait till you see what’s gonna come out of them now. They’ll be reporting government misinformation as factual news stories, and a gullible American public will swallow it hook, line and sinker.”
A new anti-Russian propaganda bill is now also to be signed into law. This bill will make it illegal to run an alternative media website in the United states. The purpose of the bill is to counteract measures by Russia to exert covert influence. It is also known as the “Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017.”
The definition of Russian influence includes references to so-called fake news websites, or any site deemed to be anti-establishment. If the bill makes it through the Senate, the internet will never be the same again.
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Tagged Under: Alternative media, federal laws, Obama