Those of us who have seen the Broadcasting Board of Governors executives in action over the years fear that they will take advantage of the vague wording of the law to divert resources from critical radio and television broadcasts overseas — as they have already tried (China, Tibet) and in some cases succeeded (Russia, China to some degree by eliminating some VOA Mandarin live newscasts and replacing live programs with repeats) — and to use these scarce resources on domestic dissemination of broadcasts and news, but mostly on themselves and their own bureaucratic activities, including possible domestic marketing, advertising, audience research, numerous contractors but all of it to no good purpose. BBG executives would like nothing better than to have an NPR-like network in the United States. The law should clearly state that they cannot favor one domestic broadcaster over another, place any restrictions on the use of the programs, enter into agreements with domestic stations, actively market the programs, or charge unreasonable fees for making the programs available.

I would go even further than the proposed legislation envisions. All BBG programs — not just Voice of America programs but also Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) – Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV — should all be placed in the public domain for anyone in the United States to use them. But the new law needs to place some restrictions and create specific rules for government bureaucrats to abide by because one cannot trust them to restrain themselves. I don’t think the current group of BBG executives is capable of doing great harm to Americans with sinister news programs, but future government bureaucrats may be. They can certainly waste taxpayers’ money and cut critical overseas broadcasts if given more unrestricted powers. Some vigilance is necessary.” Ted Lipien, Co-founder and Director of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB).

Now, to see if I get invited back ;)

There is other legislation that applies to activities intended to influence public opinion in the United States. There always has and this legislation does not change those restrictions and in fact, those restrictions are repeated in this modernizing legislation, at the very beginning no less: “No funds authorized to be appropriated to the Department of State or the Broadcasting Board of Governors shall be used to influence public opinion in the United States.”

Let me ask this question: do you want transparency over what is said in America’s name and with tax dollars?

Get information operations to the point where practitioners can create reasonable goals and set worthwhile measures effectiveness, then unleash the creative campaigns for Americans to judge. You know they will judge them.

I support State Department and BBG being able to untie their hands, especially with the added responsibility that comes with the expectation of domestic awareness of their activities. Perhaps some Americans would be quite interested in diplomatic efforts and be better judges of governmental work with more access to the products being produced. The awareness could become a net benefit to the diplomatic efforts of State.

But what I do not like is the potential for targeted messages to confuse or misinform Americans. Knowing that State needs to coordinate with defense and warmaking activities, and that those efforts are under scrutiny, I’d like to learn how State and BBG can prove their credibility with taxpayers through information programs.

Saw above link, came immediately over here.

The Target Audience is GLOBAL. Pretending that the DOMESTIC Target Audience is off limits is a game for BS’ing rubes.

Check out this amazing link and comment thread on buzz feed about the bill: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban

Graham