From PressTV:
The United States has incorporated a bill into its annual military budget, which will allocate millions of dollars for Persian-language broadcasts. … US President Barack Obama signed the Victims of Iranian Censorship Act (VOICE) into law earlier this week. … Analysts in Iran say the move comes in response to the arrest of members of a US-based terrorist group — the Kingdom Assembly of Iran.
This take on VOICE by an Iranian government news agency is not surprising. What is surprising is the image in the Google News search (see above) that is a bit confusing. The image links to the same story as the headline, indicating they are the same and not a mash-up. It’s 2a, do you know where your brand is?
On VOICE itself, I wrote on the authorization for up to $55 million for State and BBG activities within the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010. As I noted before, the Senate and House defense appropriations committees – the people who put money into the checking accounts the authorizers open – did not go into their conference with VOICE on either agenda. They are unlikely to come out of conference with it, although if they did it would be significant that they are funding activities – activities they vociferously said should be funded – outside of their sandbox. Word is the defense appropriators won’t fund this but that the State Department appropriators – “foreign operations” – will, at least partially.
