One Propaganda Window Closes (After Several Doors Open) [1]
Submitted by Diane Farsetta [2] on
News searches on USA.gov [3], a website run by the federal General Services Administration, no longer return stories from Voice of America [4] (VOA), Radio Free Europe [5], or other government-funded media [6]. Prompted by questions from "an official at the State Department [7]'s electronic information division," federal lawyers "determined that the material should not be on a domestic news site," under a 1948 law barring "domestic dissemination of official American information aimed at foreign audiences." A VOA spokesperson noted that U.S. residents can still easily access VOA websites. "The nature of the Web is that it doesn't respect boundaries," he said. Meanwhile, U.S.-funded programs are being broadcast in South Florida [8], the Pentagon has OK'd its own "news" websites [9], and a 2003 information operations document [10] claimed that propagandizing U.S. audiences is permissible [11] -- as long as the government doesn't intend to do so.