Legalizing Us Pr/propaganda Directed At Us Persons Options

[DickMcManus]

Legalizing US PR/propaganda directed at US persons


Republicans passed the Defense Spending Bill and it removes the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948

The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. “It removes the protection for Americans” (against US government PR/propaganda operations)says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.” The Pentagon spends some $4 billion a year to sway public opinion already, and it was recently revealed by USA Today the DoD spent $202 million on information operations in Iraq and Afghanistan last year.

The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns.

Last year, General William Caldwell, deployed an information operations team under his command that had been trained in psychological operations to influence visiting American politicians to Kabul.

A U.S. Army whistleblower, Lieutenant Col. Daniel Davis, noted recently in his scathing 84-page unclassified report on Afghanistan that there remains a strong desire within the defense establishment “to enable Public Affairs officers to influence American public opinion when they deem it necessary to "protect a key friendly center of gravity, to wit US national will," he wrote, quoting a well-regarded general.

The defense bill passed the House Friday afternoon.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congress...-propaganda-ban

FOR MORE SEE

Some Unknown History of Propaganda Directed at US Persons. pts 1 and 2

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SomeUnknownU...ory/message/512
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SomeUnknownU...ory/message/513