Almost 50 years ago Congress passed a law, still on the books, that prohibits the U.S. Information Agency, which tells America's story abroad through its Voice of America and Worldnet Television, from distributing program materials domestically. Emerging from World War II with Adolph Hitler's propaganda ministry fresh in mind, Congress understandably was concerned that a government-run agency might brainwash its own citizens. Fortunately, technology is overtaking efforts to keep us in the dark.
Recently, the Voice of America took a deep breath and began distributing its English language news wire on the Internet research facility. More than 4,000 stories a day are being plucked off by Internet subscribers in the U.S. and elsewhere, although a disclaimer states that the material is "provided exclusively for recipients outside the United States."
A worried Internet user in Iowa cited Congress' domestic dissemination ban, warning those who take the Voice of America news wire not to "brag too widely about using it, unless you are outside the U.S.A." The American public is not bound by the domestic dissemination ban. It applies solely to government communicators. But with technology making access to information so effortless nowadays, such a ban is irrational.
Public diplomacy, or government-to-people dialogue, has become an integral part of U.S. foreign affairs in the era of computers and communications satellites. A fascinating array of U.S. government television and radio programs zip around the world 24 hours a day, providing a window to America.
You can drop by U.S. Information agency headquarters in Washington to review programs after they have been broadcast. But this may not be convenient if you live in Ames, Iowa. When Michael Gartner, editor and co-owner of the Ames Daily Tribune, filed a lawsuit over this in 1988, asking among other things why existing transcripts of Voice of America editorials couldn't be faxed or mailed, the court said the First Amendment doesn't require easy access to such information, even for the press.
The restrictive Smith-Mundt legislation of 1948 was enacted long before television satellites hovered overhead, and before people around the world could talk to one another with computers.
Anyone with a backyard TV satellite dish can pick up the U.S. Information Agency's broadcast signals. Worldnet programs can be watched in the U.S. as they are beamed around the globe 24 hours a day to 150 countries on the world's largest international TV talk network. Shouldn't we have the opportunity to know what the U.S. is sayhing to people in Bosnia, Russia or South America, and what people there have on their minds? And maybe some would like to weigh in with a question or two ourselves.
Unfortunately, not everyone has a satellite dish and the agency isn't permitted to send you a tape, even if you offer to pay for it. But then you couldn't know what program was on the air anyway, because technically the agency isn't allowed to publish its program schedule in the U.S. or to list which broadcast frequency or satellite channel it is using. No easy access, remember.
Yesterday's fear that such programs will "brainwash" the American public is senseless. We get a steady stream of government views in speeches, briefings and press releases, and we are capable of reaching our own conclusions. In today's information-rich environment, it is easier to separate fact from fiction. More information from the government, not less, can only help.
President Clinton, who advocates more openness in government, should also make himself heard on this issue.
During the Cold War, totalitarian regimes bemoaned that satellite dishes made it possible to "break into homes without knocking." Despite government bans, satellite dishes sprouted up throughout Poland, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Communist Eastern Europe. Unable to stem the tide, authorities finally recognized the reality that modern communications technology has no respect for national boundaries.
It is time in our democracy, where the people's right to know is treasured, to welcome the new international information highways. Senate and House conferees currently are meeting on a new international broadcasting bill. They should strike the domestic dissemination ban from the books. There is no place for the thought police in an open society.