Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wants to make it illegal for the federal government to target Americans with propaganda. Republican leadership has already blocked recent attempts to do this.
Massie introduced on Wednesday a bill to repeal the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2013. Representative Scott Perry (R-Pa.) co-sponsored the proposal. Massie explained in a press release:
The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, legislation that ended a prohibition on the federal government exposing American audiences to its propaganda. I voted against that NDAA, and I offered an amendment to the 2026 NDAA to reinstate the original prohibition, but Speaker Johnson blocked a vote. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act needs to be repealed. Taxpayer-funded fake news should not be used by the federal government to wage influence campaigns against the American people.
The Congressman brought up Johnson’s block from mid-September on his X account when it happened.
Consistent Views
It just so happens this issue was one of the first votes Massie cast after entering Congress in 2012. He pointed this out during a phone call with The New American on Friday. Massie opposed the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, and many years later he hasn’t changed his views. He said his time serving on a select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government and the way the federal government behaved during Covid mania have emboldened him to sponsor this kind of legislation.
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a companion Senate bill last month dubbed the Charlie Kirk Act. He said in a statement about the bill:
From the end of World War II until the Obama administration, it was illegal for the US government to use the State Department’s foreign broadcasting apparatus to target American citizens with propaganda. In 2013, these protections were taken away. My legislation restores this safeguard under the name of an American martyr for freedom of speech and freedom of thought: Charlie Kirk. As Charlie’s vital work so ably demonstrated, Americans can figure out the truth for themselves without government telling them what to believe.
When asked what propaganda campaigns the State Department or the USAGM are broadcasting, Massie said, “We can’t know,” adding that they wouldn’t have lifted the restriction if they weren’t broadcasting, or at least planning to broadcast, such propaganda. “I think it was a CYA by the government,” he told us.
The Repeal
Massie’s repeal proposal would accomplish the following:
- Repeal the 2013 Smith-Mundt Modernization Act with the intention of prohibiting the feds from propagandizing Americans;
- Stop the State Department, United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), and their networks from disseminating propaganda;
- Create a way for Congress and media outletsto review propaganda materials that is sent overseas without enabling those materials to be exploited against the American people;
- Ban the State Department and USAGM from creating covert social media accounts, websites, and podcasts to target Americans in “clandestine digital influence operations”; and
- Require that propaganda materials be archived at the National Archives “with 20 years of delayed public access and added disclaimers identifying both the U.S. government as the source of the materials and also the foreign audience for which the materials were intended.”
The legislation has a steep hill to climb. Not only has Johnson already signaled that he opposes it, but, as Massie pointed out, there are no Democratic sponsors. Moreover, the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act was signed by Democratic President Barack Obama after passing through a Republican-controlled House. The Establishment clearly supports state-sponsored propaganda.
