Monday, December 12, 2016

NDAA Hides Key Legislation In Dangerous ‘Anti-Propaganda’ Bill Passed By Senate

We Are Change

The U.S. Senate quietly passed the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 on Thursday, using the National Defense Authorization Act to conceal strong legislation against the public.

S. 2692,  the “Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act” by Portman/Murphy Bill would “establish an inter-agency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government.”

To further support these efforts, the bill would also “create a grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda related work.”

“The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies.”

This means that the government would be fully in charge of running the media—not that they don’t do that already (Example: sending press packages to journalists). The second part of the bill would make it legal to  give the same agencies running the “counter propaganda” part of the bill authorization to label which media organizations are “propaganda.”

In other words, the act would further strip away the Freedom of the Press that is protected by the First Amendment, and would set the stage for future witch hunts and website shutdowns, purely based off of accusations with no due process.

No judge, no jury, just Orwellian censorship of “disinformation and propaganda.” Meanwhile, the U.S. government will freely spread its propaganda unhinged, I guarantee it.

The bill would also provides grants and funds for NGO’s and think tanks like Propornot. It was featured in a fraudulent libelous article that has since been retracted by the Washington Post, which was perfect timed along with the consideration of this bill.

CIA Director William Colby must be rolling in his grave. He exposed the media disinformation campaign used by the CIA years ago during the Church Committee. None of this is disinformation, it’s just inconvenient truth, and if the government gets its way, these inconvenient truths will go away buried in history forever.

The full press release from Senator Rob Portman is below.

Senate Passes Major Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill as Part of NDAA

Portman/Murphy Bill Promotes Coordinated Strategy to Defend America, Allies Against Propaganda and Disinformation from Russia, China & Others

U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) today announced that their Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act – legislation designed to help American allies counter foreign government propaganda from Russia, China, and other nations – has passed the Senate as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report. The bipartisan bill, which was introduced by Senators Portman and Murphy in March, will improve the ability of the United States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation by establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government. To support these efforts, the bill also creates a grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda related work. This will better leverage existing expertise and empower local communities to defend themselves from foreign manipulation.

“The passage of this bill in the Senate today takes us one critical step closer to effectively confronting the extensive, and destabilizing, foreign propaganda and disinformation operations being waged against us. While the propaganda and disinformation threat has grown, the U.S. government has been asleep at the wheel. Today we are finally signaling that enough is enough; the United States will no longer sit on the sidelines. We are going to confront this threat head-on,” said Senator Portman. “With the help of this bipartisan bill, the disinformation and propaganda used against our allies and our interests will fail.”

“Congress has taken a big step in fighting back against fake news and propaganda from countries like Russia. When the president signs this bill into law, the United States will finally have a dedicated set of tools and resources to confront our adversaries’ widespread efforts to spread false narratives that undermine democratic institutions and compromise America’s foreign policy goals,” said Murphy. “I’m proud of what Senator Portman and I accomplished here because it’s long past time for the U.S. to get off the sidelines and confront these growing threats.”

NOTE: The bipartisan Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act is organized around two main priorities to help achieve the goal of combating the constantly evolving threat of foreign disinformation. They are as follows:

  1. The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering foreign propaganda and disinformation. The bill would increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China in addition to violent extremists. The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign disinformation operations and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests.

  2. Second, the legislation seeks to leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options. The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies, media organizations, and other experts outside the U.S. government with experience in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation techniques. This fund will complement and support the Center’s role by integrating capabilities and expertise available outside the U.S. government into the strategy-making process. It will also empower a decentralized network of private sector experts and integrate their expertise into the strategy-making process.

In Layman terms – the Act will allow the government to crack down with impunity against any media outlet it deems “propaganda”, the next piece of the legislation will provide substantial amounts of money to fund “counter propaganda,” to make sure the government’s own stories drown out alternative media and free thinking journalist not told what to say not given an unmarked press package. This is extremely dangerous and worrying combining this with HR6393  we can see the type of world that we are allowing to be created for us these people took an oath to serve and protect the constitution if the constitution is abridged the people who sign the bill are literally committing treasonous tyranny.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

“The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state: it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth.”

The post NDAA Hides Key Legislation In Dangerous ‘Anti-Propaganda’ Bill Passed By Senate appeared first on We Are Change.



from We Are Change http://wearechange.org/ndaa-countering-disinformation-propaganda/
Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)