(no subject)
Dec. 7th, 2002 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pearwaldorfAmericans can't read their own government's propaganda. (thanks ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nihilistic_kid)
Although the State Department plans to distribute the 60-page booklet of 15 essays free at American embassies worldwide in the next few weeks, one country has already banned the anthology: the United States. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, renewed when the United States Information Agency became part of the State Department three years ago, bars the domestic dissemination of official American information aimed at foreign audiences.
"There were Congressional fears of the government propagandizing the American people," said George Clack, the State Department editor who produced the anthology. The essays can, however, be read on a government Web site intended for foreigners (usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/writers). "We do not provide that address to U.S. citizens," Mr. Clack said, adding, "Technology has made a law obsolete, but the law lives on."
*scratches head* Waitasecond. The law is obsolete and by all practical applications rendered useless by the Internet, but it's still on the books. What gives? And is the State Department's purpose and means of disseminating propaganda so insidious that Americans would blow up collectively if enough of them found out they were doing it? WTF?
nihilistic_kid)Although the State Department plans to distribute the 60-page booklet of 15 essays free at American embassies worldwide in the next few weeks, one country has already banned the anthology: the United States. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, renewed when the United States Information Agency became part of the State Department three years ago, bars the domestic dissemination of official American information aimed at foreign audiences.
"There were Congressional fears of the government propagandizing the American people," said George Clack, the State Department editor who produced the anthology. The essays can, however, be read on a government Web site intended for foreigners (usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/writers). "We do not provide that address to U.S. citizens," Mr. Clack said, adding, "Technology has made a law obsolete, but the law lives on."
*scratches head* Waitasecond. The law is obsolete and by all practical applications rendered useless by the Internet, but it's still on the books. What gives? And is the State Department's purpose and means of disseminating propaganda so insidious that Americans would blow up collectively if enough of them found out they were doing it? WTF?
