In 2013, a quiet shift in U.S. law blurred one of the clearest lines in American democracy — the line separating public information from government persuasion. That shift was the Smith Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, tucked inside the National Defense Authorization Act. What it did was simple but profound: it lifted the long-standing ban that kept U.S. government propaganda, content made for foreign audiences, from being shown inside the United States.
The original Smith Mundt Act of 1948 came out of the early Cold War, when America’s leaders wanted to project the values of liberty abroad while protecting citizens at home from government spin. The 1948 law created Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, but it clearly stated that such material “shall not be disseminated within the United States.” The reason was simple: to prevent the machinery of government persuasion from ever turning inward.
But in 2012, lawmakers quietly rewrote the rules. The Modernization Act allowed the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (now the U.S. Agency for Global Media, USAGM) to make that same material “available domestically, upon request.” Supporters called it transparency, a way for Americans to see what their tax dollars fund overseas. Critics, however, called it something far more dangerous: the legalization of domestic propaganda.
One of the strongest critics has been Michael Hastings, the late Rolling Stone journalist who exposed government overreach and manipulation of media narratives. Before his untimely death in 2013, Hastings warned that the Modernization Act could “turn tools of information warfare inward, targeting American audiences with the same spin once used on foreign populations.”
Tom Coburn, a former Republican senator known for fiscal oversight, questioned why the government needed to “spend hundreds of millions on messaging abroad when Americans can’t even tell where their own news ends and State Department press material begins.”
Ben Swann, an investigative journalist, has repeatedly highlighted how the law opens a “legal backdoor for propaganda.” He pointed out that once U.S.-funded messaging is placed online, it automatically becomes accessible to domestic audiences, whether or not the government claims to be “targeting” them. In his words, “You don’t need to broadcast propaganda to Americans, you just have to upload it.”
Even left-leaning watchdogs have raised alarms. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the law a “structural risk to press independence,” warning that when the same agency funding overseas media also provides “information services” to Americans, “the risk of narrative laundering becomes very real.”
Meanwhile, national security scholars at Northwestern University’s Law Review argued that the repeal of the domestic ban “gives the federal government great power to covertly influence public opinion.” Their paper described the change as “a digital Trojan Horse” that allows information campaigns built for foreign influence to be “repurposed for domestic persuasion under the cover of transparency.”
And recently, Sean Ryan, former Navy SEAL and host of The Sean Ryan Show, issued a blunt warning about what the Smith Mundt Modernization Act truly enables. He pointed out that with the power of government messaging now able to reach domestic audiences, “it’s easy to manipulate a society of 366 million people.” He compared it to “herding sheep,” saying the combination of mass communication and psychological influence could steer public behavior without most citizens even realizing it.
Ryan’s point was not about conspiracy, it was about capability. When a government controls the production of persuasive media and the digital platforms that carry it erase borders, influence becomes automatic. His words captured the concern shared by journalists, academics, and watchdogs alike: once a system like that is built, it doesn’t need to shout or censor, it simply guides.
After the Act took effect, the federal government created a new rule, 22 CFR Part 502, authorizing both one-time and subscription access to government programming. That means any American media organization can request broadcast-quality footage from Voice of America or Radio Free Europe for a fee.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) maintains the database and says it is not authorized to target U.S. audiences. But there’s no public reporting on who has requested this content, what they received, or whether it ever aired. In other words, there’s a system for distributing government media domestically, but no transparency about who’s using it.
Even the federal register that created the rule allows “subscriptions,” not just single requests, meaning an American network could legally receive a steady feed of State Department-approved stories ready for editing, rebroadcast, or online posting.
The Modernization Act also left out something crucial: any requirement for disclosure. When U.S. government material is reused by domestic outlets, there is no law forcing those organizations to tell the public where it came from.
Under current U.S. code, no media outlet must identify that a story, image, or clip originated from a government “public diplomacy” program. The only federal rule requiring on-air disclosure applies to paid sponsorships or foreign government content, not U.S. government content.
That means a local news station, streaming network, or digital platform can run a Voice of America report or State Department-produced segment and present it as independent journalism, with no label, no citation, and no disclosure to viewers.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) forces foreign governments to identify their U.S. media operations, but that same standard doesn’t apply when the U.S. government does it. Ironically, a Russian or Chinese news outlet broadcasting in America must disclose its affiliation, but an American taxpayer-funded outlet distributing the same type of messaging doesn’t have to.
Even more concerning, the U.S. Agency for Global Media tracks domestic content requests internally but doesn’t publish that data. There is no public registry, no audit, and no database showing which outlets request or repurpose U.S. government programming. Freedom of Information Act requests for these details are typically redacted or denied.
In short, the public has no reliable way to know whether the “news” they’re consuming contains government-created material. The Modernization Act calls it transparency, but what it really created was plausible deniability.
Today’s politics amplify that risk. With AI deepfake’s, social media warfare, and mutual accusations of “fake news,” a future administration could easily flood requests to aligned networks and shape coverage under the guise of legal access. No audit trail plus no labeling equals plausible deniability. Critics like Massie warn it’s “taxpayer-funded fake news.” Recent discussion across platforms like X has even linked these policies to questions surrounding Jan. 6 coverage and government shutdown narratives, proof that public trust is already fracturing under the weight of uncertainty and manipulation.
Even if defenders of the Modernization Act argue that there is no current proof it has been used against the American people, that defense misses the point. There is nothing in the law to stop it from happening if someone in power decided to use it that way. The lack of abuse so far does not equal protection — it only shows that the system’s vulnerabilities have not yet been exploited on a national scale. The real question is not whether it has been done, but whether it could be done — and the answer is yes.
The Patriotic Principle at Stake
America was built on the belief that truth should not need a government seal of approval. Our founders understood that a free press and an informed public are the strongest defenses against tyranny, both foreign and domestic. Transparency isn’t just a policy ideal, it’s a patriotic duty. Protecting citizens from covert persuasion doesn’t weaken America’s message to the world, it strengthens it. When our own people know that their news is free from hidden government influence, our moral authority abroad becomes even greater. The solution to propaganda isn’t silence or censorship, it’s sunlight.
In the age of digital media, there’s no longer any such thing as a foreign-only broadcast. The internet made every communication global by default. Once the U.S. government uploads a story, a video, or a podcast intended for overseas audiences, it becomes available everywhere, including right here at home.
When the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Voice of America, or Radio Free Europe publishes content meant to influence or inform foreign citizens, that same material instantly appears on social platforms, websites, and search engines that Americans use every day. Before 2013, that kind of domestic access would have been restricted under the original Smith Mundt Act. After the Modernization Act, it became fully legal.
This means that an American taxpayer in Texas, Ohio, or Tennessee could easily come across a polished news segment or opinion piece that was designed for psychological influence in Eastern Europe or Central Asia, without ever knowing it came from a U.S. government newsroom. The content doesn’t need to be broadcast directly into American homes, it only needs to exist online. Once it’s posted, algorithms distribute it indiscriminately.
In this environment, the line between public diplomacy and domestic persuasion disappears. Government-funded messages that once had clear foreign objectives can now circulate freely inside the United States, where citizens may interpret them as independent journalism. This shift didn’t happen through deception, it happened through law, when Congress quietly removed the old safeguards in 2012.
The result is an information ecosystem where citizens cannot easily tell who created what they are reading or watching. The intent may still be to inform foreign audiences, but the reach is global and the effects are domestic. For a democratic society that depends on transparency and trust, that distinction matters.
Supporters of the Modernization Act argue that America’s adversaries, from authoritarian states to online disinformation networks, are flooding the global space with lies about our nation. They claim that modernizing the law was essential to compete in this new information war. They’re right about the threat, but wrong about the method. The United States can win the battle of ideas without turning its communications inward. A democracy doesn’t need to persuade its own people through government messaging; it needs to trust them with the truth.
What began as an act of transparency has turned into a fog of uncertainty. We can’t know how much government-generated content seeps into our domestic information stream, because there’s no log, no audit, and no oversight mechanism for the American public.
If transparency was truly the goal, there would be an open record of every domestic request under the Smith Mundt Modernization Act: who made it, what content they received, and where it was used. Instead, the government created a legal pathway that hides its tracks under the banner of “public diplomacy.”
That phrase sounds harmless, even patriotic. In government language, “public diplomacy” means promoting American values and policies to foreign citizens, building goodwill, explaining U.S. policy, and countering misinformation overseas. On paper, that’s legitimate and even valuable. But the problem begins when the same infrastructure that produces those messages — the editors, videographers, and social media teams inside federal agencies — starts publishing content that Americans can also see, share, and mistake for independent reporting.
Under the banner of “public diplomacy,” millions of dollars are spent each year to create articles, news clips, documentaries, and online videos meant to shape perceptions of the United States abroad. Those products often look identical to commercial journalism: same camera quality, same storytelling tone, even the same use of hashtags and influencer tactics. The intent is persuasion, not deception, but persuasion becomes dangerous when there’s no disclosure that the material was government-produced.
Once the domestic firewall was lifted in 2013, those same “public diplomacy” materials could legally circulate inside the United States. That’s how the concept becomes a shield against scrutiny. When someone asks who created a particular piece of content, the answer can be, “It’s just part of our public diplomacy program.” That label makes it sound benign, but in practice, it prevents accountability. It gives agencies legal and rhetorical cover to distribute persuasive material without having to call it propaganda, and without publicly identifying where it ends up.
In short, “public diplomacy” has become the new name for influence operations that are too soft to be called propaganda and too opaque to be called journalism. It’s the polite disguise that allows government messaging to blend into the global media landscape while claiming it’s all in the name of transparency. But true transparency means telling taxpayers not just what their government is saying overseas, it means disclosing when that same message is showing up here at home.
At The Craig Bushon Show, we’re not afraid to ask the question others won’t: when your own government starts speaking to you through the same channels it once used to persuade foreign nations, who exactly is the audience, and who’s writing the script?
Patriotism means participation. Every American has a role in demanding openness, asking questions, and holding power to account. The Smith Mundt Modernization Act is a reminder that freedom of information is not guaranteed; it’s protected by vigilance. Our nation’s credibility begins with its citizens, and it’s time we made transparency a matter of civic pride, not political debate.
Disclaimer:
This commentary represents the analysis and opinion of The Craig Bushon Show based on publicly available laws, agency documents, and academic sources. It is not intended as a legal or political accusation, but as a call for greater transparency, accountability, and public awareness regarding the use of government-produced media within the United States. Citizens are encouraged to review the Smith Mundt Modernization Act and related federal rules (22 CFR Part 502) for themselves and draw independent conclusions about the implications for media integrity and public trust.
