The recent blog posts on the topic of bringing America’s public diplomacy and communications efforts into the information age is an excellent example of how bad, incomplete, and erroneous information moves at the speed of light. It actually makes our case—and that is we need to be able to counter inaccurate information as quickly as possible, especially when it deals with our country’s security.

This legislation to update the Smith-Mundt law has been reviewed by House Members in both the majority and minority, as well as the staff of multiple committees. In fact, updating this law has been the topic of much discussion and review over the past ten years. There is no shortage of evidence that interpretations of the law hinder our ability to communicate in a global environment. There are CRS reports, congressional testimony, news articles, academic pieces, and other studies which make the case that changes to Smith-Mundt are needed to assist with our country’s strategic communication and public diplomacy efforts.

This is about access to information in an information age. Removing the restriction on domestic access to public diplomacy material would actually increase the oversight by Congress and the public so we know what is being said by our own agencies. In addition, the legislation states very clearly that no funds for the Department of State or the Broadcasting Board of Governors shall be used to influence public opinion in the United States. Finally, it does not authorize any information activities by the Department of Defense. 

A casual observer, with minimal effort, could do a Google search and see all the work that has been done on this topic. It is unfortunate that was not the case with the blog in question.