Lee Wolverton: Internet complicates war of ideas

Before Americans learned to fear the prospect of terrorists igniting explosives in their underpants, Congress learned to fear the impact of anti-American propaganda, spawning an obscure law that still stands but now wobbles.

Rep. Mac Thornberry wants a piece of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 to fall down. So the Republican congressman from Clarendon is the co-sponsor of a bill that would flick into Cold War history a provision prohibiting the State Department from disseminating its overseas propaganda here in the States.

It's worth acknowledging Thornberry and his supporters on this issue chafe at the use of the term "propaganda." The law, in fact, never uses that word. More preferable to their thinking would be the description "public diplomacy material" or "strategic communication." You say "tomato." I still say propaganda.

This does not mean the amendment Thornberry co-sponsored is a bad thing. It has the support of, among others, the American Civil Liberties Union, whose positions generally are wildly debatable but whose support of the Government Man, especially on topics like this one, is rare. It's intriguing, at least, to witness the alignment of Thornberry, the ACLU and the Heritage Foundation, which is roughly the equivalent of Batman and Robin deciding to get down with the Joker.

Here's the history:

Following World War II, with the Cold War beginning to simmer, anti-American propaganda spread abroad and with it a conviction that the country needed to engage, this time in a war of ideas rather than weapons.

That led to the Bloom Bill, legislation that would allow the propaganda fight to begin, and that led to Smith-Mundt restricting the propaganda machine to activities abroad rather than at home. It would be pleasanter than the truth to say Smith-Mundt was designed to shield Americans from the country's own propaganda. In fact, Congress' chief concern was its overriding distrust of the State Department, which Rep. Eugene Cox, D-Ga., described as "chock full of Reds." Smith-Mundt allayed fears, not of violating the First Amendment but of the State Department straying off message with the American people.

For more than a half-century, the law endured. Then came the Internet, followed by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, creating realities that Smith-Mundt never contemplated. As Thornberry explains it, the war of ideas advanced beyond geographical boundaries.

"Smith-Mundt became outdated," he said by phone last week. "It was written for a different time. With the Internet, we're no longer dealing with a battle of ideas strictly based on geography."

To wage that battle, the State Department needs the freedom to strategically communicate, as Thornberry might put it, within America's boundaries as well as beyond them. Smith-Mundt stands in the way.

Matt Armstrong, executive director of the former U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, cites a case in which a Minneapolis community radio station sought to rebroadcast a piece by the federally run Voice of America radio network but couldn't because of Smith-Mundt. That meant Somalis in a city heavily populated by them couldn't hear a U.S. message countering extremist propaganda from al-Shabab, a militia with al-Qaida ties.

"It's ridiculous," Armstrong said. "Under Smith-Mundt, we can be subjected to outside propaganda but we can't hear messages produced by our own government."

While the law expressly forbids the State Department from attempting to sway U.S. public opinion, the notion that it's even possible - spread in some corners of the Web - amuses Thornberry. "To think with the diversity of media out there that the State Department could change public opinion is just laughable," he said.

So, too, is the notion that Thornberry's amendment will create anything more than a scarcely visible ripple in the war of ideas he talks about. Potential and real terrorists will no more be swayed by this so-called strategic communication than Joseph Stalin or Nikita Khrushchev would have.

Neither does it signal the emergence of America as Oceania, the fictional superstate of George Orwell's "1984." This is simply a measure among the multitudes, one that will contribute another discordant chime to the cacophony of the Information Age but won't change the sound. Some bloggers fret over it still. Even they must have better to do.

Lee Wolverton is executive editor of the Amarillo Globe-News.