Speculations about the Smith-Mundt "Modernization" Bill and Public Diplomacy

The more I think about this rejected-by-the-Senate bill (about it some of my previous postings - [1], [2]) the more I am convinced that it's basically meant to be a Trojan Horse giving persons in military circles, no matter how honorable their intentions may appear to them, a free pass to indoctrinate the American people through USG Defense Department psyops in order to have US citizens support what turns out to be often senseless wars (e.g, the invasion of Iraq, to cite the most evident and relatively recent example) and fight nameless enemies (the "terrorists").

All this in the name of national security and, supposedly, because now terrorism knows no boundaries, obliging us to fight the global jihad here in the homeland by winning ‘hearts and minds,’ including  those of J.Q. citizens (e.g. Somali-Americans in Minneapolis). Far more important than the bill allowing the American public to, say, listen to the Voice of America (as if we Americans today really needed official permission to access VOA reports on the Internet, since we can do so by a click on our computers via the internet), what this bill really underscores is that the Pentagon is "off the hook" as regards targeting the American public through psyops, by stressing, as it does, that the Smith-Mundt Act -- which, as it evolved through its amendments, made it clearer and clearer that the US population should not be propagandized -- does not apply to DoD, as some (granted, erroneously) thought.

What we really need is a strengthening of the Smith-Mundt Act, so that US citizens won't be the target of the black/grey propaganda used by the military and other branches of the USG overseas, supposedly (and, granted, justifiably, but oh-so-rarely) to keep Americans "safe" here at home.

No way, if we truly honor American values, should we be fed embellished "truth" (or plain falsehoods) in the name of national security by our federal government here at home. We are a free-thinking Republic. Benjamin Franklin's words are well-known on this topic, but bear repeating: "Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security." 

As for white propaganda directed abroad (like VOA reports on the harmless all-American skater Kwan traveling as a State Department public diplomacy envoy, smiles and all), of course there's no reason why Americans can't know about this -- as easily as they can right now, without the verbiage of the modernized Smith-Mundt Act letting them do so (and without, rest assured, of fears of being imprisoned) by simply going to the State Department homepage. 

But this "modernized" piece of legislation, justifying itself by supposedly making some USG public diplomacy items overseas ("white propaganda") more accessible ("transparent") to the American public, actually formalizes that the DoD -- whose "grey/black propaganda" funds are far greater, I am quite sure, than those for the Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs office at the State Department -- should not be subject to further restraints in brainwashing (sorry, I meant "informing") the American public here at home.

I wish, if he were alive, I could send a Facebook message to Franz Kafka with this posting. He might be intrigued by the absurdity of what it describes.

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(1) During World War I, the Committee on Public Information, the first USG propaganda agency, was most concerned about the loyalty of German Americans (read, as pertains to today, Somali-Americans). Which leads me to cite Mark Twain: "History may not not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."