Justice Department memo: Thumbs up to Propaganda

On Feb. 17, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) sent an opinion to the administration advising it that it was illegal to produce videos "designed to resemble independently reported broadcast news stories so that TV stations can run them without editing." Last week the Justice Department sent another memo, telling the administration to ignore the GAO. Essentially, the Justice Department argued that the administration can produce "covert propaganda" as long as the propaganda is true. David M. Walker, comptroller general of the GAO, said the administration's approach was "both contrary to appropriations law and unethical."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35010-2005Mar14.html?nav%3Drss_politics&sub=AR

Administration Rejects Ruling On PR Videos
GAO Called Tapes Illegal Propaganda
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 15, 2005; Page A21


The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them. That message, in memos sent Friday to federal agency heads and general counsels, contradicts a Feb. 17 memo from Comptroller General David M. Walker. Walker wrote that such stories -- designed to resemble independently reported broadcast news stories so that TV stations can run them without editing -- violate provisions in annual appropriations laws that ban covert propaganda.

But Joshua B. Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Steven G. Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said in memos last week that the administration disagrees with the GAO's ruling. And, in any case, they wrote, the department's Office of Legal Counsel, not the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, provides binding legal interpretations for federal agencies to follow. The legal counsel's office "does not agree with GAO that the covert propaganda prohibition applies simply because an agency's role in producing and disseminating information is undisclosed or 'covert,' regardless of whether the content of the message is 'propaganda,' " Bradbury wrote. "Our view is that the prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency."

The existence of the memos was reported Sunday by the New York Times. Supporters say prepackaged news stories are a common public relations tool with roots in previous administrations, that their exterior packaging typically identifies the government as the source, and that it is up to news organizations, not the government, to reveal to viewers where the material they broadcast came from. Critics have derided such video news releases as taxpayer-financed attempts by the administration to promote its policies in the guise of independent news reports. Within the last year, the GAO has rapped the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy for distributing such stories about the Medicare drug benefit and the administration's anti-drug campaign, respectively.

In an interview yesterday, Walker said the administration's approach is both contrary to appropriations law and unethical. "This is more than a legal issue. It's also an ethical issue and involves important good government principles, namely the need for openness in connection with government activities and expenditures," Walker said. "We should not just be seeking to do what's arguably legal. We should be doing what's right." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that federal agencies have used video news releases for years. "As long as they are providing factual information, it's okay," he said.

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reference to the USSR during the cold war and we were so smug that WE would never stoop to something so tawdry as that?