Did Congress Legalize Propaganda Against Americans? What the 2013 NDAA Actually Changed

By Lucretia Hughes

WASHINGTON — A provision buried deep within the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 changed decades-old restrictions governing the domestic availability of U.S. government public-diplomacy material, fueling an argument that continues more than a decade later over propaganda, government messaging and Americans’ ability to distinguish journalism from information produced by their own government.

But one persistent claim requires clarification: Congress did not pass a law giving American television networks, newspapers or other private news organizations permission to lie to U.S. citizens.

What Congress changed was the Smith-Mundt framework governing certain material produced by the U.S. government for foreign audiences.

The original United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, commonly known as the Smith-Mundt Act, placed restrictions on the domestic dissemination of government information created for audiences overseas. The restrictions reflected longstanding concerns about the federal government using its international information apparatus to influence Americans at home. The Government Accountability Office has previously described that historical boundary as reflecting congressional concern about government-produced news infringing upon press freedom or being used to influence domestic public opinion.

That framework changed with Section 1078 of the 2013 NDAA.

The provision, commonly associated with the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, amended federal law governing material produced by the State Department and what was then the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

According to the State Department’s subsequent regulation implementing Section 1078, the provision became effective July 2, 2013. It allowed public-diplomacy program material that had been prepared for dissemination abroad to be made available within the United States upon request after its overseas dissemination.

Before the change, such material generally could not be disseminated domestically. Certain journalists, scholars and members of Congress could request access for examination, but the government faced significantly tighter restrictions on making the material available inside the United States.

The legislation that became known as the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act was introduced in 2012 by Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas and Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington. Its stated purpose was to authorize domestic dissemination of information about the United States that was intended primarily for foreign audiences.

That distinction matters.

The law did not create a general license for CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, newspapers, radio stations or independent journalists to knowingly publish false information. Nor did it erase defamation law, Federal Communications Commission requirements or other legal standards governing particular forms of communication.

Instead, it changed a barrier separating Americans from certain government-produced public-diplomacy material.

The debate therefore should not be reduced to the inaccurate statement that “the government legalized lying to Americans.”

The more consequential question is what happens when material produced as part of America’s foreign public-diplomacy operation becomes accessible to audiences inside the United States.

Government involvement in news-like material was controversial long before the 2013 change.

In 2005, the Government Accountability Office examined federal agencies’ use of prepackaged video news releases. Some were designed to resemble independently produced television news segments and included actors or others portraying reporters.

The GAO concluded that government-produced material could violate federal prohibitions against covert propaganda when the government’s role in producing it was concealed from the viewing audience. The agency emphasized that disclosure was critical: government-produced video news releases could be used legally when viewers were clearly informed that the material had been prepared by or in cooperation with a government agency.

That history exposes the larger issue.

Propaganda does not require every statement within a message to be false. Information can consist of accurate facts while still being selectively presented, framed or distributed to persuade an audience toward a government’s preferred position.

That is why transparency about the source of information matters.

There is also an important difference between government messaging and media bias.

A private news organization may select stories, emphasize particular facts, omit others, make mistakes or present commentary with a political perspective. Those practices can raise serious questions about journalistic standards and public trust, but they are not automatically the same thing as government propaganda.

Government-produced material raises a separate concern because taxpayers finance the government producing the message.

Congress is still debating that distinction.

In October 2025, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania introduced legislation seeking to repeal the Smith-Mundt modernization provisions and prohibit domestic propagandization by the federal government. The proposal demonstrates that concerns surrounding the 2013 changes remain active in Washington.

More than a decade after Section 1078 took effect, the central issue is therefore not whether Congress simply declared that “the media can lie.”

It did not.

The issue is whether Americans can clearly identify where the information reaching them originated, who paid to produce it, why it was created and whether they are seeing independent journalism, political advocacy or government public diplomacy.

In an era when government statements, cable news, social media posts, artificial intelligence, political commentary and independent reporting can appear on the same screen within seconds of one another, those distinctions are increasingly important.

Americans should know when their government is speaking to them.

And journalism should make clear when it is reporting independently rather than merely transmitting the government’s message.

The First Amendment protects a free press. Maintaining that freedom also requires a public capable of distinguishing the press from the government it is supposed to scrutinize.