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Virginia Radio Station Broadcasting Chinese Propaganda (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: An investigation by Reuters has uncovered a radio station located just outside Washington, D.C. that broadcasts dedicated Chinese propaganda to the U.S. capital and the surrounding area. In 2009, under new ownership, Virginia-based station WAGE erected new broadcast towers, amplifying its signal by ten times, and changed its call letters to WCRW, for "China Radio Washington." All WCRW programming shares a common theme, with newscasts that avoid any criticism of China and are critical of Beijing's political enemies; for example, a report on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong last year did not explain why people were in the streets, and said only that the demonstrations had "failed without support." WCRW's American owners claim they have no input on content and are only rebroadcasting programming provided to them by a state-sponsored Chinese company to which they lease the airtime. U.S. law requires that anyone seeking to influence American policy or public opinion on behalf of a foreign government must register with the Department of Justice, but according to Reuters, government officials didn't even know WCRW existed until Reuters told them about it.
The government is not even monitoring the radio waves in/near the capitol? Thats what I took from reading this. that is not a very smart thing
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Dummies, if you want to influence Washington, you don't put up radio stations, you bribe politicians directly. The Supreme Court made doing so legal.
Table-ized A.I.
"U.S. law requires that anyone seeking to influence American policy or public opinion on behalf of a foreign government must register with the Department of Justice, but according to Reuters, government officials didn't even know WCRW existed until Reuters told them about it."
Like anyone in Washington does their job.
They're too busy trying to influence American policy and public opinion on behalf of our own government.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"U.S. law requires that anyone seeking to influence American policy or public opinion on behalf of a foreign government must register
How can this possibly be compatible with the US Constitution? Anyone should be free to say whatever they want.
The only reason i can remotely think of in this particular case is that the people are a middle man for the chinese government. The chinese government does not have constitutional rights in this country, therefore their talking heads dont.
dont know if that is correct, but its the only reasoning I can think of that makes sense.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You are not allowed to say anything you want whenever you want. Stop quoting the constitution like you've actually read it let alone like you understand it. At no point has that ever been the case. Ever.
Public speech IS controlled. And here, it's not prevention of said speech it's just registration ... You know ... Like so many other freedoms we have require some documents because some whacko does something to ruin it for the rest of us
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The only reason i can remotely think of in this particular case is that the people are a middle man for the chinese government.
Sorry, my bad. I complete missed the modification to the first amendment. It has now been changed to read: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, unless they are middlemen for the Chinese government.
I am so glad that the government censors are protecting me from speech that they may disagree with.
This sounds like a twist on the old international broadcaster model -- Radio Free Europe and VOA are still running long after the cold war, and they used to pump information to countries behind the Iron Curtain. The difference is that China is buying up transmitter facilities in the target countries as opposed to blasting shortwave from a remote location.
Realistically, I doubt this will have much local effect. It's not 1965 anymore, and there are much more effective ways of distributing propaganda. It just sounds like the Party is trying to cover all their bases and sees an easy way to do so.
That said, in my opinion, stuff like this is why China will probably win long-term. They have authoritarian control combined with a semi-market economy and a huge population advantage. There's no such thing as a government shutdown because a group doesn't agree with state policy. And, an authoritarian regime is able to do whatever is necessary to achieve its goals.
Would be good to have a website that gauged (with examples for their criteria and reasoning) all the biases and clear editorial intents of various media sources:
NBC - Democratic Party 110%
Fox - Republican Party 89%
CNN - Democratic Party 77%
ABC - Mostly Democratic Party 62%
WCRW - Chinese Communist Party 110%
New York Times - NSA/Pentagon/Democratic Party 22%/22%/87%
It's the "on behalf of a foreign government" part that makes it illegal.
I see. So when the 1st amendment says there shall be "no law" restricting the free exercise of speech, with part of "no law" allows this restriction?
The Constitution refers to "We the People of the United States..." There is no reference to the people of China. And the rights under the Constitution should not be asserted as to belong to anyone other than a US citizen.
Now, a corporation is not a citizen, but if it is made up of US citizens, then you have an issue where regulating a US corporation's speech may be preventing US citizens from expressing their opinion, which would be unconstitutional.
So the position you seem to think is odd makes perfect sense.
Of course, corporations having the ability to pretend to be a citizen, by dint of having citizens employed by it, may well be a problem, but that situation is on significantly more firm ground than letting foreigners spread propaganda without having to at least acknowledge their influence. After all, the corporations have their influence right out there in the open and we do make corporations register their donations. You can find out what the corporations are supporting, if you want to.
An investigation by Reuters has uncovered a radio station located just outside Washington, D.C. that broadcasts dedicated Chinese propaganda to the U.S. capital and the surrounding area.
If it takes an investigation by Reuters before anyone's even aware of your radio station, you're not doing a very good job.
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