>>4815301

Section 501(a) of the Act (care of the Voice of America Web site) provides that

information produced by VOA for audiences outside the United States shall not be disseminated within the United States … but, on request, shall be available in the English language at VOA, at all reasonable times following its release as information abroad, for examination only by representatives of United States press associations, newspapers, magazines, radio systems, and stations, and by research students and scholars, and, on request, shall be made available for examination only to Members of Congress.

"This means that VOA is forbidden to broadcast within the United States." However, any American with a shortwave receiver or an Internet connection can listen to VOA. This is incidental, however. VOA cannot direct or intend its programs to be "for" Americans. This distinction is often lost on experts who see the letter of the law, but with no real understanding of the media. George W. Bush-era State Department official James K. Glassman has called for directing VOA at American audiences.

>>4815301

A 1998 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling indicated that this act exempts Voice of America from releasing transcripts in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The act does not prohibit the entirety of the Executive Branch from distributing information at home, just the State Department and Broadcasting Board of Governors. The result of the amendments to the Act means that most United States taxpayers do not know how the VOA

and its successor agencies

operate or what their programming content was, as was noted in 1967 by the Stanton Commission report noted above. The act both insulates the American public from being targeted by the government-sponsored information and broadcasting which is directed at audiences beyond America's borders. Some experts claim that the United States is "the only industrialized democracy to do this, and creates mistrust of the same activities in these audiences who increasingly question why Americans cannot read or hear the same material." However, anyone with an Internet connection can access VOA programs and articles for the Web, radio and television (VOA increasingly emphasizes television programming now) in English and other languages.