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House Quietly Passes Bill Targeting "Russian Propaganda" Websites (Drudge, ZeroHedge, etc)
ZeroHedge ^ | Dec 2, 2016 6:30 PM | Tyler Durden

Posted on 12/03/2016 5:35:43 AM PST by Golden Eagle

On November 30, one week after the Washington Post launched its witch hunt against "Russian propaganda fake news", with 390 votes for, the House quietly passed "H.R. 6393, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017", sponsored by California Republican Devin Nunes (whose third largest donor in 2016 is Google parent Alphabet, Inc), a bill which deals with a number of intelligence-related issues, including Russian propaganda, or what the government calls propaganda, and hints at a potential crackdown on "offenders."...

...it is easy to see how this law, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, could be used to target, threaten, or eliminate so-called “fake news” websites, a list which has been used to arbitrarily define any website, or blog, that does not share the mainstream media's proclivity to serve as the Public Relations arm of a given administration.

(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Miscellaneous; Society
KEYWORDS: fakenews; tyranny
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To: TaxRelief
#17_ I think Rad-Left is more accurate.

Okay... Alt-left; Control-Left; Rad-Left

Drop all hints of professional credibility, such as mainstream media.

21 posted on 12/03/2016 6:42:38 AM PST by ptsal
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To: ptsal

Don’t forget Com-Left


22 posted on 12/03/2016 6:48:53 AM PST by Libertype
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To: Golden Eagle

The word quietly in the title speaks volumes.


23 posted on 12/03/2016 6:54:11 AM PST by Maudeen (No one on this earth is too far gone for Jesus.)
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To: Golden Eagle

Note: Republican.

Another swamp monster.


24 posted on 12/03/2016 7:13:14 AM PST by Ray76 (DRAIN THE SWAMP)
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To: Libertype
Personally, I like the linkage to the keyboard.

Alt-Left and Control-Left

The millennial mindset is locked on the power of the computer and dogmatic adherence to the party line (talking points).

25 posted on 12/03/2016 7:21:15 AM PST by ptsal
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To: kindred
Evil run left wing rino house of idiotism, these people have no right to curtail free speech

+1

26 posted on 12/03/2016 7:31:02 AM PST by keat
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To: ptsal

How about Government Run Media? Or GRM.


27 posted on 12/03/2016 7:44:27 AM PST by egfowler3 (What was it I was going to say here anyway?? Anyone care to remind me?)
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To: Golden Eagle

Zero Hedge is in large part Russian propaganda.

I doubt this bill has anything to do with what is presented in this article.


28 posted on 12/03/2016 7:48:54 AM PST by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Robert DeLong
The dirty little secret nobody wants to mention is the collusion of the old school conservative media, such as broadcast talk radio, the beltway conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, and Fox News. Since the 1990s, they were the yin to the MSM’s yang. New players formerly on the fringe like Infowars, Breitbart, Lew Rockwell, and social media have broken the political circle that has existed since Reagan's day. They facilitated the rise of Trump. The Limbaughs, Levins, and Brit Humes are as much losers as are the MSM.
29 posted on 12/03/2016 8:11:13 AM PST by Wallace T.
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To: Golden Eagle

The New and Improved McCarthyism.


30 posted on 12/03/2016 8:30:46 AM PST by A_perfect_lady
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To: arthurus

RINOS are worse than RATS. We expect more from those who claim to be on our side but then they lie to us.


31 posted on 12/03/2016 8:46:05 AM PST by bgill (From the CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: Golden Eagle

How about a bill being passed to stop Obamas Refugee Program from Australia...........like now


32 posted on 12/03/2016 8:51:27 AM PST by rxtn41
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To: Golden Eagle

Wow. I’m glad Mr. Durden did a ‘quick skim” of the bill and jumped to conclusions. Nothing like reading the index of a book to really get to the meat and potatoes. We have some pretty heavy confirmation bias playing everyone as paranoid fools with this type of reporting.

If you look at the actual meat of Title V in the bill it does nothing but call for appropriations that fund highly paid people to turn over rocks and report on the latest and greatest efforts of the Russian government to influence information in the US. Big deal. I don’t see any authority to take actions, shut down web sites, or levy fines to counter “propoganda”. It’s the government funding programs and delegating those tasks to already existing agencies, nothing more.

Let it be writ large that from now on that everyone in the US take the most extreme view possible regarding all news stories. Everyone is your enemy. Live paranoid, and take everything that conforms to your beliefs as truth, and all other information a lie.

I’ve seen more bad information coming out of Zero Hedge than good where financial recommendations are concerned, and this post is no different. If, over the course of the last two years, I had acted on their projections on the economy and bailed, I would have lost quite a bit of money, because they’ve been flat wrong.

I see zero hedge as a silent version of Glenn Beck. Everything they print conforms to the dark, negative view they have of the world. Yes, there are scary things out their, and if you want to go hide under a rock, fine, but leave me out of it.

The government isn’t coming to take away your half-ass website, Tyler. Next time you might want to read the book, rather than the back cover, before pulling the fire alarm.


33 posted on 12/03/2016 8:53:17 AM PST by tech_rjmarce1 (DIKILEAKS at will)
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To: tech_rjmarce1
If you look at the actual meat of Title V in the bill it does nothing but call for appropriations that fund highly paid people to turn over rocks and report on the latest and greatest efforts of the Russian government to influence information in the US. Big deal. I don’t see any authority to take actions...

Maybe not (?) but this is what I saw under Title V, Section 501 (e) Duties:

The duties of the committee established by subsection (b) shall be as follows:

(1) To counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence, including by exposing falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations carried out by the security services or political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies.

(2) Such other duties as the President may designate for purposes of this section.

Hmmm, doesn't "counter active measures by Russia" sound like actions, and more than just turning over rocks and reporting what they found? Also seems to leave the door wide open to whatever penalties the President would like to add on top.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for limiting Russian influence over ANYTHING going on in the US. But I also don't think the Drudge Report, and many other independent journalists who print stories contrary to the MSM are all doing it at the behest of Russia, as the Washington Post and others have been claiming.

34 posted on 12/03/2016 10:57:28 AM PST by Golden Eagle (In God We Trust)
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To: egfowler3
Another thought for the group...

Power Point Media

The quality of information is nothing more encompassing than a bullet point on a PP slide.

35 posted on 12/03/2016 11:23:49 AM PST by ptsal
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To: Golden Eagle

What I meant is that the legislation does not grant punitive authority to the government to shut down websites like the 200 on Mr. Durden’s list. The government gobeltygoop laws passes by our esteemed overlords are commonly stacked with similar language.

It’s nothing more than CYA lawyer-speak that has no teeth or direct meaning. What is tiring, is the constant BS assumption that that everyone is out to get you (us) by blowing up some vague language into an unsubstantiated assault against certain websites.

As for the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Saudi, Israeli , British, Canadian...propagandists, they’re already here, my friend. See your friendly neighborhood university. I say let them speak. Let them speak looooouuud and long. That’s exectly what they’ve been doing since the 1960’s, and look where we are. Common sense Trumps the all the BS.

I firmly believe that any attempts to lean on this “law” to shut down free speech is going to run into a First Amendment brick wall. Have faith, my friend, we’re in God’s hands.

BTW. When was the last time Drudge authored a story under his own name, if at all in the recent past. Just remind anyone who says that Drudge puts out propaganda that they are somewhat correct since he links AP stories from various websites on a daily basis.


36 posted on 12/03/2016 11:46:10 AM PST by tech_rjmarce1 (DIKILEAKS at will)
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To: tech_rjmarce1
What I meant is that the legislation does not grant punitive authority to the government to shut down websites like the 200 on Mr. Durden’s list.

To be accurate, that list of sites was not created by Mr. Durden. It was created by an organization called PropOrNot, which was subsequently referenced by the Washington Post in their clarion call article that such sites be shut down.

It’s nothing more than CYA lawyer-speak that has no teeth or direct meaning.

I disagree, based on the exact wording of the statue that I previously provided in my last post. Granted, any actual action would have to come through an organization within the executive branch, but the committee being created will contain high level executive branch members who would have such capacity. And, any recommendation that came from the committee would be a proverbial green light for such actions.

What is tiring, is the constant BS assumption that that everyone is out to get you

Well conservatives have been fighting an uphill battle for many years now, against a President that has gone mostly unchecked in his violation of the separation of powers clause of the Constitution, and, and a fully complicit and enabling media. So we've earned that right to be suspicious. I, for one, am happy to see us finally finding our footing, and pushing back. Hard.

37 posted on 12/03/2016 12:02:44 PM PST by Golden Eagle (In God We Trust)
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To: Golden Eagle

I guess that whole 1st amendment thingy is now dead.


38 posted on 12/03/2016 12:24:42 PM PST by VTenigma (The Democrat party is the party of the mathematically challenged)
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To: Golden Eagle

Fake news: Washington Post, CNN, NYT, MSNBC, LAT, NBC, ABC,..

They have outted themselves. No need for WikiLeaks anymore.

5.56mm


39 posted on 12/03/2016 12:32:04 PM PST by M Kehoe
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To: Golden Eagle

But it was okay for Mexico to spread propaganda, infiltrate the US with illegal voters, threaten candidates, send Mexican nationals to disrupt campaign events and even commit acts of violence against US citizens participating in political rallies. Our government has no moral compass.


40 posted on 12/03/2016 12:43:45 PM PST by justa-hairyape (The user name is sarcastic. Although at times it may not appear that way.)
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