Smith Mundt Modernization Act

For decades the line was clear. Voice of America and the rest pointed outward. The state could sell narratives abroad. It could not broadcast them at home.

2012 changed the geometry. Smith Mundt Modernization Act tucked into the NDAA. One edit and the camera faced the living room. The foreign influence toolkit came inside the border. Same operators. New audience.

Then the pattern spike. Russiagate packages. Syria storyboards. Pandemic scripts. Proxy war gloss. Domestic extremism specials. The cadence matched across networks because the brief came first and the headlines followed.

Watch how it works. Editors become liaisons. Newsrooms sync to morning talking points. Fact check turns filter. Platform policy becomes doctrine. Private censors perform public tasks while agencies point to terms of service.

The pipeline is not theory. Public funds to NGOs. NGOs to contractors. Contractors to dashboards. Behavioral labs tune the copy. Sentiment monitors throttle reach. What looks like news is an operation with bylines.

Remember the dates. 1948 drew the line. 2012 erased it. After that the mirror was legal. The citizen became the target audience.

MYSTERY NOTES
who writes the scripts
who owns the feed
why the same phrases across channels
why the same enemies every season

This is not fixed by a hashtag. First exposure. Then repeal. Pull the switch that turned the lens inward. Restore the watchdog. Archive everything. Timestamps over headlines.