The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 fundamentally restructures U.S. international “broadcasting” -   today multimedia content created by five separate networks and delivered by satellite and terrestrial television, radio, the internet, and social media to countries lacking free media.  The Act abolishes the Broadcasting Board of Governors and subordinates both the two federal and the three nongovernmental nonprofit networks to an Executive Branch senior official appointed by the President.  This paper reviews problematic provisions of the Act and offers three options for revision. 

A. Ross Johnson is a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, adviser to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Archive Project at Hoover, and Cold War Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson  International Center for Scholars.

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