The Firewall Saga

The vital error in USAGM’s current organizational/cultural calculus is the agency’s selective application of a journalistic “firewall.” The amorphous interpretation of a firewall shifts, depending on which Administration is in office and who is asking questions.

Although a firewall should ensure journalistic independence, it has been used without formal regulation for decades in order to shirk legitimate oversight of everything from promoting adversaries’ propaganda to ignoring journalistic safety. Often, the “firewall” is touted when journalists are either promoting anti-American propaganda that parrots adversarial regime talking points or promoting politically biased viewpoints in opposition to the VOA charter.20

Such weak oversight, alien to any other large media network or news organi- zation—particularly one derivative of U.S. foreign policy and national security goals—was erroneously enshrined in a document known as the Firewall Regula- tion.21 The Firewall Regulation was entered into the Federal Register on the eve of the Senate confirmation of President Donald Trump’s USAGM CEO, Michael Pack. It was the quintessential “midnight reg” designed to throttle the statutory and executive authority of the agency head. It stipulated that agency management, by standards unknown to most large broadcast companies, was forbidden from engaging in oversight and direction of content in any way—even false content. It ran counter to the law, including the Smith–Mundt Act,22 and it was harmful to the agency itself and to the foreign policy and national security goals of the U.S. government.

Even content that went well beyond fair and accurate reporting on U.S. domestic and political problems could not be reined in by front office leadership under the Firewall Regulation. Soon, VOA’s White House correspondent was posting content highly critical of, and personally insulting to, the U.S. President—in contradiction of VOA’s own journalistic standards, policies, and procedures. USAGM career officials considered such content sacrosanct and bravely independent “journalistic” content protected by the “spirit of” the Firewall Regulation—despite ample evi- dence to the contrary.

Late in the Trump Administration, USAGM political leadership, following an intensive U.S. Department of Justice review, revoked the Firewall Regulation over the protests of journalistic organizations—none more vociferous than VOA itself.23 While the abuses of the Firewall Regulation are particularly disconcerting, they encompass just a fraction of similar overreaches of the agency’s journalistic mission. Current and former USAGM/VOA leadership who wanted to maintain virtually zero accountability and oversight waged a campaign of interference, resistance, and disinformation to stifle change at the agency. Perhaps not coincidentally, various media outlets with relationships to former and future USAGM leadership published near-daily criticisms of Trump Administration appointees and also of grantee organi- zation leaders who were appointed by CEO Pack to implement long-overdue reforms.24 Agency Mission Failure.

Currently, the USAGM, by and large, is not fulfilling its mission, which remains so ill-defined and ambiguous that it enables the organi- zation to go about its business largely unguided with little to no oversight. Rather than providing news and information in an accurate, reliable way that promotes and supports freedom and democracy, the agency is mismanaged, disorganized, ineffective, and rife with waste and redundancy.

These shortfalls are either oriented toward, or directly contribute to, the agen- cy’s media organizations joining the mainstream media’s anti-U.S. chorus and denigrating the American story—all in the name of so-called journalistic inde- pendence. Indeed, content during the Trump Administration was rife with typical mainstream media talking points assailing the President and his staff. The few bright spots within VOA and the OCB are often stifled instead of supported. Top- level talent often leaves the agency or is met with obstacles rather than support.25 Opportunities for modernization and effective strategy are ignored, and wasteful spending and misallocation of resources are the norm in an environment in which nepotism is rampant and political gamesmanship protects bad actors.

Amanda Bennett26 was confirmed as USAGM CEO in 2022 after two years of being blocked by several Members of Congress. Legal advocacy organization America First Legal Foundation even wrote to President Joe Biden asking him to withdraw her nomination,27 citing several severe national security failures while she was director of VOA.28 Her tenure as director during the Obama Administration (and her holdover into the beginning of the Trump Administration) was marred with operational failures, security failures, and credibility failures. Those failures are reportedly ongoing during her current tenure as CEO.29

NECESSARY REFORMS

Security Issues. The Office of Personnel Management30 and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence flagged severe security failures during four extensive investigations of the USAGM, each conducted during a 10-year period between 2010 and 2020.31 Security personnel and former agency senior leadership ignored these issues and allowed them to persist.32

In brief, the USAGM is vulnerable to exploitation by foreign spies. During the last six months of the Trump Administration, known foreign intelligence opera- tives were removed from the OCB and RFE/RL. During the 10-year period between 2010 and 2020, both the OPM and the ODNI found that the USAGM’s Office of Security (under the Office of Management) had grossly ignored and flouted many of the federal government’s most critical and long-standing information and per- sonnel security protocols, regulations, and practices.33 During the investigative period—in which the findings were largely, if not wholly, ignored by agency senior leadership—over 1,500 USAGM personnel (nearly 40 percent of its total workforce) were performing their Tier 3 and Tier 5 national-security-sensitive positions with falsified and/or unauthorized suitabil- ity-for-employment determinations and with access to sensitive federal buildings and information systems. In many cases, records (including Social Security num- bers), were falsified or replaced with notional placeholders, and fingerprints (in many dozens of cases) were never submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for basic background investigations.

By the time these issues were addressed by members of the Trump Adminis- tration, more than 500 personnel with unauthorized access and clearances had left the USAGM and rolled into other federal agencies with reciprocal clearance authorizations. Many others disappeared into U.S. society. As of January 2021, the USAGM had not yet determined the whereabouts of these individuals.34 The USAGM must never again be entrusted with delegated authority over its personnel security programs and suitability determinations until such time as it can prove that these failures will not happen again. These responsibilities must remain with the Department of Defense and the Office of Personnel Management, to which they were transferred in the final weeks of the Trump Administration. Journalists’ Security. Agency journalists, both on and off American soil, have faced danger,35 yet their superiors have done little to protect them. Whistleblowers and Trump Administration officials found that protection of USAGM American and foreign journalists employed by USAGM networks and grantee organizations was severely lacking.

Against often-significant resistance, political appointees forced action to enable broadcasters (who were under verified threats) to broadcast from remote locations while being protected by federal law enforcement officers. Likewise, political appointees met resistance from senior career officials when insisting that foreign-based journalists in high-risk countries make their locations known to the agency in the event they required rescue, extraction, or safe housing.

Such safety measures, argued career officials, would somehow represent a violation of journalistic independence. With only rare exceptions, resistance to the most basic journalist safety measures was the knee-jerk response from USAGM career officials. Wasting Taxpayer Dollars. The USAGM’S current operations, properly man- aged, can be conducted on less than $700 million per year. Prior to the arrival of President Donald Trump’s appointees in June 2020, budgeting, financial responsi- bility, and spending totaled over $800 million per year, with virtually no oversight or supervision. Waste, unnecessary spending, nepotism for pet projects, redundant programs, and unnecessary hiring abounded.

Consolidation and Reduction of Redundant Services.

Currently, the USAGM funds numerous redundant services through its own offices, through Voice of Amer- ica and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and through its grantees. For example, VOA has a Mandarin-language service but also funds redundant services through Radio Free Asia. VOA also has a Farsi-language service that duplicates one funded through Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Surplus services in the same languages are often unnecessary and counterproductive. Fiscal responsibility and transparency should return to the USAGM, with consolidation being a cornerstone of the strategy. As noted previously, the Open Technology Fund duplicates activities that already existed at the USAGM in the Office of Internet Freedom.

Numerous career whistleblowers came forward to sound the alarm to President Trump’s USAGM political team about OTF’s abuse and overreach.36 Its opaque, expensive, and unnecessary usurpation of an existing USAGM office is an egregious example of government waste and illustrates the general disdain for U.S. taxpayers that is rife within this agency. Full reinstatement of OIF would allow full agency and congres- sional oversight into how so-called “Internet freedom” money is being spent.37 J-1 Visa Program Abuses. Rather than use the appropriate I visa38 intended for foreign journalists, the USAGM uses the J-1 “cultural exchange” visas to allow foreign nationals to transition easily into jobs that American citizens with cul- tural and linguistic expertise could satisfy. The J-1 visa is intended for cultural and academic exchange programs, among others—none of which include journalism.39 Additionally, J-1 visas are meant for non-immigrant temporary exchanges. The USAGM’s J-1 visa holders often go on to apply for permanent residency, which violates the intention of this visa.

Shortwave Transmission Upgrades and Improvements. Non-web-based technologies that are proven and durable, such as shortwave radio transmission stations, have been grossly deemphasized in budgeting in favor of newer web- based technologies. This move is dangerously short-sighted and puts the U.S. at a perilous strategic disadvantage in the event of a major conflict, particularly with Russia or China.

There is great concern about the vulnerability of undersea cable trunks that make up the Internet cloud. The vast majority of global Internet traffic—95 percent—is transmitted through these cables, including news transmissions and web-based content produced by the USAGM’s broadcast networks. While the robust and popular use of the Internet is ideal during peacetime, during times of major conflict, widespread damage to the undersea cables that carry communi- cations across the globe can reasonably be expected. Long-lasting power outages are also likely, such as those Ukraine experienced in the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion.

The USAGM’s responsibility for the only U.S. global shortwave radio capability is of critical strategic importance if America is to carry its message to people seeking information and freedom within conflict zones. Shortwave technologies also make it possible to carry broadcasts in areas where Internet traffic is severely restricted, as it is in many authoritarian states today.