WASHINGTON — Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is calling for the reinstatement of Cold War-era media regulations, arguing they are crucial to crack down on the spread of “propaganda” and online information he says led to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Lee said he would introduce legislation in the next few days to restore a law originally passed in 1948 that put limits on what information the U.S. government could disseminate within the country, particularly for materials meant to “promote the better understanding of the United States” among foreign countries during the Cold War. Lee’s proposal echoes online petitions to restore the law, known as the Smith–Mundt Act, due to claims that unsubstantiated allegations about Kirk went viral online and ultimately led to his death.
Lee will push to restore the Smith-Mundt Act, and rename it the Charlie Kirk Act.
“Domestic, political, government-funded propaganda must end now,” he said in a post on X.
Calls to reinstate the Smith-Mundt act circulated on social media platforms such as TikTok shortly after Kirk’s death, even capturing the attention of President Donald Trump, who reshared a video suggesting the law be restored. A nationwide petition has since been introduced with more than 81,400 signatures as of Monday morning.
The Smith-Mundt Act was originally passed to establish guidelines for the U.S. government when disseminating information to foreign countries in the early years of the Cold War. The law allowed the U.S. to explain itself and its positions to foreign audiences as a way to counteract Nazi and Soviet propaganda. That information could be shared through radio broadcasts, pamphlets, films and more.
However, the bill prohibited the U.S. from disseminating that same information to U.S. citizens within the country to prevent them from being propagandized by their own government.
That law was later loosened in 2012 when Congress passed the Smith–Mundt Modernization Act, which allowed those living in the U.S. to access those foreign materials being disseminated. The bill was largely changed because of the internet, which virtually made it impossible to stop Americans from seeing those foreign materials anyway.
Now, some in conservative circles are pushing to reinstate those guardrails — arguing the laidback restrictions have led to a media landscape that has fostered misinformation or harmful rhetoric that led to Kirk’s killing.
Although the bill was originally intended to rein in the information disseminated by the U.S. government, it’s now being proposed as a tool to crack down on media bias and increase online regulation.
The restoration of the bill should ensure that media outlets, radio stations and online content creators are held accountable for creating “false narratives and erroneous information they spread deliberately or irresponsibly,” according to the petition. It should also include “stringent penalties for social media companies that censor information unfairly.”
Specifically, social media companies should be required to establish accountability measures for those who post “baseless accusations, such as labeling individuals as bigots, fascists, or racist, without verifiable proof, tarnish reputations and endanger lives,” the petition says.
It’s not clear how that law would be enforced, or who would be responsible for deeming what information is “false” or “deliberately” inflammatory. That could raise questions among lawmakers, making it more difficult to reinstate the law.
Lee has not yet shared details about when he plans to introduce the legislation.