Perhaps title should actually read 'Jim Clapper on Steroids.'[Wash Times] The nation’s top spy suggested Thursday that it would behoove the incoming administration to revive the defunct U.S. Information Agency, or USIA, as a bulwark against Moscow’s powerful propaganda operation.
But wait! I thought the current problem was cyber hacking and espionage? Wasn't the old USIA a diplomatic tool ?
"We could do with having a USIA on steroids to fight this information war [with Russia] a lot more aggressively than we’re doing right now," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Resuscitating and revamping the agency, which was officially shuttered in 1999, and focusing the organization’s pro-U.S. messaging into social media networks would go a long way in countering Russian-sponsored media outlets like Russia Today and Sputnik, Mr. Clapper said.
Resuscitation of USIA? But Wikileaks has such a head start. It could take years, possibly decades. Wikileaks is the problem, right ?
"[Russia Today] was very active in promoting a particular point of view, disparaging our system, our alleged hypocrisy about human rights," he said. "Whatever crack, fissure they could find in our tapestry, they would exploit it," via the state-owned news network.
The Clinton 'tapestry' did not require a great deal of exploitation.
Currently the aging State Department-run Voice of America is the closest capability Washington has in offsetting Russia Today’s growing influence across the globe.