Democracy Dies in Darkness Act

II 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. 319 To amend the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, to strengthen the conspicuous statement required on certain informational materials, and for other purposes. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES FEBRUARY 12, 2021 Mr. WICKER introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations A BILL To amend the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, to strengthen the conspicuous statement required on certain informational materials, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Democracy Dies in 4 Darkness Act’’. 5 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 6 Congress finds the following: 7 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:31 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S319.IS S319 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 2 •S 319 IS (1) On February 18, 2020, the Department of 1 State designated the China Daily as a foreign mis- 2 sion for the purposes of the Foreign Missions Act 3 (22 U.S.C. 4301 et seq.). 4 (2) Under its most recent registration state- 5 ment required under section 2 of the Foreign Agents 6 Registration Act of 1938, as amended, the China 7 Daily reported receiving $4,775,792.81 from its for- 8 eign principal between November 1, 2019, and April 9 30, 2020, for the purpose of disseminating informa- 10 tional materials. 11 (3) Between November 2016 and October 2020, 12 the Washington Post received more than 13 $4,600,000, and the Wall Street Journal received 14 more than $6,000,000, for services, including adver- 15 tising and printing, as disclosed to the Department 16 of Justice. 17 (4) Beijing’s Global Megaphone, a special re- 18 port by Freedom House, states that ‘‘Beijing is 19 gaining influence over crucial parts of some coun- 20 tries’ information infrastructure, as Chinese tech- 21 nology firms with close ties to the CCP build or ac- 22 quire content-dissemination platforms used by tens 23 of millions of foreign news consumers.’’. 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:31 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S319.IS S319 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 3 •S 319 IS (5) On January 15, 2020, the Washington Post 1 noted, ‘‘Aware that the audience for the China Daily 2 might be limited, Beijing has adopted a practice it 3 calls ‘borrowing the boat to reach the sea’ to place 4 its content in advertorial China Watch supplements 5 in respected newspapers . . .’’. 6 (6) A 2019 report published by the School of 7 Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins 8 University details how China uses information cam- 9 paigns to communicate its capabilities, undermine 10 the credibility of foreign political systems, and cor- 11 rect ‘‘misperceptions’’ by addressing negative report- 12 ing. 13 (7) The 2018 annual report of the U.S.-China 14 Economic and Security Review Commission rec- 15 ommends that Congress direct the Department of 16 Justice to clarify labels required by the Foreign 17 Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, on in- 18 formational materials disseminated on behalf of for- 19 eign principals, such as the China Daily, so that 20 those labels must appear prominently at the top of 21 the first page of such materials. 22 SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 23 It is the sense of Congress that— 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:31 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S319.IS S319 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 4 •S 319 IS (1) foreign governments abuse paid supple- 1 ments, including paid supplements in the form of 2 newspaper inserts, to propagate disinformation to 3 audiences in the United States through the informa- 4 tion infrastructure of the United States; 5 (2) the conspicuous statement required under 6 section 4(b) of the Foreign Agents Registration Act 7 of 1938, as amended (22 U.S.C. 614(b)), plays an 8 important role in upholding the freedom of speech 9 by— 10 (A) clearly distinguishing the author of in- 11 formational material for its readers; and 12 (B) making the readers of certain informa- 13 tional materials aware that the informational 14 material is paid content; and 15 (3) regulations in existence on the date of en- 16 actment of this Act allow foreign principals to place 17 the conspicuous statement required under section 18 4(b) of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 19 1938, as amended in an area that is less likely to 20 be viewed by readers, thereby defeating the purpose 21 of the conspicuous statement. 22 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:31 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S319.IS S319 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 5 •S 319 IS SEC. 4. MODIFICATION OF FARA DISCLOSURE REQUIRE- 1 MENTS. 2 (a) DEFINITIONS.—Section 1 of the Foreign Agents 3 Registration Act of 1938, as amended (22 U.S.C. 611) 4 is amended— 5 (1) in subsection (p), by striking the period at 6 the end and inserting a semi-colon; and 7 (2) by adding at the end the following: 8 ‘‘(q) The term ‘paid publication supplement’ means 9 any informational material for which an agent of a foreign 10 principal pays to be included as a part of, inserted within, 11 or attached to, a covered publication based in the United 12 States. 13 ‘‘(r) The term ‘covered publication’— 14 ‘‘(1) means a print or digital— 15 ‘‘(A) news publication; 16 ‘‘(B) magazine; 17 ‘‘(C) journal; and 18 ‘‘(D) informational publication; and 19 ‘‘(2) includes a blog or social media website 20 that runs advertisements.’’. 21 (b) CONSPICUOUS STATEMENT.—Section 4 of the 22 Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended (22 23 U.S.C. 614) is amended— 24 (1) by inserting ‘‘(1)’’ after ‘‘(b)’’; 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:31 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S319.IS S319 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 6 •S 319 IS (2) in paragraph (1), as so designated, by strik- 1 ing ‘‘The Attorney General’’ and inserting ‘‘Subject 2 to paragraphs (2) through (4), the Attorney Gen- 3 eral’’; and 4 (3) by adding at the end the following: 5 ‘‘(2) A conspicuous statement required to be placed 6 in an informational material under paragraph (1) shall— 7 ‘‘(A) be clearly readable; 8 ‘‘(B) have a font color that contrasts with the 9 background color; and 10 ‘‘(C) be placed at the top of the first page of 11 the informational material. 12 ‘‘(3) An informational material that is a paid publica- 13 tion supplement shall include the following disclosure as 14 a part of the conspicuous statement required under para- 15 graph (1): ‘This supplement was paid for and prepared 16 on behalf of [name of agent of foreign principal], an offi- 17 cial publication of [name of foreign principal].’. 18 ‘‘(4) If a covered publication in which an informa- 19 tional material that is a paid publication supplement is 20 published is not involved in the creation of the paid publi- 21 cation supplement, the disclosure required under para- 22 graph (3) shall include the following statement: ‘[Name 23 VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:31 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S319.IS S319 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 7 •S 319 IS of covered publication] was not involved in the creation 1 of this supplement.’ ’’. 2 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:31 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\S319.IS S319 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS