audio files and text from Voice of America radio broadcasts

[Angelika Meyer]

I recently learned that bunch of audio files and text transcripts from the
Voice of America (u.a. in Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovak, and Ukrainian)
are available on the net.

I thought this looked like a terrific teaching tool, particularly for the
less commonly taught languages, but then I found out that U.S. citizen are
not supposed to access this information (see enclosed file).

Any comments/suggestions on this matter?

Angelika Meyer
(a slightly bewildered non-citizen who had never heard of the Smith-Mundt
Act before)


>                THE U.S. INFORMATION AGENCY ON THE INTERNET
>                       NOT FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS?
>                             April 26, 1995
>                by James Love (202/387-8030; love at tap.org)
>             (this may be freely disseminated on the Internet)
>
>-    Federal Agency with budget of $1.4 billion and 7,600
>     employees produces television, radio, and text news services
>     for dissemination in foreign countries, but not in U.S.
>
>-    In 1994 the USIA launched new Internet services, providing
>     access to the text of news dispatches, and audio feeds from
>     radio programs.  These services are provided at various
>     Internet ftp, gopher and World Wide Web sites.
>
>-    Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) has reportedly objected to the
>     Internet services, as a violation of the Smith-Mundt Act,
>     which prohibits USIA from disseminating information in the
>     United States.
>
>-    In response to objections, USIA recently moved large amounts
>     of its WIRLESS FILE text dispatches from the USIA "domestic"
>     gopher (gopher.usia.gov) and Web (www.usia.gov) sites, to
>     other sites with addresses that are "secret" from U.S.
>     citizens.  TAP has identified one "foreign" site containing
>     the East Asia/Pacfic WIRELESS FILE text reports (hk.net), a
>     portion of the files that were removed from the "domestic"
>     interest sites.
>
>-    The USIA continues to provide access to transcripts and
>     audio files from its Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts from
>     the gopher server, gopher.voa.gov, but the agency claims it
>     cannot tell Americans the URL for the site.
>
>-    U.S. citizen access to USIA information is blocked by the
>     1948 Smith-Mundt Act (22 USC 1461), which prohibits USIA
>     from disseminating information "within the United States,
>     its territories, or possessions," except for limited onsite
>     inspection at USIA offices by members of the press or
>     scholars, or to be "available for examination only to
>     Members of Congress."  [The full text of the statutory
>     provision is given below.]
>
>-    According to USIA officials, U.S. commercial television and
>     radio interests have lobbied to retain the Smith-Mundt Act
>     restrictions on U.S. citizen access to the information, in
>     order to limit "competition" from this U.S. government
>     information service.
>(...)
>
>     USIA NEW INTERNET RADIO SERVICE FOR VOICE OF AMERICA (VOA)
>     BROADCASTS
>
>     In addition to the WIRELESS FILE dispatches, USIA has also
>launched a new Internet radio service that allows persons to
>download audio files containing Voice of America radio broadcasts
>in several languages, including english.  According to a USIA
>news release, posted on the "domestic" gopher.usia.gov.
>
>     ...sound is our native medium, as radio broadcasters, and
>     the new audio service is especially exciting to us because
>     it breaks the language barrier. Newscasts are available in
>     Arabic, Cantonese, Standard Chinese (Mandarin), Czech,
>     French, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean, Polish, Russian, Slovak,
>     Spanish, Swahili, Ukrainian and, of course, English. The
>     programs are transmitted as analog signals along a wire that
>     connects VOA Master Control to our computer machine room,
>     where they are digitized and installed on the public server
>     in three different formats -- at least one of which should
>     be digestible by almost any computer that is capable of
>     playing digital sound. We offer two newscasts a day in most
>     of the languages, one in the morning (local time for the
>     target audience) and one in the evening. Newscasts from
>     VOA's "Worldwide English" program thread, which follows the
>     sun (i.e., on a morning cycle and an evening cycle) are
>     recorded almost every hour.
>
>     The Voice of America is the first international broadcaster
>     to offer an audio service on anything approaching this scale
>     and the response from "the Net" has been encouraging. During
>     the two weeks following the inaugural of the new service,
>     users in 29 countries "downloaded" (stored on their own
>     computers) more than 4,000 newscasts in all 15 languages.
>     That is, of course, a metaphorical drop in the proverbial
>     bucket: we currently estimate that 92 million people listen
>     to VOA's direct broadcasts every week, and many more people
>     hear our programs on affiliated local stations.
>
>     TAP contacted the Voice of America (VOA) to ask where the
>Internet Radio broadcasts are located, and was told "I can't
>legally give you that information."  Taking a wild guess, I tried
>gopher.voa.gov, which was indeed the "secret" VOA gopher address.
>And, true to life, it contains a number of files that can be
>downloaded and played using fairly standard multimedia tools.
>For example, files are storied in Microsoft windows .wav formats,
>compressed using pkzip.  The VOA gopher also includes a number of
>english language text stories, although these are short, because
>they are written for radio.  I found several brief but
>interesting articles on the recent french election.
>
>     I later received a fax from someone at VOA who apparently
>had not been informed to keep this information secret.  The fax
>contained the address of the voa gopher and ftp site (the ftp
>site is ftp.voa.gov), as well as an email address, info at voa.gov,
>for instructions on how to receive some text files by electronic
>mail.  I also found gopher.voa.gov from links at many official
>government Internet sites, such as the White House and Library of
>Congress World Wide Web servers, suggesting that the location of
>the audio files and text from VOA radio shows isn't much of a
>secret.
>
>(...)
>
>     THE TAP VIEW
>
>     Few Americans are aware that as taxpayers they are spending
>$1.4 billion per year to produce news, public affairs and
>entertainment programming for radio, television and print
>publications that the government cannot disseminate to its own
>citizens.
>
>     Even before the Internet, American citizens were free to
>obtain USIA information from overseas sources, shortwave radio
>frequencies or satellite feeds, and use it as they saw fit.  The
>Internet makes it technically much more difficult to restrict
>U.S. citizen access to USIA information.
>
>     Lawyers consulted by TAP believe that the Smith-Mundt Act
>prohibitions, which were written long before the Internet
>existed, may be unconstitutional if challenged today.
>
> (...)
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