One senior official acknowledged the unit was engaged in propaganda campaigns but said: "All we're trying to do is stop people becoming suicide bombers".
Furthermore, agents of foreign governments or organizations engaged in propaganda in the U.S. are required to file forms with the U.S. Department of Justice, naming their principals and listing their own activities and finances but it is impossible to know whether the data so filed are correct, complete, or significant.
The party, and the militia, soon had little to do except engage in propaganda and parades.
The fact that democratic governments engage in propaganda is understood by many people.
And Representative Paul C. Broun, Republican of Georgia, said: "Of course Americans engage in propaganda.
"We must teach the authorities to tell the truth," he insists, promising not to engage in propaganda or censorship.
Most strikingly, it builds on the country's already extreme anti-terror laws, encouraging harsher penalties for people who engage in "propaganda demonstrations" for a terrorist organization.
Marohasy lays it on thick in the letter, accusing the bureau of engaging in "propaganda" and littering the text with claims of "corruption".
Channel One engages in propaganda, too: its nightly news program is full of reports on Putin's every move and paeans to his leadership.
And a discriminatory, homophobic "propaganda law" provides for the detention and deportation of foreigners if they are engaging in "propaganda," but not simply on suspicion that they are gay.
In a highly authoritarian polity, the regime tries to monopolize for itself all opportunities to engage in propaganda, and often it will stop at nothing to crush any kind of counterpropaganda.
