When you turn on a cable show, open a column, or press play on a podcast, you assume the voice talking to you is speaking for itself. Political columnist Brian Cates says that assumption deserves a second look, and he points to a law most Americans have never read: the Foreign Agents Registration Act, better known as FARA.
Cates writes that many people believe FARA only covers politicians, office holders, and lobbyists. Not true, he says. Under the law, anyone in the United States who works on behalf of a foreign principal to shape American public opinion can be required to register, and that can include media outlets, reporters, and commentators.
He stresses that the source of the money does not matter. It could be a friendly government or a hostile one. Cates names Israel, Qatar, Egypt, China, and Russia as examples. It doesn't even have to be a government. A foreign company, a foreign-owned corporation, or an overseas nonprofit can also count.
Registering with the Justice Department is only half the job, according to Cates. The law also expects material put out for a foreign principal to carry a clear label telling the audience who is behind it. In other words, the viewer or reader is supposed to know when a message has been paid for from overseas.
As an example of doing it right, Cates points to former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, who reportedly filed under FARA to disclose paid work tied to the government of Israel. Whatever anyone thinks of that work, Cates says, Parscale followed the rules and put it on the record.
His bigger question is how many others have not. Cates argues that Washington and the national media are full of people who take foreign money without registering and without telling their audiences, and he believes those who break the law should face real consequences. Those are his claims, and proving any single case would take evidence and due process. But the question he raises is a fair one for every Patriot.
Transparency is not a partisan idea. If a foreign government or company is paying for the message, Americans have a right to know before they decide whether to believe it. The next time a pundit seems strangely passionate about another country's interests, it's reasonable to ask: who is paying the messenger?
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