Sec. 303. Sense of Congress
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It is the sense of Congress that— the countries of Europe and Eurasia should redouble efforts to build resilience within their political systems and civil society to counter efforts of the Government of the Russian Federation to exert malign influence and undermine democratic institutions; misinformation generated by the Russian Federation, which is distributed in a variety of languages and through overt and covert channels, including traditional as well as social media, is polluting the information space, drowning out competing information, fanning pre-existing social, economic, and political tensions, promoting conspiracies, and confusing and distracting its audiences; the United States should identify areas of cooperation with countries throughout the region that are vulnerable to Russian aggression, disinformation, and hybrid warfare; the United States should encourage the establishment of a commission for media freedom within the Council of Europe, modeled on the Venice Commission regarding rule of law issues, that would be chartered to provide governments with expert recommendations on maintaining legal and regulatory regimes supportive of free and independent media and an informed citizenry able to distinguish between fact-based reporting, opinion, and disinformation; the United States should encourage members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (in this section referred to as NATO ) at the 2017 NATO Summit to prioritize the development of a program within the NATO alliance to improve intelligence cooperation among member states to combat corruption efforts in Europe by the Russian Federation, including the use by the Government of the Russian Federation of corruption to pressure the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to abandon democratic institutions; the United States should— encourage full compliance with the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (commonly referred to as the Anti-Bribery Convention ) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (in this section referred to as the OECD ); promote accession beyond the current 40 state parties to the Convention; and require robust implementation from those countries, like the Russian Federation, that seek to join the OECD; it is vital to protect the integrity of the United States financial system from being used to shield illicit financial activity by officials of the Russian Federation and individuals in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle who have been enriched through corruption; the United States should investigate and prosecute cases of corruption by Russian actors that use the United States financial system to shield illicit gains and support the efforts of allies of the United States to do the same; the production and exportation from the Russian Federation of conventional energy provides a stable and abundant source of revenue for the Russian Federation to undermine democratic institutions in Ukraine and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe; and the President of the United States should actively use the authorizations under the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 ( 22 U.S.C. 5811 note) to sanction those responsible for Mr.
Magnitsky’s death and the officials of the Russian Federation found complicit in gross violations of human rights.
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Sec. 303
Sense of Congress
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