Sec. 2. Findings; sense of Congress
477 words·~2 min read·
/bill/117/s/2129/es/section-2A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress makes the following findings: The information landscape in North Korea is the most repressive in the world, consistently ranking last or near-last in the annual World Press Freedom Index. Under the brutal rule of Kim Jung Un, the country’s leader since 2012, the North Korean regime has tightened controls on access to information, as well as enacted harsh punishments for consumers of outside media, including sentencing to time in a concentration camp and a maximum penalty of death.
Such repressive and unjust laws surrounding information in North Korea resulted in the death of 22-year-old United States citizen and university student Otto Warmbier, who had traveled to North Korea in December 2015 as part of a guided tour. Otto Warmbier was unjustly arrested, sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, and severely mistreated at the hands of North Korean officials. While in captivity, Otto Warmbier suffered a serious medical emergency that placed him into a comatose state.
Otto Warmbier was comatose upon his release in June 2017 and died 6 days later. Despite increased penalties for possession and viewership of foreign media, the people of North Korean have increased their desire for foreign media content, according to a survey of 200 defectors concluding that 90 percent had watched South Korean or other foreign media before defecting. On March 23, 2021, in an annual resolution, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross violations of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and expressed grave concern at, among other things, the denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion … and of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, and association, both online and offline, which is enforced through an absolute monopoly on information and total control over organized social life, and arbitrary and unlawful state surveillance that permeates the private lives of all citizens .
In 2018, Typhoon Yutu caused extensive damage to 15 broadcast antennas used by the United States Agency for Global Media in Asia, resulting in reduced programming to North Korea. The United States Agency for Global Media has rebuilt 5 of the 15 antenna systems as of June 2021. It is the sense of Congress that— in the event of a crisis situation, particularly where information pertaining to the crisis is being actively censored or a false narrative is being put forward, the United States should be able to quickly increase its broadcasting capability to deliver fact-based information to audiences, including those in North Korea; and the United States International Broadcasting Surge Capacity Fund is already authorized under section 316 of the United States International Broadcasting Act of 1994 ( 22 U.S.C. 6216 ), and expanded authority to transfer unobligated balances from expired accounts of the United States Agency for Global Media would enable the Agency to more nimbly respond to crises.
Connectionstraces to 1
Traces to 1 document
Citation graph
cites case law
Sec. 2
Findings; sense of Congress
Cites 1Cited by 0 across 0 sources