Russian lawmakers vowed Friday to adopt legislation targeting American media outlets in response to the US Justice Department forcing RT, the English-language Russia television channel, to register as a foreign agent.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia’s State Duma, said Russian legislators will amend a law related to foreign agents to include foreign media. Volodin, a former Putin aide, said the Duma could adopt the new legislation as soon as next week, according to news reports. “Since such decisions are being made in the United States in relation to our television companies, it is right for us to respond to these actions,” Volodin said, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The measure would initially target CNN, Voice of America, and Radio Liberty,” said Senator Alexei Pushkov, who chairs the upper house of parliament’s media policy committee. Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, indicated the law could also target Moscow-based correspondents from newspapers including the New York Times and the Washington Post.
RT, formerly Russia Today, said Thursday in a statement posted on its website that the DOJ threatened to freeze its bank accounts and arrest its top US executive if it fails to register by Monday under Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a law that requires representatives of foreign governments to disclose information, such as employees’ contacts with government officials and political donations, in publicly available filings to the department.
Gee what is Russia going to do, start having their highly placed double agent start publicly referring to reporting by American news outlets as "fake news?"
Oh, wait.
Source http://ift.tt/2hw19lS
