BUSH'S DRUG VIDEOS BROKE LAW, ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE DECIDES

WASHINGTON - The Government Accountability Office, an investigative
arm of Congress, said on Thursday that the Bush administration
violated federal law by producing and distributing television news
segments about the effects of drug use among young people.

The accountability office said the videos "constitute covert
propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of
the materials, which were distributed by the Office of National Drug
Control Policy. They were broadcast by nearly 300 television stations
and reached 22 million households, the office said.

The accountability office does not have law enforcement powers, but
its decisions on federal spending are usually considered
authoritative.

In May the office found that the Bush administration had violated the
same law by producing television news segments that portrayed the new
Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.

The accountability office was not critical of the content of the video
segments from the White House drug office, but found that the format -
a made-for-television "story package" - violated the prohibition on
using taxpayer money for propaganda.

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the senior Democrat on
the Government Reform Committee, who requested the review, said the
use of the mock news segments broke "a fundamental principle of open
government."

A spokesman for the drug policy office said the review's conclusions
made a "mountain out of a molehill."

The spokesman, Tom Riley, noted that Congress had authorized the drug
policy office to fashion antidrug messages in motion pictures and
television programming and on the Internet. His office stopped
distributing the antidrug videos after the G.A.O. report on the
Medicare segments, Mr. Riley said, and never acted unlawfully.

The drug policy office told investigators that it would have been
difficult for "a reasonable broadcaster" to mistake the videos for
independent news reports.

But the G.A.O. said the drug policy office "made it impossible for the
targeted viewing audience to ascertain that these stories were
produced by the government."

Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for "publicity or
propaganda purposes" not authorized by Congress. The accountability
office has found that federal agencies violated this restriction when
they distributed editorials and newspaper articles written by
government officials without identifying them.

The accountability office said the administration's misuse of federal
money "also constitutes a violation of the Antideficiency Act," which
prohibits spending in excess of appropriations.