The messaging app Signal is popular for one reason: It’s good at keeping secrets.
The nonprofit that developed the app does not store messages or user data on a central server. Once messages are deleted, they’re gone forever, and authorities can’t inspect messages that no longer exist. The app also has an optional “disappearing messages” function, which does the labor of permanently deleting those messages.
This makes Signal an ideal app for coordinating crimes, of course, but it does have more benign uses. Journalists use it to communicate with whistleblowers who don’t want their employers or others to know they’re talking to the media. Organizers use it to coordinate protests and similar collective actions. And, increasingly, people use it as a more secure and private means of simply communicating with friends.
But questions have arisen over revelations that members of the Madison Common Council were using Signal to communicate with each other over the last several years.
The Madison Common Council, like governing bodies in almost every Wisconsin city, village and town, is made up of civically minded, well-intentioned people who are not and don’t aspire to become professional politicians. Many of them travel in overlapping social circles and are friendly with each other before they take office. They serve on the same neighborhood association and nonprofit boards. They show up at the same events. They view their election to public office as simply another way to serve their community together.
So, naturally, some groups of these legislators use technology to connect, to communicate casually, to coordinate social plans.
The problem is that public elected office isn’t the same as a board or social club. And using apps like Signal may not be appropriate for those who hold public office.
A few months ago, in my role as a Madison journalist, I became aware of a Signal group chat populated by eight of the Common Council’s 20 current members. Screen shots provided to me made it clear there were once as many as 12 council members taking part in these chats.
The council member who started the group clearly stated that the disappearing messages setting should be turned off and warned that no city business could be discussed in the group. And all the members who responded to my inquiries said no city business was discussed in the group.
Unfortunately, neither I nor any other member of the press and public have a way to verify whether someone on this chat did, in fact, enable the disappearing messages function. And over a period of 18 months, several council members altered the timer on the disappearing messages — sometimes they’d delete after a day, other times a week — which demonstrates they knew about, and knew how to use, the disappearing messages function.
The members said they only used the group chat for social planning and sharing news articles, vacation photos and recipes. I have no reason not to believe them — but also no way to confirm what they are saying.
Generally speaking, strictly personal email and text communications can be withheld from open records disclosure. But those records still exist, even if a records custodian says I’m not entitled to them. If I disagree, I can go to court, and a court could look at what messages are on the app and, if appropriate, compel their release. With Signal, though, I have no way to know whether city business was discussed beyond “trust me.”
And trust is the real issue here. Trust in institutions generally is at an all-time low, and trust in government is shaky at best. I believe local elected officials should not simply comply with the letter of the law, but take the extra caution to avoid even the appearance of secrecy.
Make your social plans and share your recipes via text like the rest of us, and leave Signal for the people with secrets to keep.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Robert Chappell is executive editor of Madison365 and Blueprint365.
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