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EPA Officials May be Using Signal to “Spread Their Goals Covertly”

posted by janrinok on Thursday February 16 2017, @11:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the are-we-for-encryption-or-against? dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Two Republican members of Congress sent a formal letter Tuesday to the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of the Inspector General, expressing concern that "approximately a dozen career EPA officials" are using the encrypted messaging app Signal to covertly plan strategy and may be running afoul of the Freedom of Information Act.

The open source app has gained renewed interest in the wake of the election of President Donald Trump.

As Ars has reported previously, all Signal messages and voice calls are end-to-end encrypted using the Signal Protocol, which has since been adopted by WhatsApp and other companies. However, unlike other messaging apps, Signal's maker, Open Whisper Systems, makes a point of not keeping any data, encrypted or otherwise, about its users. (WhatsApp also does not retain chat history but allows for backups using third-party services, like iCloud, which allows for message history to be restored when users set up a new device. Signal does not allow messages to be stored with a third party.)

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/house-members-epa-officials-may-be-using-signal-to-spread-their-goals-covertly/

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @04:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @04:12AM (#468078)

    The fact that you haven't heard of it says much about its success, ignorance isn't confined to "the other party".
    Here are some articles with names https://www.city-journal.org/html/real-war-science-14782.html [city-journal.org].

    While Republicans and conservatives blatantly ignore inconvenient facts, the "liberals" suppress it instead, much more subtle.

  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @06:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @06:44AM (#468116)

    ignorance isn't confined to "the other party"

    At least you have something correct.

    As for your link, it's funny that the standards of a what constitutes a wich hunt seems to change:

    When email records are demanded from climate researchers that have data supporting climate change, it's "we're just asking questions" or "we are ensuring scientific integrity".

    When email records are demanded from an anti-climate change lobbiest organization suspected of illegal activity, it's an offensive act that is meant to intimidate.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @07:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @07:50AM (#468126)

      Yet many climate researchers are passing off their political opinions as science, just as Obama does, and they’re even using that absurdly unscientific term “denier” as if they were priests guarding some eternal truth. Science advances by continually challenging and testing hypotheses, but the modern Left has become obsessed with silencing heretics. In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch last year, 20 climate scientists urged her to use federal racketeering laws to prosecute corporations and think tanks that have “deceived the American people about the risks of climate change.” Similar assaults on free speech are endorsed in the Democratic Party’s 2016 platform, which calls for prosecution of companies that make “misleading” statements about “the scientific reality of climate change.” A group of Democratic state attorneys general coordinated an assault on climate skeptics by subpoenaing records from fossil-fuel companies and free-market think tanks, supposedly as part of investigations to prosecute corporate fraud. Such prosecutions may go nowhere in court—they’re blatant violations of the First Amendment—but that’s not their purpose. By demanding a decade’s worth of e-mail and other records, the Democratic inquisitors and their scientist allies want to harass climate dissidents and intimidate their donors.

      Why the legal actions against think tanks at all? Did they go all out and dump crude oil into the sea to destroy the environment? It would be more convincing if they actually pointed out flaws in the data than using punitive legislative powers.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @03:13PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @03:13PM (#468222)

        Why the legal actions

        I don't know. You link to a biased source that only references the "victim's" perspective through a fluff piece put out by their PR department.

        pointed out flaws in the data

        What data? You claimed that there was a "witch hunt against dissident scientists" and your link does not support your claim. Which scientists are being hunted?