{"id":5014,"date":"2017-02-17T14:25:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T18:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=5014"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:56","slug":"encrypted-apps-leaking-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/encrypted-apps-leaking-information\/","title":{"rendered":"White House Staff Using Secretive Encrypted Apps to Leak Information about the Current Trump Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"President Donald Trump stated in an animated press conference on February 16, 2017 that his \u201cadministration is running like a fine-tuned machine.\u201d
\nThe number of leaks plaguing the current administration, and the information being leaked, paint a different story. A transcript of his telephone conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull revealed that Trump was incensed by an Obama agreement to take in refugees, and told the Prime Minister that this was \u201cthe worst call by far\u201d<\/a> he\u2019s had with world leaders. Trump reportedly yelled at Turnbull and hung up on him after just 25 minutes, though the conversation was scheduled to last an hour.
\nThe leaks range from serious domestic and international policy matters, to more embarrassing insider accounts of what it\u2019s like to work in the White House under this new administration.<\/p>\n

The Twitter account Rogue POTUS<\/a> describes itself as \u201cThe unofficial resistance team inside the White House\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and says they \u201cpull back the curtain to expose the real workings inside this disastrous, frightening Administration.\u201d After his press conference on February 16, the account tweeted \u201cPOTUS says he \u201cowned them\u201d regarding press conference. However, was not amused afterward when someone pointed out Obama’s 332 in 2012.\u201d
\nThe account is also soliciting leaks publicly. They posted a tweet quoting user Katie McAllister (@Katiemca), who tweeted \u201cFor anyone ready to leak information on Trump, @RoguePOTUSStaff<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many of the White House Staffers<\/a> are using a mobile application called Confide<\/a> to communicate about leaking information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Confide is an encrypted messaging application\u2014a secretive and private way to send messages on mobile devices. It features disappearing messages and prevents users from screenshotting messages in order to minimize the digital paper trail of the communication. And its use has \u201cspiked\u201d since the start of the new Trump Administration, according to Confide\u2019s co-founder and president, who said they\u2019ve seen an \u201cenormous spike\u201d<\/a> in usage and engagement.
\nConfide was founded in 2013, and was in fact made for this purpose\u2014to provide executives a way to \u201cto trade gossip and talk shop.\u201d<\/a> Messages automatically self-destruct, so they\u2019re not saved and subject to later discovery. Other mobile applications like Snapchat also have disappearing message features, but Confide is unique. It\u2019s the only secure messaging app whose encryption is closed source and proprietary, which means that \u201cno one outside the company knows what\u2019s going on under the hood of the app.\u201d
\nWithin the context of the White House, use of the app to leak information about the administration may have some particularly serious legal implications.\u00a0David Vladeck, a communications and technology law researcher at Georgetown Law School said its use by Staffers \u201craises very disturbing questions about compliance with the Presidential Records Act specifically, and more broadly the Federal Records Act[.]\u201d These laws, he says, are intended to prevent our nation\u2019s history from being lost or manufactured.
\nIn contrast, according to an article posted by Above the Law (a website popular among law students that features candid and anecdotal information about a variety of legal topics) titled \u201cWhite House Staff Probably Violating The Presidential Records Act, And I Probably Don\u2019t Care<\/a>,\u201d violating the act isn\u2019t that big of a deal. The Act basically says White House Staff \u201ccan\u2019t throw away their work\u201d but it doesn\u2019t \u201creally define any\u00a0punishments<\/em>\u00a0for violators.\u201d (The article also says that Trump is probably violating this act every time he deletes one of his tweets. The New York Daily<\/a> News similarly raised another interesting question about the Presidential Records Act and the implications of using social media to communicate, asking whether the President violates the PRA every time he deletes a tweet because of a misspelled word.)
\nEven if violating the PRA isn\u2019t a big deal, if Staffers are using Confide to violate the more serious federal criminal laws on destroying federal records, they would certainly face more serious penalties, including prison time. Certainly, there is no shortage of political drama with the new Administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump stated in an animated press conference on February 16, 2017 that his \u201cadministration is running like a fine-tuned machine.\u201d The number of leaks plaguing the current administration, and the information being leaked, paint a different story. A transcript of his telephone conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull revealed that Trump was …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7108,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5014\/revisions\/7108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}