The New York Instances studies that the Division of Homeland Safety will not be utilizing the software program that captures and saves textual content messages between officers.
Wait. They haven’t been utilizing it since April. Nice.
So, how does probably the most sprawling, well-funded, and violent company go about maintaining its communication information nowadays, given these pesky legal guidelines just like the Freedom of Info Act and the Federal Information Act?
Glad you requested.
Apparently, again in April, DHS began utilizing a brand new, very high-tech, very environment friendly strategy to make it possible for they comply with the obligations of these legal guidelines. Relatively than utilizing TeleMessage, this system that had taken care of issues mechanically, now, it’s a lot, a lot less complicated. All an official must do to protect their textual content messages and comply with the regulation is:
Take a screenshot of every message in your work telephone
Obtain it to your work pc
Run a program on every screenshot to make it textual content searchable.
See? Piece of cake! Certainly that is far more dependable than the outdated means, the place a bit of software program simply ran within the background and saved all the pieces. Based on DHS, there have been cybersecurity considerations with the automated program TeleMessage, however one small element there: they switched to the screenshot methodology in April, however studies of TeleMessage being hacked didn’t seem till early Might. Whoopsie!
So bizarre that this difficulty has cropped up on the company most inclined to refuse to supply any data in any respect about what its persons are doing. It was most likely inevitable that the identical bunch that thinks federal brokers ought to run round masked, armed, and with no seen ID would additionally eschew maintaining any information about it.
DHS has mentioned that that is completely throughout the regulation, completely, however their very own courtroom filings present the unfortunate performing chief information officer of the Nationwide Archives William Fischer patiently and professionally writing to no matter nonsense flack is dealing with FOIA for DHS. And, properly, right here’s poor William making an attempt to sq. what DHS informed American Oversight about their information request with the regulation:
On July 23, 2025, DHS wrote that “text message data generated after April 9, 2025, is no longer maintained.” On August 21, 2025, DHS submitted that it “no longer has the capability to conduct a search of text messages.” If the statements are correct, please clarify how DHS’s report retention insurance policies for textual content messages meet the necessities of the FRA, together with 36 CFR § 1222.26, which requires that DHS “capture, manage, and preserve electronic records with appropriate metadata.”
When you’re confused, so is everybody else. Right here’s what occurred. American Oversight sued after the federal government refused to supply information concerning the deployment of the Nationwide Guard in Los Angeles earlier this 12 months. On July 23, DHS principally mentioned, “naw, we don’t keep text message data, and haven’t since April 9, so pound sand.”
After The New York Instances reported on it, although, they backtracked, seeming to do not forget that they have been required by regulation to maintain them, so that they got here up with saying that positive, they hold messages, however no, they received’t inform you how.
DHS additionally made positive to throw its personal FOIA employees underneath the bus. See, after they informed American Oversight that they couldn’t discover any information, it’s simply because they have been too silly to know the place to look! “They explained that public information officers had erroneously concluded that the agency lacked the ability to locate responsive records, without searching for manual screenshots. Those became the department’s official record-keeping practice for text messages since April 9.”
If your individual folks tasked with responding to information requests don’t know the place to look, that’s type of an issue. This appears to be like much more like one other delay tactic, together with a strategy to sq. their earlier boast that they simply weren’t gonna hold stuff as which means that they really in some way did hold stuff, however you simply can’t discover it.
Can’t blame this one on Mike Waltz.
There’s no cause the administration ought to actually fear that this can have any fallout. The Supreme Court docket already blessed its refusal to supply any details about the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity. Not information from DOGE. Knowledge about DOGE. As a result of actually having to supply data explaining what sort of company DOGE is would in some way violate the separation of powers, after all.
Why doesn’t DHS simply take the Legal professional Common Pam Bondi route and say that discovering one piece of paper will take two years? Simply make them cool their heels!
If they will’t have the disappearing messages app, they’ll simply disappear their very own messages, thanks. You need to do one thing proper, gotta do it your self.
