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Republicans Are Reportedly Using a Self-Destructing Message App To Avoid Leaks (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Trump administration members and other Republicans are using the encrypted, self-destructing messaging app Confide to keep conversations private in the wake of hacks and leaks, according to Jonathan Swan and David McCabe at Axios. Axios writes that "numerous senior GOP operatives and several members of the Trump administration" have downloaded Confide, which automatically wipes messages after they're read. One operative told Axios that the app "provides some cover" for people in the party. He ties it to last year's hack of the Democratic National Committee, which led to huge and damaging information dumps of DNC emails leading up to the 2016 election. But besides outright hacks, the source also said he liked the fact that Confide makes it difficult to screenshot messages, because only a few words are shown at a time. That suggests that it's useful not just for reducing paper trails, but for stopping insiders from preserving individual messages -- especially given the steady flow of leaks that have come out since Trump took office. As Axios notes, official White House business is subject to preservation rules, although we don't know much about who's allegedly using Confide and what they're doing with it, so it's not clear whether this might run afoul of those laws. It's also difficult to say how much this is a specifically Republican phenomenon, and how much is a general move toward encryption.
it's Republicans doing it so it's OK.
Aren't they required to conduct all government business on government systems? Didn't Hilary got a whole lot of crap (and lose an election) over this?
Welp, they're in charge so I guess they get to make the rules, but did they even bother to change the laws first?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I wonder if they still want that backdoor to that encryption sitting there for someone to stumble on...
Except when WE do it... - Republican Party
If you just can't be upright and legal and not message stuff you can't talk about or don't want to admit in public it seems like a 'decent' solution.
God forbid they just say what they mean and stand behind it like regular human beings.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Do you really that if HRC had known about this her campaign wouldn't have been using it?
I get the desire for privacy, I get the temptation to, well, cheat when you have that much power. How is this different from 10 years ago when you would have to peeps meet on an obscure bench somewhere, talking to each other while burying their faces in a newspaper.
Oh ho, so they want *their* stuff to be secret, private & encrypted. But the common citizen is supposed to give all that up because 'if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear'. What unabashed elitism.
MUHUHUHUHEMBA DAT?
"This phone will self-destruct in 5 seconds. Good luck, Kellyanne."
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Not sure if I should be proud of them for learning cracker rule #1 (cover your tracks).. Or if I should be scared because they learned rule #1.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
post election. Whenever somebody points out something awful Trump's doing (Muslim ban, the wall, dismantling the EPA & Dept of Education, Jeff Sessions, I could go on all day) you end with: But... Hilary's emails.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
... "Donald Trump." However, the guy's a pisser, so he leaks.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Hypocrites, criminals, and nihilists, oh noes! This is precisely what the electorate wanted, what they voted for, and now someone (anyone?) is surprised by it?
Hillary should be thrown in jail for the email server and Benghazi... but Trump's illegal hidden email and messaging servers? It's ok because yuge hackers and fake news.
Trump wiping his ass with the constitution as Bannon hands it to him sheet by sheet? No problem because Muslims and walls and Messicans! And a million uppity fat women in pussy hats!
Take a sledgehammer to American healthcare because they hate the black guy? No problem, because God helps the sick, and you know, Jesus loves tax cuts.
I weep for the nation. This is the childish petulant sonofabitch we deserve.
I think not...(*poof*)
It only shows a few words at a time so Trump can grasp what Putin is telling him to do. :)
But if you get caught, I'll deny any knowledge of what you did.
Yeah, that'll work.
As if this company doesnt archive all messages. I would.
Apparently it is perfectly legal, according to the DNC. I see no repercussions for Hillary and every time I pointed it out I was called a racist (not sure why).
So, it appears your yelling and screaming that Hillary did nothing wrong convinced the GOP that private email servers and deleting emails is perfectly ok. At least they are deleting them before being subpoenaed, where Hillary deleted them 3 days after she got the subpoena for them.
Government business, not party business.
Hillary "got a whole lot of crap" for a couple of things.
(1) She tried to circumvent public record keeping requirements by using a private E-mail server for government business.
(2) She received classified documents on her private E-mail server, shared the documents with unauthorized people, and was responsible for exposing those documents to hostile governments.
(3) She destroyed evidence.
(4) Hillary also used private E-mail for party business, which is legal. What got her in trouble there was that her security was poor, that her mail got leaked as a result, and that it contained lots of politically embarrassing and damaging information.
There is no evidence that Trump or the GOP are doing any of this. Furthermore, the only possible use of an app like Confide would be for purpose (1), but that is something government officials can already achieve simply by making a phone call or meeting in person.
There is no such thing as a self-destructing digital message. If it's intercepted, it can be archived and eventually unencrypted.
Have gnu, will travel.
Slashdot jump on the #fakenews bandwagon. A play right out of CNN's book, guys! Well done. Thanks for doing your part to get him reelected in 2020 :)
Hillary should be thrown in jail for the email server and Benghazi... but Trump's illegal hidden email and messaging servers? It's ok because yuge hackers and fake news.
No, it's OK because you guys insisted that it was OK when Hillary did it.
If what Hillary did wasn't bad, why is it bad when Republicans do it?
I mean... which is is?
Actual quote: "As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions."
Have gnu, will travel.
This note7 will Self Destruct in 5 seconds!
> Confide makes it difficult to screenshot messages, because only a few words are shown at a time.
what can be seen can be recorded
Meanwhile, the DNC is on Signal.
Speaking only for myself, yes, I'll be mad at them if they're trying to evade the Presidential Records Act or similar, whichever party is doing this. I won't, however, just make blind assumptions or blame either party for trying to be secure. That said, insider threats are the big threats and for that it doesn't matter how securely the messages are delivered to the mole.
"If you're doing nothing wrong then you've got nothing to hide"... is that how the saying goes?
Twinstiq, game news
Quick question: Doesn't this violate the government regulations regarding destruction of records?
https://www.justice.gov/usam/c...
and:
https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen...
After all, if Trump’s tweets are now presidential records (and, by law, they are), wouldn't these also be included under those rules?
"Federal records may not be destroyed-except in accordance with the procedures described in Chapter 33 of Title 44, United States Code. These procedures allow for records destruction only under the authority of a records disposition schedule approved by the Archivist of the United States. NARA issues a General Records Schedule (GRS) that gives record descriptions of records that are common to most Federal agencies and authorizes record disposals for temporary records."
Yes, yes, I know, "But Hillary Hillary Hillary....", right, I get it, but if her doing it was illegal (and I think it was), how can this be legal?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
All suppose to be saved You been punked by Republicans over emails and servers.
They knew you were stupid and ran with your stupidity.
The RNC doesn't need convincing of anything - they were paying for gwb43.com for fuck's sake! If anything, the DNC was consistent in not going batshit insane over it. And fuck off about deleting emails - 22 million messages went missing after requests were made to archive the RNC server.
The day after his party killed the one federal agency tasked with ensuring voting machine security.
Monsters and the monsters that defend them.
Wouldn't this self destructing email thingie have set her bathroom on fire? Or at least set the wiping cloth on fire?
Assuming we still exist as a republic the historians are going to look back at 2000-2020 an wonder what really happened. Ever since Dubya the whitehouse records have intentionally been "not kept". So when the current bozo's are all dead there'll be nothing but campaign paraphernalia to go in the presidential libraries. At least we have a shot at understanding Reagan or even Slick Willie, but we will never know what happened with W and Barry.
I think what GP means is this:
Most government agencies, such as the FCC, FTC, and FBI, act on the authorization of *Congress*. Congress made a law creating the FCC, and granted the FCC certain powers. Congress can do that because the Constitution gives them that power. When Congress created the FCC, they also put limits on it. The a law, passed by Congress, that says "the FCC can regulate phone companies, and when they do, they must preserve their records according to a, b, and c. So these federal agencies created by Congress have to operate the way Congress specifies. Congress can create records retention rules for the agencies they create.
On the other hand, the Presidency was *not* created by Congress. The President gets his authority directly from the Constitution. The Constitution gives the President the power to control the military, to conduct international relations, etc - without asking Congress for permission. Because the Constitution gives the President certain powers, Congress has no authority to say "you can't do that unless you do it our way". The President can conduct his Constitutional authority in any way he sees fit. The Constitution says he's commander in chief of the military, so Congress has no authority to say that he must send all military orders using this system or that system.
Other Presidential powers *are* granted by Congress, and can therefore be regulated by Congress, so *in theory* they could regulate how he uses those powers, but the courts, the Congress, and the President traditionally are leery of interfering with *how* the other branch internally conducts their business. They argue about policy, the fight about what laws to make across the nation, but the vice-president (officially the president of the Senate) doesn't comment on the Senate rules of how they operate internally, and the President doesn't tell the courts how to publish rulings, and Congress doesn't tell the president which messaging system to use.
Picking a fight about that stuff internal to another branch is wasteful and counter-productive. If Congress decided to tell the President which messaging apps to use, he could turn around and have VP Pence, who is Constitutionally President of the Senate, start picking at the Senate's internal process. It's not worth it.
Already broken.
So that's what they are calling Sean Spicer?
The headline starts Republicans are reportedly..........
No evidence of the fact and the SJW on slashdot are just rolling FUD.
Clickbait from the left to continue there failing propaganda.
...will take a safer approach, by self-destroying the whole party.
Sorry for my incompetence: does Twitter feature leak-avoidance and self-destruction of messages?
That's an interesting argument. It was resolved quite some time ago. The counter-argument is of course that because the President is empowered to fulfill his duties as he sees fit, one method he may use is to hire staff to assist him in his duties. The White House staff operates under the Constitutional authority of the President, as agents of the President. Their authority doesn't come from the Congress. Further, interfering with the White House staff *is* interfering with the President's conduct of his Constitutional duties. This is the reasoning the Supreme Court has mostly used - Congress may not generally interfere with the President's conduct of diplomacy*, and because the President conducts diplomacy by using his staff, interfering with staff *is* interfering with the President's powers.
Not only can Congress not specify a particular means of communication, they can not even *look* at internal White House memos if the President indicates that doing so would interfere with his Constitutional duties. This is called "executive privilege" and it was first invoked by George Washington. In 1796, Presiden Washington refused to comply with a request by the House of Representatives for documents related to the negotiation of the Jay Treaty. Many, many Presidents since Washington have invoked executive privilege, and most of the time they've won.
A major turning point in executive privilege was Nixon. The Nixon administration refused to turn over documents related to Watergate, saying "executive privilege". The Supreme Court ruled that while a President may keep White House communications private, in a criminal investigation of that magnitude he had to give more explanation than just saying "executive privilege". Given the gravity of the situation and the legitimate interest in the papers, he would need to say "turning over the papers would interfere with my Constitutional powers because ...", SCOTUS said. While technically the court ruled against Nixon, they stressed that generally the White House *may* choose not to reveal their communications to Congress or the courts - in criminal cases of major public interest, they just need to state a *reason* they aren't turning over the communications.
For 25 years after Nixon no President lost an executive privilege claim. The Clinton administration claimed executive privilege a record fourteen times, and lost only once.
So yeah that is an interesting argument you've made. That argument has not been the successful argument throughput history.
* Aside from ratification of treaties by the Senate only.
It's funny how having different opinions on various topics now sounds so outrageous to a lot of people. Maybe it is, in this world of media bubbles.
Different opinions is just fine. But behaving as if opinions have the same value as facts is silly. As long as this is being done by a small minority, there is no real problem. Now there is a government making decisions based on alternative facts. This is outrageous.
It is also common for the Congress and the White House to compromise on this issue. Congress says "we want to see these 14 documents". The White House responds "we'll give you these six." Congress accepts those six and doesn't pursue the other eight. Or, Congress asks for a specific document and the White House provides a heavily redacted copy. This allows both branches to avoid a major showdown, with neither side "losing".
The Method of Mass Reputation Destruction was a little 140 character app broadly available
Their emails just weren't leaked.
And yet this machine has been trying to tell us we don't need Encryption? Clearly the line it redrawn to the semi-public eye.
"It's also difficult to say how much this is a specifically Republican phenomenon, and how much is a general move toward encryption."
Not specifically Republican phenomenon, all criminal organizations do it.
According to "The Verge" which comments on an Axios post (with commentary) where there is NOTHING more than un-substantiated claim that republicans are downloading this app.
Yet, no one contemplates the validity of the original source, everyone just assumes its fact. The original article sounds more like an advertisement and selling piece for the app.
Who is actually making this claim ? And based on what information ? I don't see anything more than commentary after the 1 sentence claim. Yet, that commentary around the unsubstantiated claim carries the story and creates a hyperbole of spin and "news".
I wish I could've been this sloppy writing papers back in college...
I guess another way to avoid freedom of information act requests is to destroy all documents in real time.
You might find the opinion in United States vs Nixon interesting. Essentially it said:
a) In general the president doesn't have to turn over his communications.
b) But the courts (and Congress) have a legitimate need to investigate serious crimes.
c) Therefore, to avoid a subpoena in a serious criminal case, the President must communicate some reason that releasing them would impair his exercise of his Constitutional powers.
Had Nixon, on those tapes, talked about Russia as well as whatever else, he could avoid disclosure, based on the court's reasoning.
...the leaks of the GOP emails and files, which hackers *surely* got?
"As Axios notes, official White House business is subject to preservation rules, although we don't know much about who's allegedly using Confide and what they're doing with it, so it's not clear whether this might run afoul of those laws."
So in other words, there really isn't a story here. Someone is allegedly using Confide, we don't know who it is or what they do with it, but we're going to say it's the Trump administration and they're hiding horrible secrets. Great. Excellent reporting. And it looks like PopeRatzo and his Liberal Layabouts Gang are taking this for absolute truth and running with it.
You have been misled.
Congress controls ALL SPENDING.
That is why the previous president could not close GITMO.
Congress passed a resolution saying that not one single penny could be spent closing the detention program.
It mattered not one little mouse shit that the president is the commander in chief of the military.
He could not use one sheet of paper, not one drop of ink, not a single moment of a government employees time to close GITMO.
Hence, GITMO is still operating.
Hence, CONGRESS is in control, and the only thing stopping them is (sometimes) the judges in this country.
This is a common misconception that Congress has been all to happy to promote.
By keeping people focused on the President, and what he says or seems to do, everyone forgets that the assholes that common people actually have a say in electing, their congressmen, are the ones in charge. Instead all blame goes to a person who serves for at most 8 years.
This gives them cover to do what special interests want, and whenever anything goes wrong they blame it on the President and his administration, not the people who actually call the shots. And who cares, in a couple of years they get a new punching bag to blame things on again.
He flirts and hits on 10-15 year old girls regularly (often enough that there are multiple tapes of him doing it).
This may be entirely true. The problem is, after all of the lies and hyperbole and just plain talking about irrelevant bullshit, I've run out of fucks to give. I'm not running this down. Give us a link to the tape, give us a link to the authenticating source to show it's not an impersonator and give us your contact info so we can shame you if it turns out you're lying, like all of the people[1] who inserted the phrase "for consent" into Trump's last bombshell sex scandal tape.
People still don't realize just how much damage the left did to themselves over the past year, attacking senseless irrelevancies like an immune system trying to kill the Spanish flu. And it's only going to get worse, isn't it? Trump is the perfect troll, a natural troll who doesn't even realize he's doing it. All you assholes out there with your Mango Mussolinis, Cheeto Benitos, and Creamsicle Hitlers... here's another name for you, an old nickname that I promise you Trump is going to bring back:
Teflon Don.
1. Including Anderson Cooper at CNN, The Guardian, The New York Times, and countless others.
Don't worry, the FBI will get to the bottom of this.
Do you have any arguments other than tu quoque and ad hominem?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.