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[quote=Anonymous]Could the Signal chat violate the law?

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cg70xgxl3vmt

Some of the Signal messages National Security Adviser Michael Waltz sent to the chat were set to disappear after one week, Jeffrey Goldberg reported in his article for The Atlantic.

That raises concerns about two federal laws that require the preservation of government records: the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act.

“The law requires that electronic messages that take place on a non-official account are preserved, in some fashion, on an official electronic record keeping system," said Jason R Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Such regulations would cover Signal, he said.

Official government communications are supposed to be either automatically archived, or the individuals involved are supposed to forward, copy, or preserve the messages.

“The open question here is whether these communications were automatically archived," Baron told the BBC. "It's not clear whether that occurred."

It was also unclear whether the individuals in the chat had taken other steps to preserve the records.

The use of Signal to discuss the military strikes also raised security questions.

“Assuming that any of the conversations on Signal could be considered classified, then under Department of Defense guidance those communications should have taken place on a classified government network, or on a network with government-approved encrypted features," Baron said.

“We should all be concerned about the use of these electronic messaging apps to evade federal record keeping requirements," he said.[/quote]

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