House members: EPA officials may be using Signal to “spread their goals covertly”

House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and the Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Darin LaHood (R-IL) sent a formal letter 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. The congressmen note that the EPA has previously examined employee use of text messages to conduct government business and found that only a minuscule fraction of those messages was retained under FOIA.