Wisconsin a Leader in Using Signal App to Hide Public Records?

Mike Huebsch and Pete Hegseth.

Last week’s revelation that Trump administration officials used the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss top secret national security issues was all about the lack of security of this group chat. Specifically, that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth carelessly disclosed to a journalist the exact time that American fighter jets would take off for strikes against the Houthi fighters — which could have endangered the lives of U.S. pilots.

But there was another troubling issue that is almost the reverse side of the coin: that disappearing messaging apps like Signal “could become a way” for officials to skirt the requirements of federal laws meant to preserve government records, as a New York Times story noted.

In fact Signal is already being used to provide public officials across the country with secrecy and help them evade public records requests. And Wisconsin government officials may be in the vanguard of that movement.

Back in 2021 Urban Milwaukee reported on “The Secrets of Mike Huebsch,” who served as for four years as the Department of Administration secretary under Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Walker had a long history of evading public records requirements, both as a Milwaukee County Executive and as governor, and Huebsch helped maintain that secrecy in the governor’s administration. He instructed department heads not to use official email or state telephones to handle important information or documents, they told the media.

Huebsch also served, from early 2015 to February 2020, as a member of the Public Service Commission (PSC), which regulates utilities in Wisconsin. Then he resigned from his PSC position before the term expired and applied for a job in the utility industry. He had paved the way for this by supporting their interests, specifically a transmission line that American Transmission Co. (ATC) wanted to build.

Commissioner Huebsch had regular communications with an ATC employee while the permit application for the transmission line was before the PSC. He also had some 200 phone calls with We Energies‘ vice president of external affairs during the time the project was being reviewed by the PSC. And We Energies was a 60% owner of ATC, the main company involved in the project.

And here is the really sneaky part: No one at the PSC could possibly have learned about his conversations because they were encrypted. Huebsch exchanged texts using the encrypted messaging service Signal. Only later did this come out through legal discovery in one of four lawsuits seeking to stop the transmission line. This led Howard Learner, lead attorney for environmental groups challenging the transmission line, to ask: “should a public official in Wisconsin be using Signal as a means of hiding their text messages with interested parties?”

The obvious answer would be no, given state laws on public records. But by then the practice had begun to spread to other officials: Capitol insiders told Urban Milwaukee there were legislators of both parties who subscribed to Signal, allowing them to have conversations and communications about public issues without any public record of this.

That was four years ago. By this month “An Associated Press review in all 50 states found accounts on encrypted platforms registered to cellphone numbers for over 1,100 government workers and elected officials…The AP found accounts for state, local and federal officials in nearly every state, including many legislators and their staff, but also staff for governors, state attorneys general, education departments and school board members.” Even school board members?

The story did not name the officials “because having an account is neither against the rules in most states, nor proof they use the apps for government business.” But the story noted that “Improper use of the apps has been reported over the past decade in places like Missouri, Oregon, Oklahoma, Maryland and elsewhere, almost always because of leaked messages.”

The mayor of Denver is now under scrutiny for using Signal in a way that violates open records laws, the media in that city have reported.

“Apps like Signal, WhatsApp, Confide, Telegram and others use encryption to scramble messages so only the intended end-user can read them,” the AP noted “and they typically aren’t stored on government servers. Some automatically delete messages.”

This has made it easier for government officials to evade public record rules and requests and is part of a decline in government transparency, as David Cuillier, director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida, told the AP.

A lawsuit by the non-profit watchdog group American Oversight has accused Trump administration officials involved in the Signal chat of flouting the Federal Records Act, which requires government communications by agency officials to be preserved.

There may be a need for many more such suits to address the use of Signal by government officials in state governments across the nation. That would include Wisconsin.