High-ranking members of Atlanta’s police department have been using Signal, an encrypted phone app, to communicate about the controversial police and fire department training center known as “Cop City” – to each other, to other police departments and to companies involved in building the project, the Guardian has learned.
The department’s move to Signal occurred some time earlier this year, after several years of public outcry about a lack of transparency regarding the project on such basic issues as cost and environmental impact. It appears the department began using the app around the same time multiple police agencies entered a forested public park where protesters were camped – about a mile from the planned “Cop City” site – on 18 January, resulting in state troopers shooting and killing Manuel Paez Terán, AKA “Tortuguita”.
“It’s alarming. Decisions are being made about controversial developments … and they’re creating private, ephemeral means of communication, further eroding lines of trust with the public,” said Alejandro Ruizesparza, co-director of Lucy Parsons Labs, a digital transparency research organization.
Users can set the app to automatically delete messages, at which point they are not even available for retrieval on computer servers, as with standard texts. First amendment and digital transparency experts say police or other government officials using encrypted apps like Signal to communicate about official business raises serious concerns about the press and the public’s ability to access information afterward, in accordance with “freedom of information” or open-records laws.
The solution, they said, is to legislatively prohibit public officials from using such apps for official business.
“In order to make sure the police are doing their important job correctly, it’s necessary to have transparency and accountability,” said Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties organization. “A significant part of that is public access to records – including communications. The thing we have a growing concern about is [that] police may be trying to avoid public records laws by using ‘off the books’ communications channels.”
In the last few years, the practice has been uncovered by reporters in both Arizona and Michigan. In 2021, Michigan passed a law prohibiting state agencies from using such apps.
A community member sent the Guardian 13 emails detailing the Atlanta police department’s conduct. The Atlanta Community Press Collective, a local outlet covering “Cop City” and other issues, saw the original open-records request and confirmed the authenticity of the emails – which also contain phone numbers of various officials, all of whom the Guardian separately confirmed are on the app.
One – Capt Tommy Atzert – has Signal on a phone he describes in an email as his “personal cell” – but does not have the app on another he labels a “city phone”.
The emails begin on 27 December. Claude Moore of Atlanta police department’s (APD) planning, research and accreditation unit, asked a colleague at the Boston police department about any “policies and procedures” on using “Encrypted Apps, such as Signal App … and WhatsApp”.
“The concern my captain has is if the use of the encrypted apps violates the Open Records Act, because information is not preserved,” Moore wrote. Two days later, Francis DeLuca responded: “To my knowledge, the Boston Police Department has no such policy.”
On 11 January, Moore told his captain that he made the same inquiries to 50 police departments, 10 of which responded – and none had policies on the issue. Those included Cincinnati, Ohio, El Paso, Texas, and Raleigh, North Carolina.
An Atlanta police spokesperson, Chata M Spikes, did not respond to queries from the Guardian about the department’s policies on using Signal or other encrypted apps.
Meanwhile, on 18 January, Ken Burns Jr, COO of Atlas Technical Consultants – a firm linked to the police training center – emailed Maj Jessica Bruce of the Atlanta police, and Casey Patterson, at the Georgia bureau of investigation (GBI), about sending some videos. Bruce replied: “try sending over the signal app.”
Within a week, concerted efforts to get multiple officers to download Signal proceeded apace. On 22 January, Lt Jason Sokloski asked four colleagues to do so, because “it is the preferred method for group communication from the Major and Captain”.
The following day, on 23 January, Bruce informed a dozen agencies, “As we get closer to the building of the Acadamy [sic] I wish to keep everyone informed in a timely manner” and that she would be adding everyone receiving the email to a Signal group. Email addresses listed include police departments from Atlanta and Cobb and DeKalb counties – in the Atlanta metro area – as well as the GBI and the federal agencies, the FBI and the ATF. Police from Norfolk Southern railroad are also copied.
On 24 January, Lt Roger Nalls, of the homeland security department at Cobb county police department, asked Bruce at APD: “[Y]ou good with adding my two contacts with NYPD Intel onto the new Signal thread” – referring to New York City’s police department.
The continuing expansion of agencies appearing to use Signal is seen in a 6 February email from Bruce. In that email, she indicated that “communication between HLS [homeland security] and SRS [Strategic Response Section] will be crucial during this time”. SRS “coordinates and manages large scale events and protest management”, according to the APD website. The same email points to Signal as important for “communicating with stakeholders to ensure they stay vigilant”.
In Michigan, the 2021 law prohibiting state agencies from using such apps came about after Jim Fett, an employee attorney representing two Michigan state troopers, discovered that higher-ups in the state police were using Signal. A series of stories in the Detroit Free Press followed, and the legislature soon acted.
Before the law was passed, the app “was widely used” by police “so they would not get in trouble for what they were doing”, Fett told the Guardian. Afterward, he said officers “were kinda ribbing me, saying things like … ‘Not only do we have to deal with body-cams – now you’re able to get our messages.’”
Freddy Martínez, co-director of Lucy Parsons Labs, noted that “the average beat cop is not thinking about why transparency is critical to democracy”.
“What we’ve been seeing nationally … is that public officials are basically allowed to download whatever they want on their phones,” Martínez added. “We’re years behind where we need to be”.
David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, a government transparency organization, said that losing access to public records through the use of apps such as Signal is particularly important when it comes to police, as compared to other public agencies.
“Transparency issues are more important when it comes to law enforcement – because the powers of law enforcement are the most potentially extreme of anyone in government,” he said. “They carry guns, and have the power to detain or kill.”
Loy added: “What would be appropriate is that government agencies may not use disappearing messages apps – full stop.”
This article was amended on 4 December 2023 to correct Alejandro Ruizesparza’s name, which was erroneously written as Ruiz.
