Former Mayor Willie Brown once joked to a colleague, or so the New York Times writes, that the "e" in "email" stood for "evidence." Only, he probably wasn't joking.
Now, in the political town Brown helped fashion, current members of the San Francisco board of Supervisors and their aides — types who may or may not be hip to Snapchat, the self-deleting photo app — are reportedly flirting with a new way to maintain privacy and dodge public records laws: The popular self-deleting message app Telegram.
April Veneracion is a top aide to Supervisor Jane Kim and a Telegram user who tells the Information that she likes how her message “self destructs.” with Telergram, which also offers chat rooms that "[allow] us to be in touch with each other almost instantaneously.” But does using the app violate public records legislation? Veneracion wasn't sure, but “I should find out though!” she wrote to the Information.
Unlike on competing services like WhatsApp and iMessage, Telegram has a "secret chat" mode in which both sender and recipient of texts can delete messages. Those messages, says Telegram, aren't even stored on the company's servers — making them unreadable even under the power of a court order.
Business Insider explains that California law says texts and email are to be a part of the public record if related to public business. They also, somewhat damningly, observe that Telegram was reportedly used by ISIS members until the company shut down those channels last year.
By the Examiner's count, five Supes — Malia Cohen, Aaron Peskin, Jane Kim, David Campos and John Avalos — were on the app, though at least one claims not to be using it. “I expect all my communications are subject to sunshine laws,” Avalos wrote to the paper (by text message). "My standard text is via my phone. I have Telegram but rarely use it."
As Board goody two-shoes Scott Wiener tells the paper, “I don’t want to comment on what other elected official are doing. I take my own sunshine obligations very seriously and try to be transparent with my calendar, with my emails. I think people have a right to know what I am doing."
“The laws have to evolve,” executive director of the SF Ethics Commission LeeAnn Pelham tells The Information. “If folks are doing the public’s business, that's something policies have to evolve over time to capture.”
As interim policy director for the open government advocacy group the Sunlight Foundation added, “There’s something new here” with Telegram, he said. “This has been talked about a lot as something we will be concerned about. It makes sense it starts in San Francisco.”
Related: City Hall Gets Lazy With Board Of Supes Class Photo, Photoshops Peskin In
