Secret Service Deleted Jan 6 Text Messages After Officials Requested Them | Hacker News Reader

Secret Service Deleted Jan 6 Text Messages After Officials Requested Them

theintercept.com

108 pointscainxinth33 comments

The idea these messages are “gone” is ridiculous. They are in plenty of intelligence databases. If they don’t come out it’s because the powers that be don’t want them out.

This; guessing part of the reason they won’t ask the alphabet boys for them is because they don’t want the public to really understand that “collection” just means “searched for” information that they’re storing for everyone.

Ancient history at this point but if you missed it and have no idea what I’m talking about https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/nsa-sur...

The rule of law cannot survive when government officials and law enforcement are exempt.

USSC loves government immunity! https://newrepublic.com/article/166981/supreme-court-impunit...

That's how it survives in all countries. Unfortunately.

Remember Peter Strzok? His FBI phone "accidentally" wipeout. To this day, there are no repercussions. I am 100x more worried about FBI can get away with this kind of behavior than this Jan 6 drama.

I assume you're talking about what Wikipedia describes as:

> In 2018, President Trump falsely claimed that 19,000 text messages between Strzok and Page "were purposely & illegally deleted" and that these text messages "Would have explained whole Hoax".[78][79] PolitiFact rated the claim "Pants-on-fire" false. An investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general found no evidence the messages were purposefully deleted, some from the work phones were recovered, and that the texts on their personal phones were lost when they were reset.[78][79]

That PolitiFact quote isn't even a rebuttal. One wouldn't expect to find evidence they were purpousefully deleted. The fact their personal phones were reset is pretty suspicious though.

I reset my personnal phone every 6 month. I don't understand why people don't do this. It solve ghost typing, slowness and overall is a better way to delete unused apps tha "uninstall" those.

> I am 100x more worried about FBI can get away with this kind of behavior than this Jan 6 drama

Why?

Which is a bigger problem: armed rabble, or people using the power of the Federal government against you?

> Which is a bigger problem

Armed rabble trying to turn the power of the Federal government against me.

The armed rabble have been arrested, charged, and in many cases imprisoned. The federal agents in question have not been, despite manifest proof of the crime of destroying evidence.

I see. So previously you did find it concerning, and now that there have been arrests, you’re no longer so concerned about it?

I am particularly concerned about the wide variety of federal agents and officials not indicted for well-documented crimes. First among those, torture.

Rabble are way, way down list.

When the intelligence community doesnt't like those who are in power, they stage a coup. JFK documents are still classified to protect the image of which 3-letter agency?

> JFK documents are still classified to protect the image of which 3-letter agency?

The CIA

So… shouldn’t those text messages be on a server, in addition to being in the mobile phones (pre-“accidental erasure”)? What am I missing?

.... Why was the secret service sending sensitive data in text messages?!

I wonder if this is the media calling text messages and meaning "signal messages" or some other app.

I'd be shocked if the SecServ was smsing at all...

We don’t know if they were because the messages are gone.

The fact that the messages are gone is pretty good evidence that they're incriminating.

Afaik, that can be introduced into court as well. If spoliation of evidence can be demonstrated, evidence of that can be brought into court, and the jury can be instructed that they are allowed (but not required) to assume that the evidence was unfavorable to the party that destroyed it.

That they're willing to admit it is extremely concerning. It either means they think they can get away with it, or that whatever was in the texts is worse than what they're being accused of. Neither is a good thing for a functioning democracy.

LOL, they purposely wiped messages because they contained alibi for the whole thing, right?

Nazis started burning documents when loosing war, but it was probably cook books and poetry tomes, we could never know.

The article seems to omit when the erasure happened aside from saying it was after IG requested the records. Did IG make the request when Trump’s people were still in charge or after the transition? No mention of that key detail.

His people are still in charge.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com