Federal investigators say they used encrypted Signal messages to charge Oath Keepers leader
Federal investigators say they accessed encrypted Signal messages sent in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol, and used them as evidence to charge the leader of the Oath Keepers, an extremist far-right militia group, and other defendants in a seditious plot.
In a new legal complaint made public on Thursday, The Department of Justice alleges the defendants conspired to forcefully oppose the transfer of power between then-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden, including by trying to take control of the U.S. Capitol.
The complaint references numerous messages sent on Signal, an end-to-end encrypted messaging app, raising questions about how authorities accessed them and recalling a long-standing point of tension between the law enforcement community and tech industry. Encryption scrambles messages so that nobody can read them except the intended recipients — including the platform hosting the messages.
It's not clear how investigators gained access to the messages. Representatives for Signal, the Department of Justice, and Federal Bureau of Investigation did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment.
