Federal Records Act

FILE - This March 10, 2017 file photo shows the WhatsApp communications app on a smartphone, in New York. The messaging app WhatsApp has sued the Indian government seeking to defend its users' privacy and stop new rules that would require it to make messages “traceable” to external parties. WhatsApp filed the lawsuit Wednesday, May 26, 2021 in the Delhi High Court, and is arguing that the government rules regarding the traceability of messages are unconstitutional and undermine the fundamental right to privacy. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)

First Look

Senate bill aims to bring federal records law into the age of ‘WhatsApp’

The legislation comes after recent federal records controversies where officials lost or deleted messages, like the missing Jan. 6 Secret Service texts.

Agency Oversight

(Jim Watson/Pool via AP)

Committee chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, speaks during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on

New House bill attempts to make presidential records more easily searchable

Open Data/Transparency

FILE - This Feb. 19, 2014, file photo, shows WhatsApp and Facebook app icons on a smartphone in New York. The government’s fight with Apple over an encrypted iPhone may be the first of many battles in a broader war over who gets access to individuals’ data, as more tech companies offer encrypted messaging and other services. WhatsApp, the globally popular messaging system owned by Facebook, has already run into trouble with Brazilian authorities, who arrested a Facebook executive earlier in March 2016 after the company said it had no way to unscramble a user’s encrypted messages. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)

Rise of tweets, self-deleting encrypted messages concern lawmakers

Congress