Governor’s penchant for secrecy goes digital via app

The Kansas City Star Gov. Eric Greitens and his senior staff use an app that deletes text messages after they’ve been read, raising concerns among transparency advocates that it could be used to subvert Missouri open-records law.

The app, called Confide, allows someone to send a text message that vanishes without a trace after it is read. It also prevents someone from saving, for- warding, printing or taking a screenshot of the text message.

Because the app is designed to eliminate a paper trail, it is impossible to determine whether the governor and his staff are using it to conduct state business out of view of the public, or whether they’re using it for personal and campaign purposes.

Self-destructing messages also mean there is no way to retain texts to decide whether they should be considered a public record.

“If I were wanting there to be no record of what I was doing, that’s the route I would take,” said Jean Maneke, an attorney for the Missouri Press Association.

Even before Greitens took office in January, his administration has been cloaked in secrecy — from refusing to divulge how much corporations and lobbyists donated to bankroll his inaugural to forcing his transition team to sign gag orders to charging fees for public records that critics argue are illegal.