A former public affairs officer for a state agency that helps people with disabilities find employment filed a whistleblower lawsuit Tuesday in Fulton Superior Court, alleging she was fired for objecting to widespread staff use of a phone app that encrypts and automatically deletes text messages.
Stephanie Ramage is accusing leadership and staff of the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (GVRA) of violating the Georgia Open Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act by using the secure messaging app, Signal. The lawsuit also claims that use of Signal extends beyond GVRA, and is used “within the executive branch and agencies of the State of Georgia.”
“Some of its users are high-ranking officials, such as directors and heads of departments,” the lawsuit says.
Zain Farooqui, general counsel for the agency, declined comment via email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday afternoon, stating that GVRA had not yet been served.
Farooqui is named prominently in the lawsuit, as the agency attorney who signed off on use of the app. The complaint states that Ramage took her concern directly to Farooqui.
“Farooqui acknowledged that he used the application and asked Ramage if she believed an attorney would do something illegal,” the lawsuit says. “Ramage suggested that he should ask for advice from the attorney general’s office. When Ramage stated that she would not be using the application, Farooqui said it might be hard for her to `keep up` if she did not use it.”
Ramage is being represented by attorney Andrew Y. Coffman. When asked by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution if it would be permissible for government employees to have Signal on their work phones if they only used it for private matters, Coffman acknowledged that it was a “fair policy question.”
“But how would you ever police it?” Coffman asked. “If you have a permissive policy that is `on your honor,’ how do you verify compliance?”
Ramage said the Signal app is named in the lawsuit because it is what the agency used. “But this is about all ephemeral encrypted messaging apps.”
Ramage formerly worked with the city of Atlanta for 11 years in communications and public affairs. She was hired at GVRA in June and fired in August, less than 60 days later, after refusing to use the app, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says she advised leadership that “when used in government settings, the Signal application is designed to avoid open records laws and effectively destroys records that Georgia law requires be preserved and available to citizens.”
The website for Signal states: “Signal conversations are always end-to-end encrypted, which means that they can only be read or heard by your intended recipients.” The lawsuit says Signal users can set the timeline for deletion of messages, sometimes as quickly as 30 seconds. All messages are deleted after one month if no shorter time period is set.
The Georgia Open Records Act requires government to preserve public records, which is defined as “all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, computer based or generated information, data, data fields, or similar material prepared and maintained or received by an agency.”
The lawsuit says Ramage took her concern directly to executive director Chris Wells, who allegedly told her that the agency started using the app during the pandemic because they couldn’t meet in person. The lawsuit says that is about the same time that the agency came under scrutiny of a federal monitor for financial irregularities.
“Wells became defensive and stated that if Farooqui, as the agency attorney, did not have a problem with him using the app, then that was good enough for him,” the lawsuit says of the exchange between Ramage and Wells.
The lawsuit says that Ramage began being cut out of agency communications soon after raising objections to use of the app.
“Feeling that she was being ostracized and blocked from doing her job because of her refusal to go along with use of Signal, Ramage disclosed the agency’s use of Signal and the way she had been treated after objecting to its use to Georgia’s Office of the Inspector General,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says she was fired the next day.
“The State is liable for all economic and non-economic damages resulting from its acts of retaliation against Ramage,” the lawsuit states.
