Employees within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are using encrypted messaging apps to conspire various ways of resisting acting director Mick Mulvaney’s agenda, according to a Tuesday report.
The group calls itself “Dumbledore’s Army,” a reference to a fictional secret cabal of young wizards in the children’s fantasy series “Harry Potter,” The New York Times reported.
“An atmosphere of intense anxiety has taken hold,” employees said, according to TheNYT. “In some cases, conversations between staff that used to take place by phone or text now happen almost exclusively in person or through encrypted messaging apps.”
The Cause of Action Institute, a nonprofit devoted to “public advocacy and legal reform tools to ensure greater transparency in government, protect taxpayer interests and promote economic freedom,” has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records related to information about the use of encrypted messaging apps by CFPB employees.
“CoA Institute’s FOIA seeks all records reflecting the number of CFPB devices on which encrypted messaging applications were installed, internal policy guidelines on the use of such apps, as well as the communications themselves and efforts by CFPB to recover and archive these messages,” the request reads. The FOIA also specifically requests all communications that contain the words “Dumbledore,” “Dumbledore’s Army,” “Snape,” “Voldemort,” and “He-who-shall-not-be-named,” among other records.
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