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The point they're trying to make seems to be that the specific unofficial Signal app they are using does archive those messages. So the fact Signal by itself doesn't, is irrelevant. The government is paying TeleMessage for this Signal app instead of using the official Signal app... The only reason for that would be for the archiving capability.
I mean... If they're using Signal specifically because it doesn't store messages, and they are trying to hide the communications and not archive them... They wouldn't be using the app capable of archiving them in the first place, they'd just use the official Signal app.
Not sure why this is hard for people to understand since the article is explaining exactly what this app is and does and how it bypasses the "Signal doesn't arching texts" issue entirely, because it doesn't matter what the official Signal app does or doesn't do.
Everyone gets that. What you don't seem to get is that when the law says government communications must be archived, it doesn't mean "an Israeli company has a copy of all my sensitive texts" is how to accomplish that.
How do you know they have access to the archived data? That's possible... but requires making assumptions that the application sends the archive data back to the company, which is not a guarantee by any means. Not everything operates via vendor-run infrastructure, most enterprise applications are designed to work with an enterprise-run solution for exactly this type of reason. This isn't a program aimed at the general public.
They make the client application, it is entirely possible that the client simply sends that data to a specified database, and the apps on these devices are set to a server run by the US government. It's not hard to verify where the archive info leaving a device via any network interface is going. You can't just hide a connection from the phone to an additional random server, especially if you're looking for weird connections when validating solutions to implement.
Is it possible that they have it running to a server run by the company? Of course it's possible. That doesn't mean it's plausible, or even likely here. We don't know how the app is set up or where it archives to. Assuming it must archive back to the company though is ignorant of how anything remotely related to these types of things work.
On a side note... When was the contract for this application setup? Was it signed by the Trump admin or has it been in place for years to archive these types of communications and we're only talking about it now because of the Trump officials being idiots brought it into the news cycle?
An archiving application isn't inherently insecure just because it's third party, or even made by a foreign company. There's a shit ton of technology bought from foreign countries because that's the best option.