Overview
- Federal prosecutors charged Samuel Tunick with knowingly deleting his phone’s contents to prevent seizure after Customs and Border Protection agents inspected his device at Atlanta’s airport and then seized it.
- The indictment invokes 18 U.S.C. §2232(a), a statute that criminalizes destroying property to stop its seizure, a use of the law that experts and advocates say has no clear precedent in cases about phone duress features.
- Tunick’s phone ran GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused Android variant that can be set to irreversibly wipe the device when a special duress PIN is entered instead of the normal unlock code.
- Tunick has pleaded not guilty and his attorneys have moved to suppress evidence, arguing he was unlawfully detained, denied counsel, subject to a custodial interrogation without Miranda warnings, and targeted under a pretextual search tied to his activist ties.
- Civil liberties and security experts warn the case could reshape how travelers and activists use privacy tools and could clarify the scope of border-search authority if the Atlanta federal court upholds or rejects the suppression motion later this year.