When a Department of Homeland Security official sent out an alert to stop Samuel Tunick, a Stop Cop City activist, at an airport in January 2025, they said the reason was because he was suspected of “terrorist activities,” according to new filed court records which include a screenshot of the alert and photos of Tunick’s interrogation.
Tunick ultimately provided Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials with a code that, when entered, wiped his security- and privacy-focused GrapheneOS phone. Tunick is now being criminally charged for that alleged act, in one of the most high profile technology civil rights cases in recent memory.
The court records also showed that CBP officials lied to Tunick during his interrogation. Instead of saying he was being targeted for suspected terrorism — although this search happened just at the start of the second Trump administration, it has dramatically broadened what organizations or people may be considered such — they said they needed his phone to look for “kiddie porn.”
“Good afternoon,” an email sent from a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) official, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to CBP and other officials reads. “The following subject is scheduled to arrive in ATL [Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport] today via DL 1778 @ 1930 Hours. TUNICK is under investigation by HSI/JTTF for suspected terrorist activities.” The email includes a photo of Tunick, and asks the officials to direct him to secondary inspection, retain all of his electronics, and collect their passcodes.
As 404 Media first revealed in December, Tunick was charged because he allegedly “did knowingly destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, and otherwise take any action to delete the digital contents of a Google Pixel cellular phone, for the purpose of preventing and impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take said property into its custody and control.” Matthew Dodge, one of Tunick’s lawyers, previously told 404 Media he only found one other case using the same obscure law, a drug trafficking case. “This is extraordinarily rare,” Dodge said.
Tunick was part of the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta, which broadly protested the building of a large police training center, and which authorities investigated for arson, vandalism, and doxing. Tunick is not suspected of any crime beyond the alleged wiping of the phone, and has previously put his current prosecution in the context of the wide spanning cases against other Stop Cop City protesters.
The newly filed court record, in which Tunick’s lawyers argue that evidence should be thrown out, include new photos and descriptions of the airport encounter. The CBP officials asked Tunick if they were going to find “kiddie porn” on his phone, which Tunick immediately denied. “As the evidentiary hearing made clear, these unfounded accusations were nothing more than pretext for a fishing expedition into the depths of Mr. Tunick’s devices,” the lawyers wrote. They added, “Officer Findley acknowledged that officers had no reason whatsoever to believe Mr. Tunick possessed child pornography,” referring to one of the officials.
Tunick faces a maximum of five years in federal prison for allegedly wiping the phone.
“I hope people understand that the charges against me are meant to intimidate people against protecting their data and their privacy, and the government hopes to set a precedent that no one has the right to privacy,” Tunick previously told 404 Media.
Called bullshit as soon as I read they were accusing him of kiddie stuff.
This is why GrapheneOS’s passcode feature is more likely to land you in trouble - it’s too “hostile”
I’d rather it load an empty profile while it wipes everything in the background.
This is something I’ve been saying for a while.
The right constantly fearmongers about pedophiles because CSAM is a really easy tool to frame someone. It’s a crime that requires minimal evidence and creates significant disgust.
Expect more of this.
Remember Assange, ie this could happen in any of the Five Eyes.
You were warned long ago, these CP laws will be used to take a lot of people down, just like the drug laws, they all have the same purpose, though different targets.
Every time the government is granted powers, it abuses them. It’s in their nature, they can’t help it, they are after all people.
That’s why transparency is so very important.
You are always a “suspect” for something, and CP is perfect for them to abuse because almost everybody has a phone full of photos, so they always have a “reason” to search your phone. This guy didn’t do a goddamn thing.
These cops won’t miss a day, and if they do, it will be paid for by us. We don’t get to search their phones womp womp
I don’t know what the solution is. I think that cops should have to pay the price for abusing our laws, that would be a good start.
I don’t know what the solution is.
I do. Eliminate the border search exception for the contents of digital devices. It’s already trivial for any serious criminal to transfer illegal data over the internet instead of carrying it on physical devices, so such searches are usually a pretext to look for something else.
So, GrapheneOS should have a function that replaces the content of the phone with a vanilla set of apps and a clean account, instead of wiping it, on receiving the distress code.
No, we need to keep a crumpled post-it note with the wipe password written on it in our pockets.
It’s the police’s fault for just typing in the unlabeled code they found. We use our actual passwords all the time - why would we have to keep those written down?
Oh, that is a good one!
You are proposing a technological workaround to fascism instead of a political actual solution. You see how that’s hardly fucking helpful, right?
I am suggesting both
“Officer Findley acknowledged that officers had no reason whatsoever to believe Mr. Tunick possessed child pornography”
I’m pretty sure if I made up a lie at work I’d get fired. seems to be a requirement for law enforcement
Passcodes should be covered by the fifth amendment: when asked to provide them, say “I am exercising my right to remain silent.”
Biometrics, however, are not covered, and cops can point your phone at your face or grab your hand to unlock the device
Iirc this happened at a border crossing outside of American jurisdiction where the officers argued that those laws do not apply (while insisting that the american laws he is being charged for breaking do)
It happened at a border crossing where the fascists claim you don’t have rights, but I fucking dare anybody to show me where in the Constitution justifies that.
It should add a biometric duress option so that when cops do this it shoots themselves in the foot
yes, and use the middle finger as the duress biometric code
They should! Also then they can’t blame the phone owner for giving them a duress password to wipe the phone, because they didn’t.
that’s an interesting idea, but what would you mean exactly? Like biological signs of duress being detected or a secret duress biometric pass that’s distinct from the one you’d normally use such as one finger and not the other? Because the first option would be bad news if you felt stressed one day and tried to use your phone and the 2nd option would I guess be just as bad as the passcode wouldn’t it? They’d say you used a duress biometric instead of the normal one you’d otherwise have used and it wiped the phone, interfering with their investigation and destroying evidence and then prosecute you for it.
Passcodes are not “private info” everywhere, AFAIK in the UK if you refuse to give up your passcode you could get up to 5yrs of jail time.
Hands duress code
oops, you should’ve been more specific
I mean clearly destroying evidence is also illegal.
How do you know it’s evidence if you never saw what’s on it in the first place?
I don’t make the rules but they already decided it was evidence for possible “kiddie porn”
This is happening in GA, the state. He participated in “stop cop city” an anti-police thing. Unless he has a very good lawyer they will put him in prison for anything they can.
They’ve already murdered one protestor.
Not surprising. Protecting Kids & Fighting Terrorism are always the reasons to violate our rights and it’s rarely ever actually about that.
If protecting kids is one of their main goals, I wonder why they did not start with the Epstein friends?
Put the officers in jail. It’s that easy
Isn’t this slander?
honestly Americans have moved on from child stuff like the Epstein files
Oh my gosh, what horrible thing are they doing now!?
So I guess this boils down to wether it was a “lawful authority to take custody and control”. Do they actually need any clear indication for suspecting some crime?
