The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border
Terrence O'Brien is the Verge’s weekend editor. He’s covered the tech industry for over 18 years and knows a thing or two about synths.
The government is prosecuting US citizen Sam Tunick for allegedly providing authorities with a “duress password” that wiped his phone when they tried to seize it at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport on January 24th, 2025. Federal agents detained Tunick at the airport, allegedly questioning him about child exploitation images. However, a motion filed by Tunick’s lawyers argues this was simply “a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick’s connections” to the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta.
The government is turning to a little-known and rarely-used statute that makes it illegal to destroy or damage property to stop authorities from seizing it. They allege that Tunick used a feature of the privacy-focused GrapheneOSto wipe his phone by giving authorities a duress password, instead...
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