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The U.S. Justice Department is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. border authorities with a passcode that wiped the contents of his phone, according to an indictment and media reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is thought to be the first known case in the United States where federal prosecutors have charged someone for the alleged destruction of data using a so-called \u201cduress\u201d password built into a phone\u2019s software.<\/p>\n
According to The Guardian<\/a>, which covered the story earlier this week following the court\u2019s first hearing on Monday, Atlanta resident Samuel Tunick is fighting the charges. Tunick\u2019s attorneys said that it was unlawful for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to seize his phone as he arrived back in the U.S. last year, and that any evidence \u2014 including the alleged wiping of his phone \u2014 should be thrown out.<\/p>\n The case centers on a feature included in GrapheneOS, a custom Android operating system that runs in place of the software on most modern Google Pixel devices. Tunick\u2019s attorneys confirmed GrapheneOS was running on his phone.<\/p>\n The software feature allows the device owner to set a passcode that deliberately wipes the contents of that device<\/a> if entered instead of the user\u2019s unlock passcode.<\/p>\n Tunick\u2019s case also raises ongoing questions about what constitutional rights can be invoked at the border, which the U.S. government has long asserted is not U.S. soil until a person is authorized to enter.<\/p>\n The government\u2019s indictment<\/a>, which contains a typo (\u201cUntied States Code\u201d), accuses Tunick of allegedly providing a passcode to border agents that caused the phone to \u201cdelete the digital contents,\u201d prior to the device being seized.<\/p>\n Tunick\u2019s attorneys filed a motion to suppress the evidence<\/a>, claiming that the detention and seizure were unlawful. The motion said U.S. border authorities took Tunick into a secondary inspection at Atlanta\u2019s Hartsfield-Jackson airport as he returned from overseas on January 24, 2025, but that he was repeatedly denied access to an attorney and was not informed of his legal rights.<\/p>\n Tunick\u2019s attorneys accused the government of demanding access to his phone under the pretext of searching for child exploitation imagery, but without providing evidence to justify its suspicion. His motion to suppress argued that the government was instead investigating him over his association with a long-running environmental movement called Defend the Atlanta Forest, which opposes the development of a sprawling training campus for law enforcement in Atlanta dubbed \u201cCop City.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The motion said that the border agents claimed they did not need a warrant to search Tunick\u2019s phone because he had not yet crossed the U.S. border. The U.S. government has long claimed it can search and seize people\u2019s devices without a search warrant or court order<\/a> until they are permitted entry to the United States.<\/p>\n When Tunick provided his passcode and the authorities entered it, \u201cthe screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart.\u201d The authorities seized his phone anyway, before telling him that he was free to go and could enter the United States.<\/p>\n Prosecutors later charged Tunick under a federal statute<\/a> that makes it unlawful to knowingly destroy or damage property to prevent authorities from seizing it. Tunick has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n Matthew Dodge, an assistant federal public defender on Tunick\u2019s legal team, told TechCrunch that it was incredibly rare to see the federal statute used in an indictment.<\/p>\n Security experts also said they had not seen charges brought in this way before.<\/p>\n Bill Budington, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Runa Sandvik, a digital security expert who works to protect at-risk people as the founder of security consultancy firm<\/a> Granitt, told TechCrunch that they had not seen similar cases involving the use of duress passwords.<\/p>\n \u201cI have not seen this before, though I\u2019ve discussed the potential scenario with activists and journalists over the years,\u201d said Sandvik. \u201cI think this case serves as a reminder that authorities may argue you knowingly destroyed data, so it\u2019s better to not have that data on you when you cross certain borders.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith a little planning ahead of time, you can always download the data you need once you get to where you\u2019re going,\u201d said Sandvik.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a> has guides on how to protect your data and security at the U.S. border, and explaining what rights you have.<\/p>\n The Atlanta federal court overseeing the case is expected to rule on Tunick\u2019s motion to suppress later this year. A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to TechCrunch\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Updated to correct the spelling of a surname in the fifteenth paragraph.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n