Federal prosecutors are prosecuting an American citizen, Atlanta resident Samuel “Sam” Tunick, for allegedly giving Customs and Border Protection officers a “duress” passcode that wiped his phone when they demanded access to it at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport on January 24, 2025, as he returned from overseas. The phone ran GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused Android operating system with an optional duress code that deletes the device's data when entered instead of the unlock code. According to the defense motion, when officers entered the code, “the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart.” They seized the phone anyway and let him go. TechCrunch reported it is thought to be the first known U.S. case in which federal prosecutors have charged someone over data destruction through a duress password.
Prosecutors charged Tunick under a rarely used federal statute that makes it a crime to knowingly destroy or damage property to prevent its seizure; Ars Technica reported the charges were filed in late 2025 and carry up to five years in prison. Tunick has pleaded not guilty. The case became public after a July 2026 hearing on a defense motion to suppress all evidence from the stop, including the wiping of the phone.
His public defenders argue the detention and seizure were unlawful: according to the motion and courtroom testimony reported by The Guardian, he asked four times for a lawyer and was rebuffed, agents produced no warrant and did not read him his rights, and the stated search for child sexual abuse images was “a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick's connections” to the movement against Atlanta's police training center known as Cop City. The Guardian reported that a Homeland Security agent had circulated an email with his name and photo three hours before he landed, saying he was being investigated for “suspected terrorism activities.” The government says it needed no warrant because Tunick had not yet been admitted to the country, and a CBP officer testified the agents were “looking for anything that's prohibited.”
The government has long asserted it can search and seize devices at the border without a warrant until a person is permitted entry. Here the charge targets the act of wiping the device rather than anything found on it, which digital-security experts told TechCrunch and The Guardian they had not seen before. If it succeeds, using a privacy feature at the border could carry federal criminal exposure.
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry said courts have split on border device searches and that digital-rights groups have long advised travelers they can decline to unlock devices, neither of which its sources support; those statements were removed. It now notes, per Ars Technica, that the charges were filed in late 2025; the July 24, 2026 date reflects when the case was first widely reported.
Update (October 20, 2026): in a post-hearing brief filed October 19, the defense said a DHS task force officer emailed three hours before Tunick landed, directing CBP officers to seize him, question him and collect his passcodes, and that CBP's Tactical Terrorism Response Team conducted the interrogation. Officers asked whether they would find “kiddie porn” on his phone and then asked again; the brief says an officer acknowledged at the hearing that they had no reason to believe he possessed such material, and nothing illegal was found. The government's response is due November 9. 404 Media's headline says DHS “lied”; the record so far is the defense's account of the testimony, and the hearing transcript is not public.