Photo by Rahul Himkar
In 2024, a US Customs and Border Protection agent at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport stole, and completely erased all data from, Sam Tunick’s phone. Now he’s the one charged with a crime.
Unbeknownst to Tunick, his name appeared on a “watch list” due to his political activism — specifically, opposition to construction of a police training center locally known as “Cop City” — and US law enforcement hoped to find a crime, some crime, any crime to charge him with.
Shortly before Tunick’s arrival home from a Caribbean vacation, a US Homeland Security agent circulated an email alert naming Tunick as a suspect in unspecified “terrorism activities,” but the pretext for subjecting him to “secondary questioning” was that his phone might contain “child sexual abuse images.”
At some point during the federal fishing expedition, he was asked for a PIN to unlock his phone for an illegal, warrantless, and unjustified search. He gave the agents a number … a “duress code” which, upon use by an agent, not by Tunick, erased all data on the phone and performed a complete factory reset rather than unlocking the device.
Now, Tunick finds himself facing trial on charges of violating 18 US Code §2232, “Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure.”
Two problems with the charge:
First, Tunick didn’t destroy or remove anything. The CBP agent who stole his phone did.
Second, the law only applies to “authorized” searches and seizures. Absent a warrant issued by a court “upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized,” no such “authorization” exists. This phone theft and erasure wasn’t backed by any of the constitutionally required elements.
Naturally, some people of various authoritarian dispositions wish that wasn’t the case, proclaim themselves just fine with pretending it’s not the case (“if you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to fear”!), and if held to the actual law would support amending the Constitution to make warrantless, unjustified searches legal because REASONS.
Personally, I’d rather see at least the bare minimum constitutional/legal requirements preserved and enforced, with heavy penalties for law enforcement personnel who violate them — or, failing that, all phones equipped, by default, with the “duress code” technology Tunick made use of.
Tunick’s phone used GrapheneOS, an open source “private and secure mobile operating system with Android app compatibility.” It only specifically supports one type of phone (the Google Pixel), although it can be made to work on some other Android-based devices. Hardware, cryptographic features, and transparency standards vary across the Android landscape.
Both Android and iOS offer or allow various features that help, but don’t quite rise to the “enter a PIN, the phone gets erased” level of privacy protection GrapheneOS includes by default. The Android Open Source Project and Apple Inc. should correct that oversight.
And the case against Sam Tunick should be dismissed, with heavy financial sanctions levied on the personal wealth of those who stole and erased his phone then prosecuted him.
