NEWS

The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

by | Jul 26, 2026

A photo of an iPhone on its passcode screen with a lock attached to the display.

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 fr …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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