Activist Charged for Allegedly Wiping Privacy-Focused Phone at Atlanta Airport

In January 2025, Samuel Tunick returned to the United States from the Dominican Republic and was stopped by Department of Homeland Security officers at Atlanta’s airport. After refusing a pat-down and a search of his belongings, agents demanded to examine his phone. Tunick entered a duress password that, according to GrapheneOS documentation, triggers an irreversible wipe of the device. The phone displayed only the GrapheneOS logo and a blank screen. Federal prosecutors later indicted Tunick for allegedly destroying the digital contents of a Google Pixel phone, a charge that carries a maximum five-year prison term.

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Tunick’s public defender, Matthew Dodge, noted that the indictment relies on a statute previously used only once—in a drug-trafficking investigation—making the case “extraordinarily rare.” Under normal circumstances, authorities would need a warrant to search a phone’s contents; however, border inspections can bypass that requirement. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

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Dodge argued that agents could have sought a judicial warrant but chose not to. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) email framed the search as a compliance measure, citing travel history and law-enforcement alerts as factors. No official response was provided by the Department of Justice regarding the indictment’s broader implications.

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Tunick situates his prosecution within a pattern of legal pressure on participants in the Stop Cop City movement and other activists. He references prior RICO charges—many of which were later dropped—and a domestic-terrorism case that resulted in a 100-year sentence for a protest-related shooting. Tunick also described additional surveillance, including a hidden camera, a vehicle tracker, and subpoenas for his phone records and Gmail account, which he says yielded no incriminating evidence.

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• “I hope people understand that the charges against me are meant to intimidate people against protecting their data and their privacy, and the government hopes to set a precedent that no one has the right to privacy,” — Samuel Tunick

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• “They could have asked the judge for a search warrant for Sam’s phone if they thought they had evidence of a crime. They didn’t do that,” — Matthew Dodge

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• “Many of us had a suspicion that this was kind of the resting ground for a new, more heavy-handed trend in policing in America. And that does seem to be in fact the case: that Atlanta was sort of the testing ground for a more authoritarian, heavy-handed approach to social movements,” — Samuel Tunick

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• “They really just tried to dig up anything they could on me and they didn't find anything,” — Samuel Tunick

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• “I just hope that other citizens and activists understand that this is not a precedent that we should allow to be set.” — Samuel Tunick

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