Border Agents Seek Phone Data; Erasing It Leads to Criminal Charge

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents stopped Samuel Tunick, a participant in the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement, after he returned from a vacation in the Dominican Republic in January 2025. Agents demanded his phone password; Tunick entered a “duress password” that erased the device’s data. The case’s first hearing occurred last week, where Tunick’s lawyers argued that the government obtained the password in violation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights and that the Fourth Amendment exemption for border searches should not extend to digital data.

Reason

The Defend the Atlanta Forest movement, also known as Stop Cop City, opposes the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center on environmental and anti-militarization grounds. The movement has faced extensive law-enforcement scrutiny, including terrorism and RICO investigations that began in 2022. A 2019 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that child-sex-abuse images constitute “contraband,” allowing digital data to be searched at the border without Fourth Amendment constraints. Earlier expert advice suggested travelers could protect themselves by wiping devices before travel, though the advice noted that intent to obstruct a search could be criminalized.

Reason

Tunick’s attorneys filed that the agents’ claim of searching for “child porn” was a pretext, noting FBI emails obtained by the lawyers indicated a terrorism investigation unrelated to the alleged contraband. The filing asserted that CBP’s authority to “lie to you” while denying travelers the right to lie to them creates an unconstitutional imbalance. CBP maintains that its border-search power includes data stored on phones, citing longstanding court precedent that border agents are not bound by the Fourth Amendment when searching for contraband.

Reason

If upheld, the charge could criminalize the use of duress passwords and other data-destruction methods at U.S. ports of entry, narrowing the scope of privacy protections for travelers. Conversely, a dismissal could reaffirm limits on CBP’s authority to treat digital data as contraband absent clear statutory guidance.

Reason