Full Breakdown
DHS Alert Leads to Phone Wipe and Federal Charges Against Activist Samuel Tunick
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event
In January 2025 a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alert identified Samuel Tunick, a participant in the Stop Cop City protest movement, as a subject of a “suspected terrorist activities” investigation. The alert instructed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to place Tunick in secondary inspection, retain his electronics, and obtain passcodes. During the interrogation Tunick supplied a code that erased the data on his privacy-focused GrapheneOS phone. Federal prosecutors later charged him with knowingly destroying a government-seized device, a violation that carries up to five years in prison.
Background & Context
Tunick’s activism centered on opposition to a proposed police training facility in Atlanta, a campaign that has drawn law-enforcement scrutiny for alleged arson, vandalism, and doxing. The phone-wipe case is being framed as one of the most high-profile technology-civil-rights prosecutions in recent memory. His attorneys note that the statutory provision used to charge him—criminal destruction of government property—has been invoked only once before, in an unrelated drug-trafficking case.
Official Statements & Responses
CBP officers later told Tunick they were searching for child-sexual-abuse material, a claim Tunick denied. Officer Findley, a CBP official present at the interview, later acknowledged that there was no factual basis for believing Tunick possessed such material.
Criticism & Opposition
Tunick’s lawyer, Matthew Dodge, argues that the government’s pretext of a child-pornography investigation was a “fishing expedition” aimed at accessing the phone’s data. Tunick himself has said the charges are intended to intimidate individuals who protect their digital privacy and to set a precedent that erodes privacy rights.
Legal Consequences and Notable Details
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison. The rarity of the legal theory and the reliance on a DHS terrorism alert have drawn attention to the breadth of investigative powers exercised in the early months of the second Trump administration.
