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A Georgia man is being targeted by federal prosecutors after his phone’s OS wiped the device during an attempted seizure.
Atlanta resident Sam Tunick was returning from the Dominican Republic in January when he was stopped by federal agents. Tunick’s lawyer alleges that the stop was motivated by Tunick’s activism against the $118 million “Cop City” training facility.
Customs agents claim that it was a routine stop and search and that they were simply looking for anything which shouldn’t be allowed. I haven’t been pulled for one of these checks before, but it seems unusual to me for an American citizen to be asked to unlock and expose his personal information on a routine stop.
According to TechSpot, Tunick used an open-source operating system called GrapheneOS which includes extra privacy features. One of these features allows users to set a “duress PIN” which is a passcode that completely wipes the device instead of unlocking it. This allows users to undermine attempts to violate their privacy under duress.
Federal prosecutors are arguing that Tunick’s actions run afoul of federal statute “18 USC 2232: Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure”.
Tunick’s defense is questioning the constitutionality of his stop in the first place, and claim that Tunick was not read his rights and denied access to a lawyer during questioning.
Privacy advocates are also watching the case, since the outcome could have a far-reaching effect on how Americans are allowed to protect their digital privacy.
