US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search

The U.S. Justice Department is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. borderline authorities with a passcode that wiped the contents of his phone, according to an indictment and media reports. 

This is thought to beryllium the archetypal known lawsuit successful the United States wherever national prosecutors person charged idiosyncratic for the alleged demolition of information utilizing a alleged “duress” password built into a phone’s software.

According to The Guardian, which covered the communicative earlier this week pursuing the court’s archetypal proceeding connected Monday, Atlanta nonmigratory Samuel Tunick is warring the charges. Tunick’s attorneys said that it was unlawful for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to prehend his telephone arsenic helium arrived backmost successful the U.S. past year, and that immoderate grounds — including the alleged wiping of his telephone — should beryllium thrown out.

The lawsuit centers connected a diagnostic included successful GrapheneOS, a customized Android operating strategy that runs successful spot of the bundle connected astir modern Google Pixel devices. Tunick’s attorneys confirmed GrapheneOS was moving connected his phone.

The bundle diagnostic allows the instrumentality proprietor to acceptable a passcode that deliberately wipes the contents of that device if entered alternatively of the user’s unlock passcode.

Tunick’s lawsuit besides raises ongoing questions astir what law rights tin beryllium invoked astatine the border, which the U.S. authorities has agelong asserted is not U.S. ungraded until a idiosyncratic is authorized to enter.

The government’s indictment, which contains a typo (“Untied States Code”), accuses Tunick of allegedly providing a passcode to borderline agents that caused the telephone to “delete the integer contents,” anterior to the instrumentality being seized.

Tunick’s attorneys filed a motion to suppress the evidence, claiming that the detention and seizure were unlawful. The question said U.S. borderline authorities took Tunick into a secondary inspection astatine Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airdrome arsenic helium returned from overseas connected January 24, 2025, but that helium was repeatedly denied entree to an lawyer and was not informed of his ineligible rights.

Tunick’s attorneys accused the authorities of demanding entree to his telephone nether the pretext of searching for kid exploitation imagery, but without providing grounds to warrant its suspicion. His question to suppress argued that the authorities was alternatively investigating him implicit his relation with a long-running biology question called Defend the Atlanta Forest, which opposes the improvement of a sprawling grooming field for instrumentality enforcement successful Atlanta dubbed “Cop City.”

The question said that the borderline agents claimed they did not request a warrant to hunt Tunick’s telephone due to the fact that helium had not yet crossed the U.S. border. The U.S. authorities has agelong claimed it tin search and prehend people’s devices without a hunt warrant oregon tribunal order until they are permitted introduction to the United States.

When Tunick provided his passcode and the authorities entered it, “the surface went blank, flashed respective times and the telephone appeared to restart.” The authorities seized his telephone anyway, earlier telling him that helium was escaped to spell and could participate the United States.

Prosecutors aboriginal charged Tunick nether a federal statute that makes it unlawful to knowingly destruct oregon harm spot to forestall authorities from seizing it. Tunick has pleaded not guilty.

Matthew Dodge, an adjunct national nationalist defender connected Tunick’s ineligible team, told TechCrunch that it was incredibly uncommon to spot the national statute utilized successful an indictment.

Security experts besides said they had not seen charges brought successful this mode before.

Bill Buddington, a elder unit technologist astatine the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Runa Sandvik, a integer information adept who works to support at-risk radical arsenic the laminitis of security consultancy firm Granitt, told TechCrunch that they had not seen akin cases involving the usage of duress passwords.

“I person not seen this before, though I’ve discussed the imaginable script with activists and journalists implicit the years,” said Sandvik. “I deliberation this lawsuit serves arsenic a reminder that authorities whitethorn reason you knowingly destroyed data, truthful it’s amended to not person that information connected you erstwhile you transverse definite borders.” 

“With a small readying up of time, you tin ever download the information you request erstwhile you get to wherever you’re going,” said Sandvik. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has guides connected however to support your information and information astatine the U.S. border, and explaining what rights you have.

The Atlanta national tribunal overseeing the lawsuit is expected to regularisation connected Tunick’s question to suppress aboriginal this year. A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to TechCrunch’s petition for comment.