The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border

Federal prosecutors are charging US citizen Sam Tunick for allegedly giving agents a duress password that erased his phone during a seizure at Atlanta’s airport. Tunick’s lawyers argue the child exploitation inquiry was a pretext to search for links to Atlanta’s Stop Cop City movement.

The case could test how far the government can go in punishing people for protecting or destroying phone data during border searches. It highlights growing tensions between digital privacy, device self-protection tools, and law enforcement’s broad search powers at ports of entry.