Border Agents Can Lie to Search Your Phone, but Wiping Your Own Data Could Land You in Prison
The article reports on the case of Samuel Tunick, a participant in the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement, who was charged under a rarely used law for using a 'duress password' to wipe his phone data during a CBP border search. Tunick, returning from the Dominican Republic in January 2025, was detained by a CBP Tactical Terrorism Response Team. He provided a password that erased his phone's data, leading to charges of 'destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure' 11 months later. His lawyers argue the interrogation violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights and that the Fourth Amendment border search exemption should not apply to phone data. The case highlights a legal imbalance where agents can lie (claiming they were searching for child porn, later revealed as a pretext for a terrorism investigation) while travelers face prosecution for protecting their data. Experts note that wiping data before travel may still be legal, but this prosecution aims to deter such actions.
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