{"id":64656,"date":"2026-08-14T06:09:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64656"},"modified":"2026-08-14T06:09:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:09:04","slug":"abaj-is-resetting-your-phone-after-being-stopped-by-border-patrol-agents-a-federal-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64656","title":{"rendered":"ABAJ: Is resetting your phone after being stopped by Border Patrol agents a federal offense?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>ABAJ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abajournal.com\/web\/article\/wiped-clean?utm_source=sfmc&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=weekly_email&amp;promo=mk25ann&amp;RefId=marketing&amp;utm_id=1247371&amp;sfmc_id=45492716\">Is resetting your phone after being stopped by Border Patrol agents a federal offense?<\/a> By Anna Stolley Persky:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>It all started when Sam Tunick, described as a 30-year-old barista and musician with concerns about the environment and police militarization, returned to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia on Jan. 24, 2025, after a vacation in the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents stopped Tunick and insisted that he give them his phone and the password to unlock it. Federal authorities had already put Tunick on a terrorism watchlist because of his protest efforts against a police training facility planned for the Atlanta area, according to W. Matthew Dodge, Tunick\u2019s lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But agents told Tunick that they were investigating child pornography, Dodge says. Tunick\u2019s Google Pixel phone was running GrapheneOS, an operating system that allows for an emergency code that can wipe the phone\u2019s digital content. Tunick provided agents with a password that destroyed the phone\u2019s contents when they used it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In November 2025, a grand jury indicted Tunick under a statute that makes it a felony to destroy property to prevent it from being seized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case appears to be a \u201cmajor turning point in digital privacy law\u201d as the U.S. Department of Justice tests a \u201ccompletely novel legal theory by treating a native software security method as the criminal destruction of evidence,\u201d says Kyle Courtney, a professor at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, where he teaches cyber law and privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Historically, he says, the statute\u201418 U.S.C. Section 2232\u2014requires a \u201cphysical act of destruction, like smashing a hard drive with a hammer or throwing a laptop into a river.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Applying the statute to an automated phone wipe \u201ccould set up a profound precedent,\u201d Courtney says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Courtney says he has \u201cdeep skepticism\u201d about whether Tunick\u2019s \u201cconduct fits into the contours of the statute.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ABAJ: Is resetting your phone after being stopped by Border Patrol agents a federal offense? By Anna Stolley Persky:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-border-search","category-cell-phones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64657,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64656\/revisions\/64657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}