Is it illegal to trick the US government into erasing your phone during a suspicious investigation?

A man from Georgia was the accused for wiping his phone while being questioned by Customs and Border Protection. Samuel Tunick had something in common with others whose weapons were searched at the airport: He was an inspiration.

Unlike others who had their phones confiscated without explanation, Tunick was told that CBP had to search his device to determine if it contained child pornography, according to court filings. But Tunick’s lawyers argue that the search was “a fishing trip” in connection with the Stop Cop City protest in Atlanta, which many people did. provided under state RICO statuteswhich was later removed. A few critics still looking domestic violence and arson crimes.

According to a motion to suppress evidence filed in March, Tunick did not consent to the search and repeatedly asked to speak to his attorney, but CBP officers told him they did not need a warrant to search his phone. Tunick eventually gave the agents the password to his phone, but when they got in, “the screen was blank, it flashed a few times and the phone seemed to restart,” the lawsuit alleges. Prosecutors allege that Tunick used GrapheneOS’s “privacy layer” to wipe his phone, thereby erasing evidence.

Travel devices have come under intense scrutiny since Donald Trump’s return to office — and the courts have disagreed over the legality of warrantless searches. As a result, travelers do not fully understand how their rights apply at the airport and other ports of entry. This zone has allowed the Department of Homeland Security to target people who appear to be critical of the president or his administration’s policies.

The confusion stems from federal rulings. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that United States v. Payne that law enforcement officials can forcibly unlock a person’s device with fingerprint, facial recognition, or other biometric identifiers without violating the Fifth Amendment’s protection against incrimination. But people can’t be forced to give or enter their passcode, because it’s a kind of evidence “evidence” – the fact that a person wants to reveal their thoughts.

However, the rulings were not issued with the airport in mind, and CBP says the regulations do not apply at ports of entry. Judicial opinion is also mixed on that. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit – which oversees the federal courts in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia – recently ruled that border agents do not require a warrant to manually search travelers’ phones. (Further forensic investigations, however, require a warrant.) A separate court whose jurisdiction includes Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico ordered that agents be able to act in an orderly manner. and warrantless legal investigation. Currently, a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York determined that a CBP agent cannot search any device without a warrant.

The Tunick case has some similarities to the one that led to the New York decision. The New York case began with the criminal investigation of Kurbonali Sultanov, a permanent resident of Uzbekistan whose name triggered an alert on the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, which identified him as a trafficker. In court, Sultanov said agents told him he had no choice but to release his phone. He was also questioned by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations agents, who read Sultanov his Miranda rights, which he said he understood to be “50/50,” before questioning him.

It is unclear why CBP agents believed Tunick had child pornography on his phone. The two-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Georgia made no mention, and CBP did not respond Seasiderequest for comments.

“Under the 4th Amendment, a warrant must be sought, or at least, a suspicion of illegal digital content on the device,” Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said. Seaside. “Agents should not be allowed to conduct warrantless searches on behalf of domestic police officers who are simply seeking to avoid all Fourth Amendment requirements to obtain a warrant from a judge.”

The skepticism of immigration advocates and civil rights activists has many reasons. In a The lawsuit has been filed in federal court in MinnesotaA Minneapolis activist said CBP is “systematically” searching for activists’ weapons, using counterterrorism as a pretext to cover up the president’s left-wing opponents. In March, more than a dozen members offered aid to Cuba their phones were confiscated at Miami International Airport.

Screening of calls at ports of entry is still rare: CBP searched 55,318 phones and other electronic devices in 2025, an increase of 32 percent from 2023. more than 5 million visitors from other countries in June 2025 alone, a figure that does not include US residents.) But activists across the country have seen an increase in scrutiny since Trump returned to office, and the president has been increasingly focused on cracking down on the left during his second term.

Last September, Trump issued an executive order naming “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist groupalthough there is no single group known as antifa. In June a federal judge in Texas he judged eight people up to 30 years in prison for being suspected of being part of an “Antifa cell”. State Department soon submitted a 100-page report stating that several leftist groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America, CODEPINK, and others were “front groups and fellow travelers” of the Cuban government. Report he said that Cuba influenced social movements in the US, including the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and tied the Standing Rock and Cop City protests to “Antifa.”

As Trump’s crackdown on the left continues, activists traveling to other countries may find themselves subject to further scrutiny at airports and other ports of entry. Although US citizens cannot be barred from entering the country, CBP can confiscate their weapons and attempt to enter with sophisticated law enforcement equipment. To prevent hackers from accessing your phone’s content, privacy experts recommend backing up and wiping your device – already during the trip, not during the interview.

William Budington, a technology expert at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explained that “a judge may not view the use of passwords sympathetically.” The EFF cautions against erasing the contents of your device during interrogation, as Tunick is believed to have done. “Resetting your device in your own time is your right.”