US Prosecutors Pursue Sam Tunick Over Phone Wipe at $109 Million Cop City Protest Case
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jul 23
US Prosecutors Pursue Sam Tunick Over Phone Wipe at $109 Million Cop City Protest Case
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 23
Summary
Monday’s hearing tested whether federal agents can use a little-known evidence-destruction statute against Atlanta resident Sam Tunick after his GrapheneOS phone appeared to wipe itself during an airport search.
24 January 2025 questioning at Atlanta’s airport followed Tunick’s placement on a terrorism watchlist tied to alleged Cop City links, though agents asked about child sexual abuse images and repeatedly pressed him to unlock the phone.
Four requests for a lawyer were denied, Tunick’s defenders said, and agents neither produced a warrant nor read Miranda rights before obtaining the passcode and the phone reset; prosecutors called it a routine border inspection.
Experts at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and elsewhere said they had not seen GrapheneOS itself feature in a federal prosecution before, warning the case could criminalize privacy tools designed to secure personal data.
The dispute lands amid broader fights over searches at US borders and follows other faltering Cop City prosecutions; a judge is not expected to rule on suppressing the evidence before late October.