{"id":1182,"date":"2026-07-27T20:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2026-07-27T20:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:10:11","slug":"doj-charges-alleged-cop-city-activist-over-duress-password-that-wipes-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1182","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Charges Alleged Cop City Activist Over \u201cDuress\u201d Password That Wipes Phone"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Read more \u201cMegafires\u201d in France and Spain Force Over 350,000 People to Evacuate<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Department of Justice is trying to prosecute a man allegedly involved in the movement against Atlanta\u2019s Cop City for using a \u201cduress\u201d password on his smartphone that reportedly wiped its contents, in a seemingly unprecedented line of prosecution as the Trump administration expands its methods of criminalizing those with left-wing beliefs. <\/p>\n

According to The Guardian<\/em>, the defendant, Sam Tunick, was traveling back from a vacation in the Dominican Republic in January 2025 when he was stopped by an agent at the Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta. His reentry into the country had been flagged by a Homeland Security agent, who circulated an email to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and a local FBI joint terrorism officer saying that Tunick is being investigated for \u201csuspected terrorism activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agents interrogated him not about alleged activism, but about child sexual abuse images, as \u201ca pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick\u2019s connections\u201d into the movement against Cop City, reads filed on behalf of Tunick by his lawyers earlier this year. He was denied access to a lawyer four times during the interrogation, and was not read his rights nor presented a warrant.<\/p>\n

The agents pressed Tunick to open his phone and threatened to seize it if he didn\u2019t comply. He eventually provided a password, and CBP officers entered it, at which point the \u201cscreen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart,\u201d the government said.<\/p>\n

The agents said they would be seizing Tunick\u2019s electronic devices, according to the motion, and would return them after 30 days. He was allowed to leave, but then was charged in November using an obscure statute that bars the \u201cdestruction of removal of property to prevent seizure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government accuses Tunick of having an operating system known as GrapheneOS on his phone, a Google Pixel. The open-source operating system has a focus on user privacy, and allows users to set a duress password that deletes all of the data and eSIMs on the device. <\/p>\n

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Tunick\u2019s lawyers have requested obtained during his interrogation and from his phone should be tossed because, the motion says, it was taken in violation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

Tunick\u2019s case has raised concerns about privacy and the government\u2019s willingness to potentially encroach on constitutional rights in its hunt to \u201cdefund, debank, arrest, and prosecute\u201d the left under the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cNational Security Presidential Memorandum 7 initiative,\u201d known as NSPM-7. Experts have said that they do not know of another case where someone was charged simply for the use of a duress password.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have a right to secure our private data against unconstitutional searches. And we should \u2014 especially in a time of rising authoritarianism,\u201d said Atlanta Solidarity Fund member Marlon Kautz, per The Guardian<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Attempts by the state to prosecute Cop City activists have faltered thus far. But last month, the Department of Justice secured an indictment against two Cop City activists that government officials explicitly touted as part of NSPM-7. The case is \u201cled by the investigative and prosecutorial Joint Task Force Vanguard,\u201d Trump\u2019s new \u201canti-Americanism\u201d task force.<\/p>\n

Recent cases against other activists have similarly raised concerns about the government\u2019s crackdown on the left. Last month, eight protesters were handed decades-long sentences in connection to a protest last year at the Prairieland Detention Center. One person, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, who received a 30-year sentence, wasn\u2019t even present at the protest but was convicted for moving a box of zines from his home that he shared with his wife, Maricela Rueda.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Administration\u2019s Demand for Hospital Emergency Room Records Raises Alarm<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The alleged anti-Cop City activist was stopped and interrogated when reentering the US at the airport in January 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nDOJ Charges Alleged Cop City Activist Over \u201cDuress\u201d Password That Wipes Phone - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1182\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DOJ Charges Alleged Cop City Activist Over \u201cDuress\u201d Password That Wipes Phone - 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