Can police force you to unlock your phone?
▼ Summary
– A Georgia activist, Samuel Tunick, was charged with a felony for allegedly using a duress password to wipe his phone during a CBP search, which he claims was a pretext to investigate his involvement in Stop Cop City protests.
– CBP officers told Tunick they did not need a warrant to search his phone and denied his requests for an attorney, according to court filings.
– Federal courts disagree on the legality of warrantless device searches at airports, creating a gray area that the Department of Homeland Security has used to target critics of the Trump administration.
– CBP searched over 55,000 phones in fiscal year 2025, a 32% increase since 2023, with activists reporting heightened surveillance since Trump’s return to office.
– Privacy experts advise backing up and wiping devices before travel, not during questioning, as using a duress password during an interrogation is unlikely to be viewed sympathetically by a judge.
A Georgia activist is facing a felony charge after allegedly wiping his phone during a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) interrogation, raising urgent questions about phone privacy at airports and the limits of law enforcement authority at US ports of entry. Samuel Tunick, an activist tied to the Stop Cop City protests in Atlanta, was told by CBP agents that they needed to search his device for child sexual abuse material, a claim his attorneys dismiss as a pretext for a political fishing expedition.
According to a March motion to suppress evidence, Tunick refused to consent to the search and repeatedly asked for his lawyer. CBP officers insisted they did not need a warrant to examine his phone. Tunick eventually provided his password, but when agents entered it, the screen went blank, flashed repeatedly, and the phone appeared to restart. Prosecutors now allege Tunick used a GrapheneOS “duress password” to remotely wipe the device, destroying potential evidence. His case underscores a growing legal gray area: Can police force you to unlock your phone?
The confusion stems from conflicting federal rulings. The Ninth Circuit ruled in United States v. Payne that law enforcement can compel a person to unlock a phone using biometric markers like fingerprints or facial recognition without violating the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination. However, forcing someone to provide a passcode is considered testimonial and therefore protected. But these rulings were not designed for airports, where CBP claims the Constitution does not apply. The Fourth Circuit recently held that border agents do not need a warrant for manual phone searches, though forensic searches require one. A different appeals court covering New England allows both manual and forensic searches without a warrant. Meanwhile, a federal judge in New York’s Eastern District ruled that agents must obtain a warrant for any device search at ports of entry.
Tunick’s situation mirrors that of Kurbonali Sultanov, a naturalized citizen whose name flagged a Treasury alert for potential child sexual abuse material. Sultanov was told he had no choice but to unlock his phone, and agents read him his Miranda rights, which he said he understood only “50/50.” It remains unclear why CBP targeted Tunick; the two-page indictment makes no mention of child sexual abuse material, and CBP did not comment on the case.
Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told The Verge that a warrant should be required, or at minimum, specific suspicion of illegal digital contraband. “Agents should never be allowed to conduct warrantless searches on behalf of domestic law enforcement agents who just want to evade the normal Fourth Amendment requirement to get a warrant from a judge.”
The suspicion that immigration agents are surveilling activists has solid grounding. A Minneapolis labor organizer filed a lawsuit claiming CBP systematically searched activists’ devices under the guise of counterterrorism. In March, more than a dozen members of a humanitarian convoy to Cuba had their phones seized at Miami International Airport. While phone inspections remain rare , CBP searched 55,318 devices in fiscal 2025, a 32 percent increase since 2023, out of over 5 million international visitors in June 2025 alone , activists report a notable uptick in surveillance since Donald Trump’s return to office.
Trump’s second term has focused on cracking down on the left. In September, he issued an executive order designating “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization, despite no evidence of a single organized entity. In June, a federal judge in Texas sentenced eight activists to over 30 years in prison for supposedly belonging to an “Antifa cell.” The State Department recently issued a 100-page report alleging left-wing groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and CODEPINK were front groups for the Cuban government, tying the Standing Rock and Cop City protests to “Antifa.”
As the crackdown intensifies, activists traveling internationally may face heightened scrutiny at airports. Though US citizens cannot be barred from entry, CBP can seize devices and attempt to break into them using advanced forensic tools. Privacy experts recommend backing up and wiping your device before traveling, not during an interrogation. William Budington of the Electronic Frontier Foundation warned that judges are unlikely to view the use of a duress password sympathetically. “Factory resetting your device in your personal time is well within your rights,” he said.
(Source: The Verge)
