The US Department of Justice is prosecuting Atlanta resident Sam Tunick for destroying potential evidence on his phone. What makes the case unusual is the law being used and the technology at the center of it. Tunick's first hearing took place on July 20, 2026, and details of the government's investigative methods were reported by The Guardian on July 23, 2026 The Guardian.

The case, listed as United States v. Tunick (1:25-cr-00499) in a federal court in Georgia, goes back to January 24, 2025. Tunick was stopped and questioned at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport after returning from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. Federal authorities had placed him on a terrorism watchlist because of his alleged connection to the movement against the Atlanta police training center known as Cop City The Guardian.

Three hours before Tunick's flight landed, a homeland security agent sent an email with his name and photograph to a Customs and Border Patrol terrorism response team and an FBI officer. The email said Tunick was being investigated for 'suspected terrorism activities,' according to courtroom testimony. During the questioning, agents asked Tunick about child sexual abuse images. His public defenders said this line of questioning was an excuse to go fishing for information about his Cop City connections The Guardian.

The prosecution centers on Tunick's phone, which ran GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS is a special kind of operating system, the software that runs a phone, designed to give users more privacy and security than a standard phone. One of its features lets a person set up a passcode that, if entered, instantly deletes everything on the phone. Tunick gave agents a passcode, and the phone's data was erased. The DOJ is prosecuting him under a law called 18 USC § 2232, which makes it a crime to destroy property to prevent the government from seizing it The Guardian.

Tunick was arrested in Atlanta on December 2, 2025, after a grand jury indictment signed by Magistrate Judge Regina D Cannon on November 13, 2025. He pleaded not guilty Atlanta Press Collective. His public defenders filed a motion to suppress, which is a request to throw out all the evidence the agents gathered, including the phone erasure, on the grounds that his constitutional rights were violated. According to courtroom testimony, Tunick asked four times during the interrogation to speak with a lawyer and was refused each time The Guardian.

The Tunick case is the second recent federal effort against Cop City protesters, following another DOJ indictment announced in June 2026. The Cop City police training center, which cost $109 million, opened in spring 2026. Several state-level attempts to prosecute Cop City protesters have fallen apart over the last several years The Guardian.

The application of 18 USC § 2232 to the wiping of a digital device raises questions about how courts will treat privacy-focused software under property-destruction laws. Christophe Boutry, a cybersecurity and surveillance expert, said the case is concerning and sends the message that 'GrapheneOS is criminal by default.' Bill Buddington, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he had not seen a similar case The Guardian.

The case also draws attention to the use of watchlist-based inspections at airports and border crossings as a way to investigate domestic political movements. The testimony that Tunick was questioned about child sexual abuse imagery during an investigation focused on environmental and police-accountability activism, and that he was denied a lawyer four times, provides the factual basis for the defense's request to suppress evidence. The outcome of that request will determine what evidence can be used as the case moves forward.

The broader concern here is about how far old laws can stretch to cover new technology. The law being used in this case was written to stop people from physically destroying things, like throwing documents in a fire, to keep the government from taking them. Now the government is saying that entering a passcode to wipe a phone counts as the same kind of crime. If that argument holds up in court, it could affect anyone who uses privacy tools on their phone, not just activists. A single case like this can signal to courts, to law enforcement, and to the public whether protecting your own digital data is treated as a right or as evidence of something to hide.