If anyone is interested in having a feature to wipe your phone, GRAPHENEOS has a duress pin option that will wipe your phone from the lock screen and leave only the OS installed. AFAIK this us only available on Google Pixel devices like the gentleman in the article had.
this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2025
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As someone who accidentally entered the duress pin, I can confirm. It's highly effective.
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This arrest is the best damn advertisement ever
I beleve this feature was demonstrated in Mr. Robot at one point.
My work phone has enabled "wipe if pin is wrong three times".
I discovered after my son wiped it three times. I must though it was defective and asked for replacement
Yeah, I think it needs to be "wipe if a specific pin is entered", so you can wipe it only when you intend to.
Side note, my son has called the cops on several occasions by hitting the emergency button on the lock screen. Kids just have to play with it...
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It'd be fascinating to see how this plays out in the courts.
Technically it'd be the officers themselves performing the wipes, right? Could you say you got the pins mixed up in your head and get away with it?
Well, the "free" state of Fl*rida just made it a misdemeanor to cover your license plate with materials that prevent those fucking Flock cameras from scanning it and putting you in a database so they can use the 'ole American warrantless data purchase loophole (a time-worn classic) to sell your location data to law enforcement and other third parties and upgrades the offense to a felony if used to commit another crime which in Florida could be just about anything. They (or any red state shithole) could literally make sneezing a misdemeanor and get away with it at this point while the MAGAts cheer because only the "bad people" sneeze, not them, never. So all the red state legislatures will probably collaborate to whip up some new bullshit laws at suspiciously the same time stating that if a person attempts to wipe their phone while being detained or gives a false self destruct duress pin to an officer it's now a class a/type 1/highest tier whatever felony with up to a bajillion years in prison. Then if the courts block it they'll appeal to a different, Trump appointed judge who will rule that a person "has no reasonable expectation of privacy during detainment by a public defender because they are now legally by definition in public" or some shit all in the name of freedumb of course.
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We don't know the exact circumstances, but CBP stands for Customs and Border Protection.
I've heard of Customs agents demanding people let them search phones without a warrant and without probable cause, and so foreigners can be refused entry. We probably all heard the story of it happening for a person who had a meme of JD Vance on his phone.
But the article says that this guy is based out of Atlanta, so I'm guessing he's a US citizen. I'm not sure they can refuse entry to a US citizen based on this.
Either way, you should never give permission to anybody to search your phone. Maybe you've broken a law that you didn't know was a law, and you've just handed the evidence over to the police. Or maybe you have evidence that can convict somebody else who didn't know they broke a law.
I don't know what this means for people crossing the US border. Now is a bad time to enter the United States.
Legally, they cannot refuse entry to a US Citizen. Legally.
But just because someone is based in the US doesn't mean they're a citizen. And they don't need any justification to search someone, because airports and land within 100 miles of a border is a "constitution-free zone" (but not 100 miles from an airport, contrary to popular belief).
Lmao so now we're saying all of Southern California south of Newport Beach (85 mi from Tijuana) is a place where the constitution does not apply? New York west of Rochester? (80 mi from Niagara) Pretty much all of Alaska's tail thingy next to Canada? 😂
Yup. And guess what, those ares are also where nearly two thirds of the country lives.
https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/your-rights-border-zone
Yes. You are beginning to understand what has been going on.
"now we're saying"...? It has been like that for the last 50+ years, it's just that most other administrations haven't been as flagrant about it.
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airports and land within 100 miles of a border is a "constitution-free zone"
This isn't accurate. That's where CBP has jurisdiction to operate, but they're still bound by the constitution (for now),
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you should never give permission to anybody to search your phone
Not only does your phone have access to all your social media accounts, email, text, phone logs, but it's also commonly used as a security device (multi factor authentication) to sign in to other accounts like your bank account, work login, etc. If you allow someone into your phone they can possibly access your work resources and that could be an even bigger problem.
Do not let anyone have access to your phone.
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Without a warrant, CBP wasn't entitled to anything on his phone and they can go fuck themselves.
It's cute that you think there are still laws in the US.
They have to charge him with something.
Says who? How many people are being held in your country without any due process at all?
Do they though? Someone should tell all the people in literal concentration camps after receiving no due process
I have a friend in Florida. They have a guy that runs a business and does all their house repairs, fells trees, yada yada. His inlaws turned him in for being illegal (he's not) He had his paperwork with him and they still shipped him off to Alligator Alcatraz. His wife hired a lawyer and had to do all kinds of crap to get him back out... on bail... because his mother-in-law called him an illegal.
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That increasingly means nothing. Remember that judge who was sending kids to reform camps for kickbacks? Part of that scheme was they literally made up charges. If the system says it's a charge and you need to be punished then that's what's going to happen. Juries aren't even a thing until you get to major felonies anymore so it's just whatever the judge lets the prosecutor get away with.
Resisting arrest. Evidence tampering. Obstruction of justice. Take your pick.
If it was at a point of entry CBP can search electronic devices without a warrant or suspicion, for a brief time (up to 5 days) without probable cause, under the "border search exception".
A lot of those border exceptions need to be burnt in a fire, like that one, and the whole "you have no civil rights within 100 miles of a point of entry. btw airports count, so almost no where is free from your rights legally being abused kthnxbai"
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They have the legal right to search a phone before it enters the US, but there is no law that says you can't wipe your phone first.
They're shipping people off to places unknown for 'no law' too.
Otherwise, simply refuse them passage rather than locking them up and charging them.
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Details are weird here. The wiping occurred in Jan 2025. I found the indictment which was filed with the court on Nov 13th 2025 linked here
We have almost no details of what happened in Jan 2025 except "Customs and Border Patrol Tactical Terrorism Response Team" was doing something with Tunick in January and Tunick "used a code" to wipe the phone. Then suddenly in November 2025 the US Government filed to have him arrested for that event.
I'm not a legal scholar, but none of these details or timeline makes sense to me. Anyone else have any clue?
It's not complicated, it's Border Patrol doing their MAGA duty. The only thing we know about this case is what MAGA tells us, so it's almost all certainly a lie. Of course the details and timeline don't make sense, they are probably entirely fabricated.
I don't disagree, but usually they at least try to present a semi-defensible argument. So far the only thing they elude to is "before or during a time when we were going to perform a search he wiped his own phone". If its "before" a search then what is even the basis for that being illegal for him to wipe is own property?
I imagine they’re trying to charge him with destruction of evidence. I don’t know how that should go if this were actually a legal proceeding but would certainly hope it would require reasonable suspicion of a specific crime and a search warrant.
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Always turn your phone offer before deplaning and don’t turn it back on until you’ve cleared customs. You can refuse a search and even if they take your phone they still don’t have a method of decrypting a phone that’s encrypted at rest after being turned off and all biometrics are disabled on start up until a password is entered (most phones).
You’ll most likely lose your phone and a few hours but that’s what you have backups for.
Reminder that Apple/Google will absolutely give law enforcement all your cloud data if presented with a warrant. I know this for a fact. Most people's phone data is synced to the cloud. Be careful out there folks.
That’s also why I have advanced protection turned on. Granted they could always get the encrypted blob and try to crack it at that point, but there has to be some point you’re willing to draw the line.
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I would fully expect any cloud provider to do the same given a warrant, but I've heard some will provide data simply because it was requested.
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at this point just leave your phone at home or get burner for this exact purpose
*presuming you have a strong password set
They can and still will run it through a password cracker with a dictionary provided the phone has some method of either exposing the password hash or can be bruteforced on device similar to PIN bruteforcing.
You can refuse a search
Which can lead to an up to 24 hour detainment which CBP has been allegedly doing, so do know the consequences.
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You should read up on Celebrite. They most definitely can get into a wide variety of phones from a cold boot. GrapheneOS seems to be one of the only ones that make their job hard.
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I'll take a "deleted data" charge. On principle.
Absolutely. Got mad "I do lots of illegal shit, but I draw the line at littering" vibes.
Sometimes, doing the illegal thing is to do the moral thing.
i love the entire idea that morality is not derived from law
The holocaust was legal. Slavery was legal. Morality absolutely isn’t derived from law.
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The article is very skimpy on info. It doesn't give the circumstances of the event or anything beyond who was involved.
Was the man “Drinky” Pete Hegseth?
Oh. Well then bullshit.
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