© Lauren Petracca for The New York Times
One of the unfortunate quirks of the American system is that you can't lie to the government, but the government can lie to you. Samuel Tunick found himself on the receiving end of this setup last year at Atlanta International Airport. When agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked for his phone password, he allegedly gave them a self-destruct code that wiped his data. Tunick now faces five years in prison for destroying evidence.
It turns out that the feds were lying to Tunick the entire time. A new court filing, first reported by 404 Media, shows that the DHS had sent out an order to seize Tunick's phone over his involvement in environmentalist protests in Atlanta. When he landed at the airport, however, agents told Tunick that they were looking for "kiddie porn" and he would be allowed to leave with his phone if he cooperated. They also repeatedly denied him access to his lawyer when he asked.
"There can be no real debate that if law enforcement had acted similarly elsewhere in Atlanta, their actions would be unconstitutional. But the government says it was entitled to act this way because Mr. Tunick was returning from an international vacation" in the Dominican Republic, his lawyers wrote in the filing, which includes internal DHS communications and excerpts from his interrogation video.
U.S. law recognizes a "border exception" to Fourth Amendment privacy rights, allowing federal agents to search incoming travelers for contraband. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims that this exemption also allows them to hold travelers for questioning and search their electronic data. Tunick's case reveals just how widely the agency stretches this loophole.
A few hours before Tunick landed, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent Travis Mcghie emailed the CBP station in Atlanta with his photo and information, stating that he is under investigation for "suspected terrorist activities." (Tunick is involved in Save the Atlanta Forest, also known as Stop Cop City, a protest movement against a local police training center.) The email asked CBP to "conduct a 100% baggage exam, retain all electronics and collect passcodes," stating that the HSI will be at the airport to conduct an interrogation.
Pulled into the secondary screening room, Tunick "almost immediately" told CBP officers that "I don't really want to speak without a lawyer any more," according to the filing, which cites the interrogation tape. He would ask for a lawyer multiple times.
The agents asked Tunick if he had "kiddie porn" on his phone and stated that "because you're refusing to talk, we have the authority to go through your phone to see what we're looking for." One of them, Latoya Castro, told Tunick that "either you can give us your password so that we can go through it no problem, or you can refuse to do that, unfortunately, we will have to seize your phone."
Both of those statements were a lie, of course. The HSI's email had asked CBP to take Tunick's phone, whether or not he cooperated.
The lie about child porn may not only have been meant to intimidate Tunick. While there are contradictory lower court rulings about the border search exemption, some courts have ruled that the CBP can only search electronics for "digital contraband," or files that are themselves illegal. A search for child sex abuse material would be on stronger legal ground than a search for mere evidence of other crimes.
Tunick was using GrapheneOS, a secure phone system that allows users to set both a real password and a "duress password" that wipes out all data when entered. The interrogation tape shows his phone appearing to reset after he gave the officers a passcode. HSI agent Nathan Burnham and FBI agent Andrea Coble then entered the room.
"You are not under arrest. Once these gentlemen are done with you, pursuant to your entry into the country, you're free to leave," Burnham said, referring to the CBP officers.
Tunick's lawyers argue that the judge should throw out the phone password Tunick provided and everything that resulted from entering it as an "involuntary" response made under "unlawful interrogation," because the CBP agents did not read Tunick his Fifth Amendment rights and ignored his multiple requests to consult with his lawyer before answering their questions.
The CBP claims that secondary screening at the border doesn't count as a criminal investigation, so detainees don't have the same rights as criminal suspects. "Since the international arrivals inspection is an administrative function, CBP policy and federal regs do not permit the presence of lawyers during secondary examinations," a spokesman told Reason earlier this year.
But Tunick's lawyers insist that his experience was "far outside" a normal border crossing: He was accused of a serious crime to his face, faced an investigation for a different serious crime he didn't know about, and clearly could not leave the situation until he gave information to government agents.
"I hope people understand that the charges against me are meant to intimidate people against protecting their data and their privacy, and the government hopes to set a precedent that no one has the right to privacy," Tunick told 404 Media.
Defend the Atlanta Forest, the movement that Tunick is involved with, has been a major nuisance for authorities in Georgia. Protesters attacked and burned construction equipment throughout 2022, and police shot a protester in 2023 under unclear circumstances, claiming that they were fired at during a raid.
The Trump administration has brought down the federal government against the movement. In June 2026, the Department of Justice brought federal charges against two alleged arsonists, citing National Security Presidential Memo 7, which directs the feds to go after left-wing domestic terrorism.
But beyond the email line about "suspected terrorist activities," there is no indication of what specific crimes the feds suspected Tunick of, or why they suspected him. And the whole setup of the interrogation was designed to hide those answers. In fact, instead of charging Tunick under typical obstruction or evidence-destruction laws, federal prosecutors chose a rarely-used statute that doesn't require them to disclose what the underlying investigation was about.
"Many times the government wants to highlight what it was trying to investigate because that ups the stakes on what the defendant was doing," former prosecutor Daniel Richman told The New York Times. "This is a case where I think they're trying to avoid exactly that by focusing only on the destruction, and not what the investigation was about."
The post Homeland Security Lied About Child Porn To Search Activist's Phone appeared first on Reason Magazine.
A PF (Polícia Federal) informou, na manhã desta quarta-feira (21), que abriu nove inquéritos para investigar possíveis incêndios criminosos no Amazonas. Os trabalhos, que também incluem ações de monitoramento, tem foco na identificação das causas e dos responsáveis pelas recentes ocorrências.
Os inquéritos foram abertos ao longo do novo período de queimadas que atinge o estado.
Segundo a corporação, as apurações abrangem diferentes municípios do Amazonas e incluem a análise de dados de satélite e levantamento de informações junto a órgãos públicos.
Entre as medidas que a PF adotou estão o acompanhamento semanal de alertas de incêndio, com base em dados de satélite, e a requisição de informações a órgão federais, estaduais e municipais.
Há investigações relacionadas à ocorrências nos municípios de Autazes, Careiro Castanho, Careiro da Várzea, Manaquiri, Manaus, Iranduba e Canutama. Também estão previstos sobrevoos em áreas de interesse investigativo para auxiliar na identificação de possíveis pontos de origem do fogo.
Somente entre 2023 e 2026, a unidade responsável pelas investigações relatou 516 inquéritos policiais relacionados a crimes ambientais. Entre eles, 11 são especificamente de incêndios.
No mesmo período, 228 pessoas foram identificadas como possíveis autoras dos fatos e 113 foram indiciadas. Atualmente, 186 inquéritos policiais ambientais permanecem em andamento.
Ao menos 41 municípios no estado do Amazonas estão em situação de emergência, 16 em alerta e outros cinco em atenção.
Até o momento, já são 102.445 famílias atingidas por conta da estiagem, de acordo com o boletim do Governo de Amazonas dibvulgado nesta terça-feira (20).
O governo federal informou que vai intensificar as ações de combate aos incêndios florestais e aos efeitos da estiagem no Amazonas.
Entre as medidas anunciadas nesta quarta-feira (21) estão o repasse de mais R$ 3,5 milhões para quatro municípios afetados, o início das atividades de uma base regional da FN-SUS (Força Nacional do SUS) em Manaus e o reforço das operações de fiscalização e investigação de possíveis crimes ambientais.
Até o momento, foram aprovados R$ 21,1 milhões em nove planos de trabalho da Defesa Civil Nacional, incluindo R$ 14,3 milhões encaminhados anteriormente e o novo repasse.
Police said a 19-year-old was taken into custody after allegedly filming a University of North Carolina at Charlotte student during sex and sent the video to a fraternity group chat.
Officials accused Alexander Michael Evanoff of using his cellphone on Sept. 19 to secretly record a "sexually explicit video" of a woman while the two had sex, then sharing it without her consent. He was charged with one count of disclosing private images and two counts of felony secret peeping.
After Evanoff and the woman had sex, he allegedly sent a video of the sexually explicit recording to a Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity group chat, which had 32 members.
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During an interview with law enforcement, according to the affidavit, Evanoff allegedly admitted to intentionally recording the sexual act and sending it to the fraternity group chat.
He also acknowledged to detectives that he didn't request or obtain the victim's permission to create or distribute the video.
When the woman confronted Evanoff about the alleged recording, she asked if sending it to the fraternity group chat made him "appear cool," to which he "responded affirmatively" and apologized.
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Evanoff was arrested Monday and released Tuesday on $10,000 bond, according to court and jail records.
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A University of North Carolina at Charlotte spokesperson told WSOC that Evanoff isn't a student.
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"The individual who has been charged is not currently enrolled at the University. The alleged conduct in this case, if true, is reprehensible. It is not what we expect or will tolerate from members of our campus community," the spokesperson said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the university, Evanoff's attorney and Sigma Alpha Epsilon for comment.
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