University Rescinds Job Offer to Activist Who Wiped His Phone Before a Search

Georgia State University has rescinded a job offer it had made to activist Samuel Tannick. He is facing charges: according to prosecutors, he wiped the data on a hardened Android smartphone before agents of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) could search it. 404 Media, which first reported the story, notes that it carries serious implications for privacy and raises the question of whether someone can be charged even without being suspected of any specific crime.

How It Happened

The airport incident took place in January 2025, when Tannick was returning to the United States after a vacation in the Dominican Republic. According to his attorney, Matthew Dodge, officers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had called the airport in advance and asked that the activist be detained. Tannick refused a search of his bags and a personal pat-down, but the agents carried them out anyway and found nothing prohibited.

They then demanded access to his phone. Tannick gave them the code, but instead of unlocking, the screen went dark and the GrapheneOS logo appeared. The reason is that this privacy-focused operating system supports a “duress password” feature that irreversibly wipes the device's contents.

A Lost Job and Lost Studies

Tannick was supposed to start work as a teaching assistant on August 25. Six hours before his first class, he received an automated email stating that he had failed a mandatory background check. The head of his department tried to find out exactly which personnel policy the decision was based on — and was told that no such policy existed. According to Tannick, the rejection was approved by several bodies at once: a “review committee,” the dean of students, and the legal department, with each hire supposedly evaluated “on a case-by-case basis.”

Along with the job, the activist also lost his chance to study: he had planned to earn a master's degree in geosciences, and the assistantship gave him a tuition waiver and an income. Tannick does not admit guilt and calls his prosecution “a textbook example of political repression.”

The activist links what is happening to his involvement in the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta. According to him, even before the airport incident a tracker had been placed on his car, and authorities had requested his call records and data from his Gmail account. “They were just trying to dig up anything on me, and they found nothing,” he said earlier. In a letter of demands to the university, Tannick asks to be reinstated in the position or to have the tuition benefit restored, and for hiring to apply the presumption of innocence. The university did not respond to a request for comment.

Source: 404 Media