US Citizen Prosecuted for Wiping His Phone at the Border

A US citizen by the name of Tunick has been criminally charged for giving border officers, during an inspection, a code that wiped the contents of his phone. Tunick's lawyers confirmed that the device was running GrapheneOS — an alternative Android-based operating system that can be installed in place of the stock firmware on most modern Google Pixel smartphones.

How it works

At the heart of the case is one of GrapheneOS's features. It lets the owner set a separate “duress” password: if you enter it instead of the usual unlock code, the device deliberately destroys all of its data. That is exactly the code Tunick gave the officers at the border — with the predictable result.

The GrapheneOS developers themselves insist that their system is “entirely legal.” In their words, the project is under no obligation to weaken the protections it provides, and building and using such an OS is firmly protected by the US Constitution. Any laws that attempt to outlaw this or to demand weaker security, the developers call unconstitutional.

A contested zone at the border

The case raises a long-standing question about which constitutional rights even apply at the border. The US government has traditionally taken the position that until a person is granted entry, they are formally not yet on US soil — with all the consequences that entails for their rights. It is also worth noting that Tunick was not under arrest at the time.

Commenting on the story, Bruce Schneier adds only a bitter aside: these days it is hard to say how much the Constitution even means in the current American reality.

The story is intriguing because it turns a purely technical option — a “password under duress” — into the subject of a court case. A feature conceived as protection against thieves and wrongdoers has ended up at the center of a dispute about the limits of state power and about whether a person is obliged to voluntarily disclose the contents of their device.

Source: Schneier on Security