The interrogation, including the questions about child sexual abuse images, was "a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick's connections" to the movement against Cop City, according to the motion.
Tunick asked four times during the interrogation to speak with a lawyer, but was rebuffed each time, according to courtroom testimony. Additionally, the agents produced no warrant and did not read Tunick his rights. [...]
Agent Findley and several others repeatedly asked Tunick to open his phone during the interrogation, telling him they would seize it if he did not. When he finally provided a passcode, "the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart", according to the motion.
Which reminds me...
Protest is vital to a free society, but with resistance comes repression.
From the Civil Rights Era to today, Atlanta has strong traditions of dissent. Protest movements play a critical role in the struggle for social justice. But when people stand up for what’s right, they often face the risk of arrest and imprisonment.
https://atlsolidarity.org/
#StopCopCity #Atlanta #Georgia #ACAB #Solidarity
Seems like they might have had a pass xode that would initiate a wipe.
Well, that's what in hoping.
Duh, I realize that's what your comment meant.
Reminder that cops can't (legally) force you to unlock your phone with a pass code due to your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Biometrics are a trickier area, both legally and practically.
Know how to quickly disable biometrics on your phone.
Good advice. You can also disable biometrics in advance of getting into a dicy situation so you don’t have to scramble as the zip ties come out.
Then there’s the extreme route of backing up the phone and then wiping it to factory settings in advance of expressing your first amendment rights in public. Later you can restore the phone once back in a civil environment. Or just wipe your old phone to use as a burner.
It’s so awesome that just existing in MAGAland requires acting like a covert agent in enemy territory. Learn your tradecraft, folks!
Astronaut, gun, always has been.
Maybe you missed the part where he was held without charges and denied a lawyer multiple times.
Yeah except it's highly likely those LEOs also have tech that can force an unlock or bypass it entirely and export the entire storage (e.g. Cellebrite). Wiping the phone would be the only way to defend against that.
Is there a way of setting up an iPhone so there is a 'nuke it' passcode? I know about being able to do it remotely and I think about 'type wrong passcode n times' but what I mean is exactly what this seems to be. I did search, but, well, web search is dead.
The search term seems to be "duress passcode" or "duress pin" and the answer seems to be there's no mechanism for that available for iphones. There are a few options available for android (xposed and some other stuff).
Isn't there a "wipe this phone if passcode is mis-entered X times" option?
That’s the default for iPhone
Yes, but that's not the same as a duress code.
Sure is; it's "Erase Data" on iOS 26.whatever under "Face ID & Passcode", and if enabled it'll wipe after 10 failed attempts.
(I think that this incident is a little different than a simple security wipe though; when they asked him for the code, he gave a response that destroyed the phone's contents. I'm not a US prosecutor, but even I could draw the line between "refusal to answer under the 5th" and "intentional destruction of evidence".)
Something he could have been advised of if he had been given a lawyer as requested. Seems like plausible legal argument.
This is not the same thing at all. If I'm trying to force someone to unlock their phone, the one thing I am not going to do is sit their while they type the wrong passcode n times, which I know will cause the phone to erase itself.
You need a thing which, if you type it even once, will do that.
Type something wrong n-1 times before having to pass the Stasi checkpoint..
(And concentrate really really hard when unlocking after passing said checkpoint)
assumes you know where the checkpoints are of course, and my ability to type my passcode is not great as I've been discovering as my phone has face ID which is a pile of shit.
But yes.
Would be nice to have an option to use a different passcode to load an alternate home screen full of subs to Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Matt Walsh, Alex Jones, or whatever the chuds du jour happen to be, and just high-five your way out of custody.
...like Marcus, in "Little Brother", written by Cory Doctorow in 2008.