Privacy News A GrapheneOS Privacy Feature Just Became the Basis for a Federal Indictment

[lokamoka820]

Content source

https://itsfoss.com/news/grapheneos-duress-password-indictment/

On January 24 last year, the CBP placed Tunick into secondary inspection at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as he returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic, putting him through several rounds of questioning and searches.

The officers started off by searching him, checking what he was carrying, and demanding that he fork over the passcode for his phone. All of this was reportedly done under the pretext of searching for CSAM.

He also asked for a lawyer multiple times, but the officers ignored every request, never read him his Miranda rights, and kept questioning him anyway. When he pushed back, they said it was "a whole different ballgame" at the border and that they didn't need a warrant.

Tunick eventually handed over a passcode.

But, the moment it was entered, the screen flickered blank a few times before the device rebooted itself, erasing its contents in front of the same agents who'd demanded access.

The motion filed by Tunick's lawyer stresses that his association with Defend the Atlanta Forest, an AGAAVE-labeled outfit, was the actual reason federal agents moved on him, not any crime.

Earlier, a Homeland Security agent had circulated Tunick's name and photo hours before his flight landed, flagging him for suspected terrorism activity, while FBI and CBP officers coordinated to set up the search.

Despite that, the government has never presented evidence tying Tunick to an actual crime connected to the movement.

 

[Victor M]

This duress PIN feature seems great !

 

[oldschool]

This duress PIN feature seems great !

Indeed, it works very well. The legal question will be whether the suspect knowlingly destroy evidentiary records. He may be in real jeopardy even though he was most likely targeted for his political beliefs and activity.

Edit: His best bet may have been to simply restart the phone, thus returning it to its fully encrypted state prior to logon and let the Feds see how secure GOS is.

 

[Marko :)]

Does police in the US have right to force people on the spot to unlock their devices?

In my country and generally in the EU, they can't. They can, however, temporary confiscate the device if there's a suspicion it was used in crime, it was acquired by crime, for safety reasons and to prevent evidence tampering. They can't force you to unlock it and even if they wanted to thoroughly search it, they'd need a valid court order.

 

[oldschool]

Does police in the US have right to force people on the spot to unlock their devices?

I believe they can't, which is why the suspect would have been wise to re-start the phone so it's fully encrypted in its "before 1st unlock" state. Much harder to for authorities to hack this way as no data stored in memory.