GrapheneOS Duress Code Prosecution: What the Charge Actually Says
The US Department of Justice is prosecuting an Atlanta resident, Sam Tunick, over what happened when Customs and Border Protection agents demanded the passcode to his Google Pixel. The phone ran GrapheneOS, and the code he gave them was a duress code: entering it wiped the device. The charge is not for having the feature. It is for using it.
- Airport stop
- 24 Jan 2025
- The Guardian, court testimony
- Statute charged
- 18 U.S.C. 2232(a)
- US Code, Title 18
- Maximum sentence
- 5 years
- US Code, Title 18
- Ruling on suppression motion
- Not before Nov 2026
- The Guardian, 23 Jul 2026
What the record shows
Tunick was stopped at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport on 24 January 2025 while returning from a trip abroad. According to courtroom testimony reported by The Guardian, a homeland security agent had circulated an email roughly three hours before his arrival carrying his name and photo and describing him as under investigation for suspected terrorism activities. It went to a CBP tactical terrorism response team and an FBI joint terrorism task force officer. Tunick was associated with the movement opposing the Atlanta police training centre known as Cop City.
In secondary inspection, agents questioned him about child sexual abuse images and told him the phone would be seized if he did not unlock it. His filings state he asked four times to speak to a lawyer and was refused, that no warrant was produced, and that he was not read his rights. When he finally entered a passcode, the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart. The device was confiscated anyway. He was allowed to leave, and the DOJ filed charges in late 2025.
The statute
18 U.S.C. 2232(a) covers anyone who, before, during or after a search or seizure by an authorised person, knowingly destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of or transfers property, or attempts to, for the purpose of preventing or impairing the government's lawful authority to take that property into custody. The penalty is a fine or up to five years, or both. Note what the text requires: the government must prove purpose. Experts quoted in coverage of the case, including a senior EFF technologist, said they had not seen the provision applied to a phone operating system before.
What GrapheneOS actually said
The project did not present this as a vindication of the feature. GrapheneOS stated the duress PIN worked exactly as intended and made recovery impossible, but also that using it here likely was not necessary and likely was not a good decision. Its reasoning is that refusing to hand over a PIN or password is protected in practice under US law, that there was no court order compelling him to provide it, and that the operating system's main protections would very likely have prevented extraction on their own. It also said the situation was avoidable through encrypted backups and travelling with a minimal device.
On the feature itself, GrapheneOS documents that the duress PIN or password wipes the device and any installed eSIMs, cannot be interrupted, does not require a reboot, and works in any OS prompt for the current profile's credentials rather than only the lock screen. It does not erase the encrypted data directly; it destroys key derivation material, the main part being secure element data. The project calls it a minor feature rather than a core protection, and separately said it is not aware of any jurisdiction where setting one is illegal.
Where this leaves a reader
- No court has ruled. A judge heard the suppression motion in July 2026, with a decision reported as at least a month away. Treat this as an open case, not settled law.
- Configuring a duress code and entering one under questioning are different acts. The charge targets the second.
- Border inspection is the weak point, not the operating system. The same pressure appears in the Hong Kong device password law, where refusal itself is the offence.
- Device security still matters independently of any of this. Extraction tooling is the other half of the picture, covered in Cellebrite phone hacking.
For setup and threat-model context on the operating system itself, see the GrapheneOS privacy phone guide. Before adopting any tool on the strength of a news cycle, the method in how to vet a privacy tool applies here too.
Status
Charges are filed and the case is open. The suppression motion was argued in July 2026 and no ruling had issued as of review. The duress feature remains available and documented. Current as of 6 August 2026.
Sources
- US government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system, The Guardian
- Activist charged with felony after giving border agent duress code that wiped his phone, Ars Technica
- 18 U.S. Code 2232, destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure, Cornell LII
- Duress PIN/Password, GrapheneOS features documentation
- GrapheneOS protections against data extraction from locked devices, GrapheneOS Discussion Forum
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it illegal to set a duress PIN on a phone?
No statute bans configuring one, and GrapheneOS states it is not aware of any jurisdiction where setting a duress PIN or password is illegal. The charge in this case concerns entering the code during a border inspection, not enabling the feature.
What law is the defendant charged under?
18 U.S.C. 2232(a), destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure. It covers knowingly destroying or damaging property for the purpose of preventing or impairing the government from taking it into custody, and carries a fine or up to five years imprisonment.
Did GrapheneOS say the duress feature was the right choice here?
No. GrapheneOS said the feature worked as designed but that using it this way likely was not necessary, because refusing to provide a PIN or password is protected in practice under US law and the operating system already resists extraction from a locked device.
Has a court ruled on this yet?
No. A suppression hearing was held in July 2026 and reporting at the time indicated a decision on the defence motion was not expected before the end of October 2026. No verdict or precedent exists yet.