From Unicorn Riot By Aja Arnold & jen byers

Samuel Tunick’s story is part of a wider trend of surveillance at border crossings. Legal and security experts weigh in on possible precautions citizens can take.

Atlanta, GA — On December 2, DHS and FBI agents arrested activist Samuel Tunick after being pulled over while driving in Atlanta. An officer asked him to step out of the vehicle, under the pretext of inspecting a tail light. He was then surrounded and taken to jail on a warrant for “destroying evidence.” Sam had been indicted in November 2025, for a charge stemming from a January detainment by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, while returning from traveling abroad. Tunick was released on a standard appearance bond less than 24 hours after he was arrested.

According to the grand jury indictment, Tunick “did knowingly destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, and otherwise take any action to delete the digital contents of a Google Pixel cellular phone.” The indictment alleged that this was done specifically with the purpose of “preventing and impairing the Government’s authority” to take Tunick’s phone into its custody. The state claims Tunick violated Title 18 of the U.S. Code, a section of federal law concerning crimes and criminal procedures.

It has not yet been reported what type of evidence the government was searching for on Tunick’s phone, or why Tunick was detained at the airport at all. However, Atlanta locals and members of Tunick’s support team say that Tunick’s detainment at the border in January 2025, and subsequent arrest this month, is part of an ongoing, broader repression against political dissidents and activists of the Stop Cop City movement.

In February 2024, Georgia police and the FBI conducted multiple raids on three homes in South Atlanta, including the Lakewood Heights area, which is near Cop City. Since those raids, wherein only one person was arrested for first degree arson, Lakewood residents say they’ve been experiencing increased police harassment and surveillance.

Tunick’s case comes in the national context of President Trump declaring broad swaths of people who hold leftist views to be “domestic terrorists.” The arrest, which involved multiple government agencies, took place the same week as Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo ordering law enforcement and the FBI to “root out” alleged “domestic terrorism” groups. The memo, which references White House directive NSPM-7, explicitly instructs local and federal agents to look through their past files of “Antifa and antifa-related intelligence” and set up a paid tip line for civilians to report alleged activity.

The War on Terror Turns Left [Dec. 2025]

Tunick’s arrest is a recent example of the broader use of border crossings and airports as venues to facilitate greater targeting of activists. As the state increases its use of “counter-terrorism” practices on U.S. soil, this brings about complex legal questions for all citizens. 

Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), provided some context to UR regarding searching at the border. She explained that, in general, the government does not need a warrant to search “persons, their property, or vehicles that cross ports of entry because there are non-criminal enforcement interests that the government has.” Historically, “in the context of the border, those non-criminal interests have been to prevent contraband from coming into the U.S. – e.g. drugs, agricultural items with pests, wildlife, illegal products like ivory.”

Cope noted that, with the rise of laptops and smart phones, there’s been an uptick of officers taking digital devices, demanding passcodes and searching them at will. In 2018, restrictions were passed for CBP, designating rules for how they could search devices.

These protocols – and the tension between civilian privacy and government power – have been repeatedly challenged in court. The twelve regional U.S. Courts of Appeal haven’t been unified in their rulings. In Tunick’s district, the 11th Circuit, the court’s decision ruled heavily in favor of government search power. In the 1st and 11th Circuits, which include Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, government agents don’t need a warrant or probable cause to do a deep search on devices. 

Though regions like the 9th and 4th Circuits have ruled towards citizen privacy, requiring that the only legal device searches are ones that look for explicit digital contraband (e.g. evidence of child sex abuse material, aka ‘CSAM,’ or bootleg media), there’s not significant data to determine whether a civilian’s digital privacy is truly honored at border crossings anywhere.

In an interview with UR, a spokesperson from Tunick’s support team expanded on this. They say that the suspension of the Fourth Amendment is “one reason the airports and the border are a zone in which CBP officers, FBI, and [the Department of Homeland Security] take as much liberty as they can to seize electronics and generally harass and make the lives of activists, everyday people, immigrants, and undocumented people very, very difficult.”

Previously, UR has documented that as border protection agencies’ budgets increase, so do their reach. So, with that in mind… What can you do to travel more safely?

The EFF offers a Travel Checklist and a series of guides on how to respond to a potential search. They recommend practices like using long, complicated, unique passwords on everything; backing up all of your devices; encrypting your data; printing out travel documents; logging off of all social media accounts; and going through the check points with your devices off.

Freddy Martinez, Executive Director of Lucy Parsons Labs, cautions travelers against looking for answers in new technologies, or generally in “techno-solutionism.” Martinez explains that there can be a tendency to think, “If I install the right app or have GrapheneOS, I will be secure from searches by the police. That’s not really true. The things that are going to keep us safe are making sure we don’t have anything incriminating on our phones, regardless if we get searched at the border.”

Martinez advocates for device preparation (such as cleaning your devices, leaving chats or even acquiring fresh devices for travel), offline solutions (like going “no tech” or not bringing your devices at all), keeping quiet (not talking to cops) and being aware of your risk profile – as well as your friends’. He acknowledges that, right now, there is a lot of repression, and “it seems that the FBI is looking at anyone/everyone they can justify. It’s a scary situation out there.”

In this context, Martinez advises travelers to be on “high alert, whether or not you think that you yourself are at risk,” as it’s protocol for “counter-terrorism” initiatives to target entire networks, communities, crews and/or contact lists. “Knowing the risk profile of what I’m doing with my friends,” Martinez says, “That’s more important than trying to outsmart the police.”

Since its formation in 2021, the Stop Cop City movement has been defined by intense and escalating state repression, including the police killing of 26-year-old activist Tortuguita. In August 2023, 61 activists from the Stop Cop City movement were indicted on state racketeering and conspiracy charges – and 42 activists from the movement were charged with domestic terrorism. As these charges are still pending, this legal backdrop sets a relevant precedent for Sam’s case and the modern era of activist repression.

“Despite the persistent harassment of local activists, the state remains unsuccessful in procuring convictions of Stop Cop City protesters,” says an official statement from Tunick’s support team and mutual aid fundraiser. “Samuel’s case exposes the desperation, incompetence, and lack of technical expertise of an FBI reduced-to-a-puppet agency for the Trump administration’s far right agenda.”

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