US government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system

A memorial to Manuel Terán, also known as Tortuguita, a Cop City protester who was killed by police in January 2023. Photograph: Cheney Orr/AFP via Getty Images View image in fullscreen A memorial to Manuel Terán, also known as Tortuguita, a Cop City protester who was killed by police in January 2023. Photograph: Cheney Orr/AFP via Getty Images US government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system Concern over US effort to prosecute Sam Tunick, accused by authorities of wiping his phone using GrapheneOS The US Department of Justice is attempting to prosecute an Atlanta resident in connection with the movement against the police training center known as Cop City because he had GrapheneOS on his phone, an open-source operating system that enables users to enter a passcode and wipe a phone clean. The case, which had its first hearing on Monday, centers on a little-known US federal statute that makes it a crime to destroy property in an effort to prevent it from being seized. Experts said it may be the first time the law has been aimed at the operating system, which works on Google Pixel phones, and expressed concerns about a technology created for privacy and security being used to criminalize protesters. “It’s concerning – and sends the message that [GrapheneOS] is criminal by default,” said Christophe Boutry , a cybersecurity and surveillance expert. Boutry and Bill Buddington, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation , both said they had not seen a similar case. The defendant, Sam Tunick, was stopped for interrogation at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport on 24 January last year, after vacationing in the Dominican Republic. Unbeknown to him, federal authorities had put him on a terrorism watchlist because of his alleged association with the movement against Cop City. Opposition to the $109m police training center, which opened last spring, came from a wide range of local and national organizations and protesters, centered on concerns around police militarization and clearing forests in an era of climate crisis. Atlanta police said the center was needed for “world-class” training and to attract new officers. Several state attempts to prosecute Cop City protesters have foundered in the last several years, while this is the second recent federal effort, after the justice department announced another indictment last month. The case began shortly after Tunick got off a plane in Atlanta, returning from a vacation spent whale-watching and enjoying nature on a friend’s boat. He did not know that a homeland security agent had circulated an email three hours before. The email contained Tunick’s name and photo and indicated he was being investigated for “suspected terrorism activities”. It was sent to agents on the Customs and Border Patrol tactical terrorism response team and an FBI Atlanta joint-terrorism taskforce officer. When Tunick arrived in Atlanta, an agent took him to a room with a table, several chairs and