In 2024, a US Customs and Border Protection agent at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport stole, and completely erased all data from, Sam Tunick’s phone. Now he’s the one charged with a crime.

Unbeknownst to Tunick, his name appeared on a “watch list” due to his political activism — specifically, opposition to construction of a police training center locally known as “Cop City” — and US law enforcement hoped to find a crime, some crime, any crime to charge him with.

Shortly before Tunick’s arrival home from a Caribbean vacation, a US Homeland Security agent circulated an email alert naming Tunick as a suspect in unspecified “terrorism activities,” but the pretext for subjecting him to “secondary questioning” was that his phone might contain “child sexual abuse images.”

At some point during the federal fishing expedition, he was asked for a PIN to unlock his phone for an illegal, warrantless, and unjustified search. He gave the agents a number … a “duress code” which, upon use by an agent, not by Tunick, erased all data on the phone and performed a complete factory reset rather than unlocking the device.

Now,  Tunick finds himself facing trial on charges of  violating 18 US Code §2232, “Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure.”

Two problems with the charge:

First, Tunick didn’t destroy or remove anything. The CBP agent who stole his phone did.

Second, the law only applies to “authorized” searches and seizures. Absent a warrant issued by a court “upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized,” no such “authorization” exists. This phone theft and  erasure wasn’t backed by any of the constitutionally required elements.

Naturally, some people of various authoritarian dispositions wish that wasn’t the case, proclaim themselves just fine with pretending it’s not the case (“if you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to fear”!), and if held to the actual law would support amending the Constitution to make warrantless, unjustified searches legal because REASONS.

Personally, I’d rather see at least the bare minimum constitutional/legal requirements preserved and enforced, with heavy penalties for law enforcement personnel who violate them — or, failing that, all phones equipped, by default, with the “duress code” technology Tunick made use of.

Tunick’s phone used GrapheneOS, an open source “private and secure mobile operating system with Android app compatibility.” It only specifically supports one type of phone (the Google Pixel), although it can be made to work on some other Android-based devices. Hardware, cryptographic features, and transparency standards vary across the Android landscape.

Both Android and iOS offer or allow various features that help, but don’t quite rise to the “enter a PIN, the phone gets erased” level of privacy protection GrapheneOS includes by default. The Android Open Source Project and Apple Inc. should correct that oversight.

And the case against Sam Tunick should be dismissed, with heavy financial sanctions levied on the personal wealth of those who stole and erased his phone then prosecuted him.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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As if long wait times, Byzantine paperwork requirements, and unwelcome taxes and fees weren’t enough, we can add one more offense to state vehicle license bureaus’ tabs: Erroneous voter registration.

According to New Jersey governor Mikie Sherill, his state’s Motor Vehicle Commission improperly registered about 6,600 noncitizens to vote due to a “software error” in 2023 and 2024, leading to about 400 illegal ballots being cast in the state.

Some downplay factors:

First, those 400 votes, if all cast in one election (the 2024 general election) came to about 1/10th of 1% of votes cast, while the narrowest statewide margin of victory was the 5.9% by which Democrat Kamala Harris bested Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race.  Even at the congressional level, the closest race was decided by more than 1% … and Republican Tom Kean Jr., won that race. QED, if the “software error” was actually a nefarious Democrat plot to screw the GOP, it failed miserably.

Second, elections are hardly “representative” of the populations subjected to rule by the winners. In New Jersey’s 2024 election, only 46% of that population voted. The other 54% either weren’t allowed to vote or chose not to. Some “representative democracy,” huh?

Third, New Jersey’s elections are already thoroughly rigged by both “major parties” — the state’s election laws are even worse that those in most other states when it comes to ensuring that only Democrats and Republicans even appear on the ballot.

The “software error” seems, consequentially, like a tempest in a teapot.

But, if we’re going to have elections, we should have honest elections so at least everyone can know where they stand.

State “motor voter” laws — especially those which, like New Jersey’s, automatically register people who interact with the license bureau to vote, only later allowing them to opt out — don’t just risk inaccuracies like those produced by this episode, they abandon a key element in any supposed democracy: Consent.

When you beg the state of New Jersey for a driver’s license, government ID card, etc., the bureaucrat behind the counter doesn’t request your permission to add your name to yet another database and co-opt you as a “member of the electorate.” It just happens without so much as a “by your leave.”

Some countries go even further, requiring their regimes’ subjects to vote and fining, withholding various government permissions from, or even jailing, those who don’t cast ballots.

I personally know people who choose not to vote, or to be registered to vote.

Some just don’t care about politics.

Others actively oppose lending their names and reputations to a system they oppose.

They do not consent to that system and don’t consider it “representative” of their rights, interests, or desires.

If someone signed your name on a legal contract you didn’t agree to or a petition you didn’t agree with, you’d be angry — and you’d be right. Both of those things are reasonable descriptions of voting and politics anyway — the “social contract” claim for political government is nonsense — but automatic voter registration and (elsewhere) mandatory voting are the height of “Temu representative democracy.”

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“Thousands of people collaborated to build and defend a global monetary network with no CEO, no president, and no master,” Max Borders says of Bitcoin. “Nobody gave them permission, because nobody could. It was developed peacefully in freedom.”

Borders uses Bitcoin as an example of what he calls “subversive innovation” — finding ways to lower your transaction costs for the things you want to do, raise the costs of those who might want to interfere with your plans,  and reduce the costs of walking away from systems that don’t deliver what you want from them.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. No, really, I couldn’t. Which is why I recommend Borders’s “Underthrow” Substack. I don’t always agree with him, but he’s always interesting … and he reminds me of a late friend who doesn’t get talked about enough these days.

In 1973 — more than 20 years before he ran for president as a Libertarian, twice — Harry Browne wrote and published How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. The book describes various “traps” — social and political constraints that bully us into roles we might not prefer to play  — and how to escape those traps so as to maximize one’s own freedom.

I highly recommend the book, and was privileged to have known its author who, unfortunately, died in 2006. The highest compliment I can think of to offer Mr. Borders is that his “subversive innovation” concept widens the (already broad) horizons one joyfully carries away from How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.

Borders’s formula offers a path toward disarming and eliminating, rather than merely avoiding or escaping, the traps Browne describes. That’s the “subversive” part.

To subvert, according to the 193 edition of Webster’s dictionary, is “to overturn from the foundation.”

Subversive innovation isn’t about tearing down the existing system. It’s about building your own, stronger foundation and letting the old one fall apart without its ruins falling on you.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the obvious current example — sound money that can be created and exchanged without the old system’s cooperation makes fiat currency passe — but they’re just one. Anything that improves your life without the state’s involvement or permission makes your situation better and the state’s worse.

People like Browne and Borders have a gift for dragging me away from my usual political pessimism and pointing me toward the promise of a better future. I hope you’ll come there with us!

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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