Georgia State rescinds a teaching offer over the pending charge for a GrapheneOS duress wipe

The duress password did what GrapheneOS documents it to do. A user sets a second code, and entering it destroys the data; the project's website says the feature "will irreversibly wipe the device" ^[7]. Tunick gave officers a code, an officer typed it into the phone, and the screen went blank with the GrapheneOS logo on it ^[6].

The officers had asked to search his bags and pat him down, he refused both, and they searched him anyway and found nothing improper, according to his lawyer Matthew Dodge ^[5]. DHS officials had called the airport ahead of time and asked agents there to stop him, Dodge said ^[4]. He was returning from a vacation in the Dominican Republic ^[3].

404 Media did not name the statute or offense behind the pending charge ^[25]. Tunick has pleaded not guilty ^[9]. 404 Media, which first reported the case in December and interviewed Tunick and Dodge in July ^[22], frames it as a test of when a person can be charged even where authorities have no suspicion of a specific crime ^[8].

A duress code cannot be walked back. Once it is entered the contents are gone for both sides ^[7]. Operators should weigh that before setting one for travel.

The stop was in January 2025; the job was due to start on August 25, about seven months later ^[24]. Six hours before his first lab, an automated email told Tunick he had not passed the required background check ^[2]. The position came with a tuition waiver and wages toward an M.S. of Geosciences ^[10]. His department head asked the university which hiring policy applied, and, per his demand letter, "she was told that there actually aren't any" ^[11]. An email from the department head that Tunick shared with 404 Media said, "I was told that the 'Background Check Committee' denied the approval for your hire, the Dean of Students denied the approval, and the legal department denied your approval" ^[12]. The same email said each hire "undergoes a risk assessment on a case-by-case basis" ^[13]. The only other item Tunick identified on his record is a Fulton County misdemeanor that was dismissed ^[16].

"Now I have had both my tuition waiver and source of income pulled out from under me at the drop of a hat, my economic security and academic career threatened due to a single absurd charge, to which I have pleaded 'not guilty,'" his letter said ^[9]. He calls the decision "a subjective, and essentially arbitrary decision made for reasons that have not been made clear to me or other faculty" ^[15].

Tunick took part in the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta ^[18]. Before the airport stop, he learned from his lawyer that a tracker had been placed on his car, and that authorities had subpoenaed his cellphone records and Gmail data ^[19]. He had already failed one background check, for a job on a Christmas tree lot that involved going onto school property; when he asked the Atlanta Public Schools office about it, he was directed to the FBI ^[20]. Authorities "really just tried to dig up anything they could on me and they didn't find anything," he told 404 Media ^[21].

Georgia State University did not respond to a request for comment ^[17]. Earlier this month Tunick and a group of supporters delivered the demand letter to the university, with signs reading "GSU sides with Trump" and "Digital Privacy Under Attack!" ^[23].