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 a camera and microphone, and several agents began a “secondary inspection”. But all their questions were centered on child sexual abuse images.
These and other details were revealed in Monday’s hearing, held for a judge to hear testimony on a motion filed by Tunick’s federal public defenders, asking the court to suppress all evidence the agents obtained, including the erasure of the phone’s contents after he gave them a passcode, due to violations of his constitutional rights.
The interrogation, including the questions about child sexual abuse images, was “a pretext for a fishing expedition into Mr Tunick’s connections” to the movement against Cop City, according to the motion.
Tunick asked four times during the interrogation to speak with a lawyer, but was rebuffed each time, according to courtroom testimony. Additionally, the agents produced no warrant and did not read Tunick his rights.
But a justice department attorney and the airport agents testifying on Monday asserted Tunick was merely subjected to an everyday interrogation at an international airport, “looking for anything that’s prohibited”, as Larry Findley, a CBP officer, said.
Agent Findley and several others repeatedly asked Tunick to open his phone during the interrogation, telling him they would seize it if he did not. When he finally provided a passcode, “the screen went blank, flashed several times and the phone appeared to restart”, according to the motion.
