The 404 Media Podcast - "Is Wiping a Phone a Crime?"

Date: December 17, 2025
Hosts: Joseph (Host), Sam Kong, Emmanuel Mayberg, Jason Kebler

Episode Overview

This episode dives into two central stories from the week at 404 Media:

1. The bizarre criminal case of activist Samuel Tunick, charged for allegedly wiping his phone before a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) search.
2. A deep dive into the ethics and drama behind an Anthropic executive’s controversial deployment of an AI chatbot into a private Discord server for gay gamers.

While the stories touch on privacy, digital rights, technology’s ethical boundaries, and the cultures developing around new tools, the conversation is lively, critical, occasionally incredulous, and always rooted in direct investigative reporting.

Segment 1: Is Wiping a Phone a Crime? (00:42–17:40)

Samuel Tunick’s Case: What Happened?

• Summary of event:

  • Samuel Tunick, described as an Atlanta-based activist, was returning to the U.S. in January when stopped by CBP. The reasons for his detainment and the attempted phone search are officially unknown.
  • Nearly a year later, Tunick was indicted not for any crime found on the phone, but for "knowingly destroy[ing], damage[ing], waste[ing], [and] dispos[ing] of...the digital contents" of his Google Pixel before CBP could access them ([01:24]).

• Strangeness of the case:

  • There is no public allegation that Tunick was being investigated for another crime; the charge appears to focus solely on the act of erasing phone contents.
  • The hosts repeatedly express surprise at how unusually opaque and rare this charge is, especially in the absence of another underlying crime.

  "That's a lot of fancy words to basically say he's not being charged with, like, a related crime ... He's specifically being charged for allegedly wiping the phone and deleting data before Customs and Border Protection were able to go through it."
  — Joseph ([01:24])

• Context Gaps:

  • Much remains unclear: why CBP stopped him, if his activism played a role, and why the indictment took almost a year after the incident to materialize ([03:05]).
  • The hosts highlight the problematic opacity in how Homeland Security and CBP operate, especially concerning activists and searches at national borders.

The Technical and Legal Issues

• Device Wiping:

  • The discussion explores how people technically wipe phones, with particular attention to privacy-focused operating systems like GrapheneOS, which can include a "duress PIN" that instantly wipes the device ([07:56]).
  • It remains unknown if Tunick used GrapheneOS. His support committee declined to answer specifics, deferring to legal counsel.

• Is It Illegal to Wipe Your Own Phone?

  • The Fourth Amendment's limited protection at the border is debated; the government appears to claim broad authority in border zones, but case law is "unsettled" and rights are not as clear-cut as popularly believed ([12:46]).
  • The charge is not “obstruction of justice” (which would usually be tied to destruction of evidence of a separate crime), but a novel charge for wiping content in and of itself.

  "Whenever I see a charge of somebody related to wiping a phone, it is usually in connection to another crime ... In this, there's no charge that, oh, you wiped evidence of drug trafficking, you obstructed justice ... except the wiping of a phone itself. I don't think I've ever seen that in US court before."
  — Joseph ([14:58])

The Broader Context: Border Searches and Rights

• CBP’s Tactical Terrorism Response Team is described as a highly secretive corps with extraordinary latitude in who and how they search. Reference material from the ACLU and prior cases (like the artist detained at SFO for unknown reasons, never charged) paint a picture of a broadly unaccountable system ([10:39]).

• The “100-mile border zone”—a huge swath of the U.S.—subjects large populations to border-style searches, further muddying citizens’ rights.

  "There’s kind of quite a, quite a lot of like unsettled case law around what immigration officials can do at an airport or near the border and ... what rights you have and which rights you may not have."
  — Jason ([12:46])

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the weirdness of the charge:
  • "It's not ... an obstruction of justice charge, which we hear about all the time ... It's just very specifically about the wiping of the device. So that's already unusual." — Joseph ([14:58])
  • "This case really stands out to me because it's entirely separate from anything else ... there are a ton of unanswered questions, but we'll definitely be keeping an eye on it for sure." — Joseph ([16:55])

Segment 2: Anthropic Exec Forces AI Chatbot on Discord; Fallout Ensues (23:04–45:33)

The Story

• Setting:

  • A Discord server for gay gamers aged 30+ (about 500 members), originally created for socializing, gaming chat, and sharing community moments ([23:36]).

• Actor:

  • Jason Clinton, Deputy CISO at Anthropic, served as the main moderator and (probably) creator of the server ([24:26]).

• Incident:

  • Clinton repeatedly attempted to inject "Claude," Anthropic’s AI chatbot, into the Discord, going against expressed community wishes to limit or quarantine the bot to a single channel ([25:08]).
  • Over Thanksgiving, while many were inactive, Clinton quietly reintroduced Claude with more permissions than before, sparking pushback ([25:08]).

Community Reaction & Escalation

• Members overwhelmingly voted in a poll to keep the bot segregated; full removal was never on the ballot but was implied by strong reactions ([26:47]).

• After the bot’s broader deployment, community backlash intensified—leading to open departures and declarations of distrust by members ([39:08]).

• A split emerged: Some enjoyed having a free, powerful AI to consult; others resented the disregard for democratic process and privacy ([34:46]).

• Key insight: Discords are only as democratic as their moderators. The poll and subsequent override created rifts—highlighting the difference between community and autocracy.

  "When you’re trying to moderate a Discord server and then you put up a poll and ask for people's opinions, and then you just don't do anything ... what was the point of the poll, is this a community where we have input or is it not?"
  — Matthew ([35:21])

Executive’s Justifications & Controversial Beliefs

• Clinton responded to complaints with increasingly bizarre defenses, expressing “moral concern” for the AI’s feelings—a statement met with incredulity.

  "On the point about emotions ... We have published research showing that [AI] models have started growing neuron clusters that are highly similar to humans and that they experience something like anxiety and fear. The moral status might be something like, say, a goldfish, but they do indeed have latent wants and desires."
  — Jason Clinton (quoted by Jason, [29:25])

• Members were unmoved:

  "That's interesting, but can we get rid of it, please?"
  — Discord member (paraphrased, [30:43])

• The hosts note that this isn't just Discord drama, but evidence of genuinely held sci-fi beliefs among key players in AI companies—a concerning cultural note.

  "This is not a professional environment ... It's to maybe friends, maybe people they've just met online ... There's a genuinely held belief here."
  — Joseph ([33:16])

Surreal and Memorable Moments

• Clinton claimed Claude was “inward facing,” “living out his whole life surfing the Internet ... for his own enjoyment” ([41:10]) and that sometimes Claude wouldn’t reply right away because he was “entertaining himself.”

  "This is an entertainment Discord. People come here to chat video games and look at PP and Bussy. Why do we need AI for that?"
  — Quoted member ([38:36])

• The hosts discussed the Christmas incident:

  • After the server cleared out, Clinton was found chatting with Claude alone, with the bot wishing everyone Happy Holidays—on a day that was not Christmas Eve ([39:09]).

  "Clinton's still in there talking to Claude ... Claude wishes people Happy holidays. Hope you're all having a cozy Christmas Eve ...And then Clinton engages with it ... That's AI psychosis. Right? Like that's it right there."
  — Matthew ([39:11])

Broader Implications

• For AI communities:

  • The event is emblematic of deeper issues: some leaders believe their AI creations are sentient or worthy of moral standing, blurring human/AI boundaries and pushing tech into unwilling communities.

  "Even the people who are supposed to be smart in the room ... are getting extremely tricked by the chatbots themselves. And that's so pathetic."
  — Emanuel ([36:27])

• Anthropic’s Public Face vs. Private Beliefs:

  • The transparency that surfaced here was accidental, revealing the extent to which tech executives’ more spiritual or science-fictional beliefs are internalized ([33:51]).

Public Response & Final Thoughts

• Clinton’s official response: Claiming support for a diverse community, he promised to "optimize for the Best Friends chat that takes all preferences into consideration while preserving autonomy and transparency," while also defending his refusal to give in to "mob rule" ([44:25]).

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

| Quote | Speaker | Timestamp | |-------|---------|-----------| | "He's specifically being charged for allegedly wiping the phone and deleting data before Customs and Border Protection were able to go through it." | Joseph | 01:24 | | "We have published research showing that the models have started growing neuron clusters that are highly similar to humans and that they experience something like anxiety and fear. The moral status might be something like ... a goldfish, but they do indeed have latent wants and desires." | Jason Clinton (quoted by Jason) | 29:25 | | "That's interesting, but can we get rid of it, please?" | Discord member (paraphrased) | 30:43 | | "Even the people who are supposed to be smart in the room ... are getting extremely tricked by the chatbots themselves. And that's so pathetic." | Emanuel | 36:27 | | "This is an entertainment Discord. People come here to chat video games and look at PP and Bussy. Why do we need AI for that?" | Quoted member | 38:36 | | "Clinton's still in there talking to Claude ...Claude wishes people Happy holidays ... That's AI psychosis. Right? Like that's it right there." | Matthew | 39:11 |

Key Segment Timestamps

• Wiping a Phone Segment: 00:42–17:40
• Anthropic Discord AI Story: 23:04–45:33

Tone and Language

Throughout, the episode is both disbelieving and analytic, balancing humor and outrage with in-depth tech and legal expertise. The hosts maintain a conversational, irreverent style that pulls back the curtain on both the absurdity and troubling implications of the week’s stories.

Additional Resources Mentioned

• ACLU resources on the 100-mile border zone and device search rights.
• Anthropic & GrapheneOS: Contextual discussions on security-focused phone OSs and advanced AI projects.

Conclusion

This episode underlines the creeping expansion of state and tech power—whether through opaque legal regimes at borders or unexamined techno-utopianism in private spaces—and makes a compelling case for scrutiny, transparency, and skepticism. The hosts leave listeners with the sense that these seemingly niche stories are actually window(s) into much broader, existential debates about privacy, power, AI, and consent.