That was exactly my first impression.
However, the pretext of the arrest seems unclear to me. From what I see it could possibly be obstruction of a border agent’s duties (lawful access to the phone’s contents?), not destruction of evidence.
The indictment says on January 24, Tunick “did knowingly destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, and otherwise take any action to delete the digital contents of a Google Pixel cellular phone, for the purpose of preventing and impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take said property into its custody and control.”
About destruction of evidence, a lawyer discussed plausible deniability and privacy tools. They said there’s nothing inherently illegal about using privacy tools (to their knowledge*) and encourages their use, but how they’re used can constitute a crime. The specific example given was Signal disappearing messages. On one hand, if Signal disappearing messages are used routinely then there’s nothing legally wrong. They add that they use Signal all the time and use disappearing messages to protect their communications from subpoenas. On the other hand, if something else is routinely used for communications but someone pivots to Signal disappearing messages for a specific purpose, that may be treated as suspicious. Amazon and some politicians have been accused of using Signal for destruction of evidence.
\* Financial privacy
Tornado Cash, Samourai Wallet and other financial privacy tools have been criminalized.
Even if the CBP Tactical Terror team’s arrest was unlawful (failed to establish suspicion/evidence that a crime occurred) and the arrested person is eventually acquitted, they still successfully repressed the arrested person (arrest, prosecution and other personal damages) and instill fear into society by demonstrating their aggressiveness at the border. I wouldn’t rely on legal technicalities for avoiding harassment/abuse.
In case it helps, travel and border agents have been discussed elsewhere in this forum.
One tip from there I like is this.
@GorujoCY Yah peer pressure sucks, and it isn’t a trivial/easy problem to solve if those “family” or “friends” have enough power over you. If you have good reasons not to go somewhere that those people have no knowledge of, and they won’t take no for an answer, one option may be to lie to them about why you cannot go. Create a cover story, for instance a clash with some important event or work, or fake an illness that would prevent you from traveling. Another option is to preemptively create personal or relationship boundaries that are clear and well known, for instance “I will never travel to country X, Y and Z for any reason.” If those people are toxic and you want them out of your life, consider building and executing a relationship termination plan.
Doubtful the phone owner could be charged for this because they weren’t the one who did the act. But who knows? I’d say “seek legal advice” is a good tip for those thinking using duress code systems.