"federal authorities had put him on a terrorism watchlist because of his alleged association with the movement against Cop City"
Talk about burying the lede
Sounds like a good reason to use alternatives like GrapheneOS. It doesn't take a big % of users to let the "using it is suspicious by itself" nonsense wear off.
It looks like there are a lot of issues here on the government side, but it also appears like the protestor intentionally gave them a password that, when used, wipes the phone? That seems like a clear example of destruction of evidence.
Quick reminder to my fellows that if you discuss this story here, it will end up immutable and available to law enforcement and, e.g., H1B eligibility deciders.
Dark forest
This is a technical problem.
Instead of wiping and rebooting, it should wipe while showing a lame spreadsheet application, or possibly a grocery list.