From the magazine

The psychological toll of being constantly tracked and harassed

With smartphones providing hitherto undreamt of opportunities for spying, human rights workers and investigative journalists are left struggling for breath

Michela Wrong
Paul Kagame, photographed in Kigali last year, was trained in military intelligence in the bush, leaving him with a marked appetite for espionage.  Luke Dray/Getty Images
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 01 February 2025
issue 01 February 2025

In late 2018 a Saudi journalist living in exile in Canada, who liked to work out in between recording YouTube critiques of his government, ordered some protein powder online. When a text message landed on Omar Abdulaziz’s smartphone notifying him of a DHL delivery, he clicked on it without hesitating.

The portrait Deibert paints is a million miles away from the Cold War binary world of John le Carré

The DHL invitation was fake digital bait.

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