Digital security for journalists — source protection, hostile environments, device seizures, and the failures that get people arrested.
Russia ran a phishing campaign that compromised around 300 Signal accounts belonging to ministers, military, diplomats, and journalists. The encryption was never touched. Attackers used Signal’s own Linked Devices feature.
Hankey v. United States: the Supreme Court heard arguments on April 26, 2026 on whether a warrant targeting a geographic area, not a person, is constitutional. Your phone’s location history is the evidence.
The operational digital security protocol for journalists in 2026. 12 steps from threat modelling to incident response. Written for people with real stakes.
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin was arrested in Kuwait for reposting CNN footage of a US fighter jet crash. The law used to charge him was enacted twelve days after his arrest.
As of March 30, 2026, US visa applicants must set all social media profiles to public before their interview. For journalists, lawyers, and NGO workers, this means exposing source networks to government vetting.
On March 10, 2026, FBI testimony in a federal trial in Texas revealed that investigators had extracted incoming Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone, even after the app.
On January 14, 2026, the FBI seized the phone, laptops, and Garmin watch of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson as part of a leak investigation.
In 2018, a Missouri sheriff used a carrier-data reseller called Securus to track the location of a judge and a fellow officer without a warrant.
A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and a server operated by the VPN provider.
Pegasus is a commercial surveillance tool developed by NSO Group, an Israeli company that sells exclusively to government clients.