Frank Smyth, the main author of this guide, is CPJ’s senior adviser for journalist security. Smyth is a veteran journalist who has specialized in armed conflict, organized crime, and human rights. He has reported from nations worldwide, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan, Jordan, as well as Iraq, where he was imprisoned for 18 days in 1991. Through the 1990s, Smyth investigated arms trafficking for Human Rights Watch. He has reported for CBS News, and written for The Nation, The Village Voice, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, World Policy Journal, and Foreign Affairs. Smyth has testified on press freedom matters before the Organization of American States, the International Commission of Jurists, and the U.S. Congress. Smyth is the founder and executive director of Global Journalist Security, a firm that provides consulting and training services to journalists and others. He blogs regularly on journalist security issues for CPJ.
Colin Pereira is CPJ’s journalist safety specialist. For more than 15 years, he has worked to shape the risk management model for journalists operating under threat. He is a Director at HP Risk Management, a consultancy assisting companies and media organisations operating in fragile environments. Previously he was head of security for ITN and Deputy Head of BBC High Risk Team. Pereira has advised teams of journalists covering wars, natural disasters, terrorism and riots globally, and has worked on high risk investigations. Colin Pereira was also a journalist for BBC Newsnight and BBC Current Affairs.
Tom Lowenthal, who served as CPJ’s staff technologist in San Francisco until December 2017, is responsible for the latest work on the Technology Security chapter of the guide. Lowenthal has a special interest in operational security and grassroots surveillance self-defense. A strong believer in individual privacy and personal freedom, Lowenthal has worked as project coordinator at the Tor Project and as a technologist on Mozilla’s privacy and public policy team. He is also a freelance journalist, and has written for Ars Technica on security and tech policy. He earned his bachelor’s in political theory, with minors in computer science and technology policy, from Princeton University. The fingerprint of his GPG public key is 1ADE 9951 1A97 95FA 3557 53DC 51E7 1B75 4A09 B187.
Danny O’Brien, who wrote the first edition of the Technology Security chapter, served as CPJ’s Internet advocacy coordinator from 2010 to 2013. O’Brien is international director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and has been at the forefront of the fight for digital rights worldwide. He was an original staff member for Wired UK magazine and co-founded the Open Rights Group, a British digital rights organization. He has also worked as a journalist, covering technology and culture for New Scientist, The Sunday Times of London, and The Irish Times.
