Here is the thing. Being wrong leads to torture, imprisonment, or death.

That is the minimum as a tourist or business that doesn't intersect with their interests.

As an activist or journalist, when they review the visa application, that puts a target on them. They are a direct threat to the control that these governments will do anything to maintain. In the aforementioned book, Mitnick cited a case where he was in Columbia. Someone entered his hotel room while we was at dinner and swapped out the drive in his laptop with their own.

Another case showing the power of the state to find someone they don't like. A drug kingpin in Australia was caught because even though he had several burner phones, he sometimes used more than one burner phone within too short of a time frame at the same physical location. Their police were able to use the cellular data to find him, even though he went through none of the phones were tied to his identity. This is just a criminal nuisance, not someone that threatens their economy, reputation, and control.