The Obama administration is considering further easing the restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba, as it should. As a general principle, Americans should be free to travel where and when they want. But as several recent developments have clearly demonstrated, it's a right that should be exercised with both care and common sense.

On Friday, the administration again urged the release on humanitarian grounds of an ailing U.S. contractor whom the Cubans have held since last December on espionage charges. So far, the administration's entreaties have been to no avail.

Over the weekend, Iran's minister of intelligence said the regime was close to a verdict — curious, since there's been no proceeding that we would consider a trial — on the fate of three young Americans who apparently wandered over the Iranian border while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan. They have been held since July of last year.

Earlier this month, the Iranians brusquely dismissed a personal plea for their release from President Barack Obama. It is still unclear whether the regime plans to charge the three with illegally entering the country or the more serious charge of espionage.

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It took a personal visit to Pyongyang a year ago by former President Bill Clinton to secure the release of two young American journalists. They had been arrested by the North Koreans that March on the Chinese border while filming a documentary and had been sentenced to 12 years at hard labor.

And late last week, former President Jimmy Carter returned from North Korea with Aijalon Gomes, a Boston schoolteacher working in South Korea, who, for whatever reason, set out last January across the North Korean border where he was arrested and sentenced to eight years at hard labor.

The State Department regularly posts warnings about the risks of travel to various countries. The Clinton and Carter missions of mercy prompted the department's chief spokesman, P.J. Crowley, to Twitter, "Americans should heed our travel warnings and avoid North Korea. We only have a handful of former presidents."

Americans should be free to travel where they like, but they should also understand that there are places in the world where if they get into trouble, there's little their government can do to help them. After all, as Crowley says, the supply of ex-presidents is limited.

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