A California federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by Salvadoran journalists whose phones were infected with the Pegasus zero-click spyware. The plaintiffs, all staff of the independent outlet El Faro, failed to persuade the court that California had jurisdiction, according to the judge’s order. The Knight First Amendment Institute, which filed the case in November 2022 for lead plaintiff Carlos Dada and colleagues, says Pegasus was deployed against them at least 226 times between June 2020 and November 2021. It was the first lawsuit against Pegasus maker NSO Group filed in a U.S. court.
The plaintiffs argued the case belonged in California because the attacks used compromised infrastructure located in the state. Another judge threw the case out in March 2024 as “entirely foreign.” The journalists wanted the court to order NSO to delete the data it collected and to name the client behind the surveillance. The Knight Institute says the attacks grew more frequent in the days before major El Faro investigations were published, and that it plans to appeal. NSO did not immediately respond to The Record’s request for comment. The ruling is a significant setback, though the case could still be revived on appeal.