Judge dismisses spyware case brought by Salvadoran journalists targeted with Pegasus

What happened

Between June 2020 and November 2021 Pegasus was deployed against lead plaintiff Carlos Dada and colleagues at least 226 times, according to the Knight First Amendment Institute, which filed the lawsuit on their behalf in November 2022. The Dada case was the first to be filed against the Pegasus manufacturer, NSO Group, in a U.S.

The plaintiffs, who all worked for the independent and Salvadoran news outlet El Faro, failed to convince the court that their case had jurisdiction in California, according to the judge’s order. The decision on Wednesday is a big loss for the plaintiffs, though the case could still be revived down the road.

Another judge tossed the case in March 2024, saying it was “entirely foreign” and had no standing to be tried in California. Dada and the other El Faro employees argued the case could be tried there because the attacks leveraged compromised infrastructure located in the state.