A California federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of Salvadoran journalists who alleged their devices were infected with Pegasus spyware. The judge ruled on Wednesday, October 1st, 2026, that the case lacked jurisdiction in California, marking the second such dismissal after an initial rejection in March 2024.
The lawsuit was brought by journalists from the independent Salvadoran news outlet El Faro, with lead plaintiff Carlos Dada. According to the Knight First Amendment Institute, which filed the suit on behalf of the journalists in November 2022, Pegasus spyware was deployed against Dada and his colleagues at least 226 times between June 2020 and November 2021.
The plaintiffs had argued that the case had standing in California because the attacks leveraged compromised infrastructure located within the state. They sought a court order compelling NSO Group, the manufacturer of Pegasus, to delete any collected information and to identify the client responsible for ordering the surveillance.
The Knight First Amendment Institute stated that the journalists' phones were secretly accessed remotely, with the frequency of attacks increasing prior to the publication of major investigations. This case was the first lawsuit filed against NSO Group in a U.S. court concerning the Pegasus spyware.
Despite the dismissal, the Knight Institute has indicated its intention to appeal the decision. NSO Group has not yet commented on the ruling.
