California Dismissal Leaves El Faro’s Pegasus Claims Before an Appeal

The court rejected the case on jurisdictional grounds

A California federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by journalists and other staff members of El Faro, an independent Salvadoran news outlet, over alleged Pegasus spyware attacks on their devices. The Record reported the ruling on October 2, 2026.

The decision concerned whether the case could be heard in California. The plaintiffs argued that the attacks used compromised infrastructure located in the state, but the court found they had not established California jurisdiction, according to The Record’s report.

That ruling is a procedural setback, not a decision on whether the alleged surveillance took place. The report does not say the court resolved the underlying claims on their merits.

The Knight First Amendment Institute filed the lawsuit on the journalists’ behalf in November 2022, naming Pegasus manufacturer NSO Group. The Record described it as the first lawsuit against NSO Group filed in a U.S. court.

The case had already been dismissed once

The lawsuit faced an earlier dismissal in March 2024. According to The Record, another judge then characterized the dispute as “entirely foreign” and said it had no standing to be tried in California.

The latest ruling again turned on the connection between the case and the state. The plaintiffs pointed to compromised infrastructure located in California as a basis for bringing the case there; the court concluded that they had not established jurisdiction.

The Knight Institute said it plans to appeal. The Record reported that the case could potentially be revived, but did not provide an appeal filing date or details of the arguments the Institute intends to make.

The plaintiffs had sought an order requiring NSO Group to delete information collected through the alleged surveillance and disclose the client that ordered it. The report does not say either request was granted. An NSO Group spokesperson had not immediately responded to The Record’s request for comment.

The Institute reported at least 226 deployments

The Knight Institute said Pegasus was deployed against lead plaintiff Carlos Dada and his El Faro colleagues at least 226 times between June 2020 and November 2021. The Record described Pegasus as powerful, zero-click spyware.

The Institute also said the journalists’ and staffers’ phones were accessed remotely and covertly. It reported that attacks became more frequent in the days before major investigations were due to be published.

The report does not identify those investigations or specify what information was accessed or collected. Nor does the stated deployment count, on its own, establish how many devices were accessed or what happened during each deployment.

These details remain allegations described by the Institute, rather than findings on the surveillance made by the court in the ruling reported by The Record. The dismissal addressed whether the case could proceed in California.

The report provides no device-specific response steps

The cited report does not provide affected device models or software versions, indicators of compromise, technical mitigation guidance or instructions for remediation. That describes the information in this report; it does not establish whether technical findings or guidance are available elsewhere.

For the plaintiffs, the next reported step is legal: the Knight Institute intends to appeal. The case’s requested remedies—deletion of collected information and disclosure of the NSO Group client—remain unresolved in the account of the ruling.