In a statement submitted to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission for the record of its April 16 hearing on “The State of Exception in El Salvador: Year Five,” the Institute’s Policy Director Nadine Farid Johnson warned that the growing use of commercial spyware threatens press freedom and free expression globally. Drawing on the Institute’s representation of journalists from El Faro, she described how spyware is used to surveil and intimidate the independent press as part of broader campaigns of repression.

Spyware tools like Pegasus, developed by NSO Group, enable covert access to journalists’ phones, communications, and personal data, often through “zero-click” attacks that require no user interaction. Farid Johnson emphasized that these technologies endanger journalists and their sources while disrupting newsroom operations, chilling investigative reporting, and limiting the public’s access to information.

Farid Johnson also highlighted the legal barriers spyware victims face in U.S. courts, noting that procedural hurdles have kept many cases from reaching the merits. She urged Congress to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to clarify that U.S. courts should hear claims involving spyware attacks that exploit U.S.-based technology infrastructure, ensuring a meaningful pathway to redress.

The hearing also featured testimony from Sergio Arauz, deputy editor-in-chief of El Faro and a plaintiff in Dada v. NSO Group—the Institute’s lawsuit on behalf of journalists targeted with Pegasus spyware. He described escalating repression under El Salvador’s ongoing state of exception, including surveillance, exile, and the criminalization of journalism. His testimony underscored the real-world consequences of the dynamics Farid Johnson identified, linking the use of spyware to broader patterns of democratic erosion and the silencing of dissent.

Read Farid Johnson’s full statement submitted for the record, here. 

Read Sergio Arauz’s full testimony, here. 

Watch a recording of the full hearing below.