The Week That Was: All of Lawfare in One Post

Benjamin Wittes outlined why Donald Trump is a national security threat to the United States of America.

Elina Saxena flagged the relevant national security highlights from the 10th Republican Presidential Debate.

Susan Hennessey linked us to Magistrate Judge James Orenstein’s ruling that the government’s request for Apple to extract data from an iPhone operating on iOS 7 is not permissible under the All Writs Act. Robert Chesney provided us with another Apple v. FBI primer, this time focusing on Judge Orenstein’s ruling. Herb Lin commented on setting precedents for the Apple vs. FBI dispute, and Blair Reeves provided a rebuttal to Apple’s FAQ.

Stewart Baker offered some questions that he would ask Tim Cook if the Apple chief were under oath. So did Susan and Ben. And Nicholas Weaver analyzed what the next Apple case might look like in the future.

Ben shared what he called a “remarkable” moment at the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the FBI vs. Apple dispute.

Speaking the FBI/Apple Encryption dispute, Paul Rosenzweig gave us the ground truth about encryption via the Chertoff Group’s new white paper and Cody Poplin shared the latest edition of the Lawfare Podcast on how to solve the encryption challenge.

In Sunday’s Foreign Policy Essay, John Mueller and Mark Stewart argued that terrorism’s incidence and importance has been multiplied because it has been conflated with insurgency.

Robert Chesney asked how many Islamic State detainees there were.

Rachel Stohl shared the Obama administration’s “report card” on their progress on drone policy. Hint: the grades are not good. Charlie Dunlap graded the report card. Hint: the grades are not good there either.

Cody Poplin linked us to the newly released second batch of Abbottabad documents from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Ammar Abdulhamid questioned whether Syria is President Obama’s fault.

Aaron Zelin issued the latest Jihadology Podcast on the history and cultural meaning of nashids.

Jack Goldsmith and Amira Mikhail argued that Congress is responsible for the Iranian exemptions to the new visa waiver law.

Suzanne Maloney covered what Iran’s vote means for hope and change--and for Washington.

Robert Chesney put the short-term military detention model to the test.

Matthew Weybrecht covered the February 23rd session of the 9/11 military commissions sessions and Helen Klein summarized the February 24th session.

Henry Farrell reviewed Adam Segal’s new book, The Hacked World Order. He says that out of all the books written on cybersecurity over the last several years, this one is the best.

Stewart Baker released the latest edition of the Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast:

Paul Rosenzweig reflected on cyber sanctions and idle threats and also shared his new video course, “The Surveillance State: Big Data, Freedom, and You.

R. Taj Moore commented on the United Nations Security Council’s newest and strictest sanctions against North Korea.

Zack Bluestone shared the latest edition of Water Wars as tensions simmered and ASEAN foreign ministers weighed in on the South China Sea.

Paul Rosenzweig asked what Norway thinks in regards to their recent intelligence community’s assessment of worldwide threats.

Ian Brown, Vivek Krishnamurthy, and Peter Swire argued that reforming mutual legal assistance needs engagement beyond the United States.

Ben gave us some updates on his Estonian digital residency: He got to speak with the President of Estonia, twice. Take a look at update IV and his letters with the president.

Ben also debuted the latest edition of Rational Security, the “It’s a Feature Not a Bug” edition.

Peter Margulies gave us the good, the bad, and the ugly in regards to Privacy Shield’s prospects.

David Bosco said that the world is tiptoeing closer to the international criminalization of aggression.

And finally, Shane Reeves and Winston Williams argued that it was time for a national security expert on the Supreme Court, while Adam Klein argued that the Supreme Court does not need a national security justice.

And that was the week that was.