The Year in Review: Section 702 & Going Dark

As 2016 (finally) comes to an end, we’re looking back on an eventful year. This week, Lawfare will be rounding up coverage of some of our favorite national security topics of the past twelve months. Today, we're covering two topics on which readers may want a refresh before the issues heat up in 2017.

Debates over the reauthorization of FISA Section 702 are likely to be contentious as we race towards its December 2017 sunset date. Here’s what we had to say on 702 this year:

• PCLOB Releases Recommendations Assessment Report

• NSA IG Report Reveals New Information on Section 702 Collection

• Trends and Predictions in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance: The FAA and Beyond

• Beyond Privacy & Security: The Role of the Telecommunications Industry in Electronic Surveillance

• ODNI Releases Three FISC Opinions

• In Defense of FAA Section 702: An Examination of its Justification, Operational Employment, and Legal Underpinnings

• SJC Hearing on Section 702 of FISA

• Why the 9th Circuit Was Right in Mohamed Mohamud, and a Startling Thing It May Have Gotten Wrong

• Surveillance’s Future: A Pragmatic Take from the Center for a New American Security

• Surveillance Policy in a Trump Administration

And 2016 opened in the shadow of the tragic shootings in San Bernardino. The legal battle between Apple and the FBI made the Going Dark debate front page news. It’s a safe bet that encryption will continue to be a growing topic in national security in the coming year:

• Be Careful What You Wish For: Device Hacking and the Law

• Be Careful What You Wish For: A Response

• The Good News and the Troubling News: We’re Not Going Dark

• Security or Surveillance?

• The National-Security Needs for Ubiquitous Encryption

• An Out of the Box Approach to the Going Dark Problem

• Is There a National Security-Law Enforcement Divide on “Going Dark”?

• Apple's Going Dark Doublespeak

• A Response to a Modest Backdoor Proposal

• Apple vs FBI: The Going Dark Dispute Moves from Congress to the Courtroom

• Not a Slippery Slope, but a Jump off the Cliff

• Apple is Selling You a Phone, Not Civil Liberties

• Can the Government Compel Apple to Speak?

• We Could Not Look the Survivors in the Eye if We Did Not Follow this Lead

• The Security Debate We Need to Have

• Trust, Apple, and the First Amendment

• Having an Open and Honest Debate About Security

• Apple and FBI: PIN Codes to Update Firmware, Code as Free Speech, Legislative Clarification

• On Preventing the Widespread Use of a Law-Enforcement-Friendly iOS Patch

• How to Destroy Pandora's iPhone

• Demystifying Apple’s FAQ – A Rebuttal

• On Setting Precedents in the Apple-FBI Dispute

• A Primer on Apple's Brief in the San Bernadino iPhone Fight

• Apple v. FBI Primer #2: On Judge Orenstein's Ruling in the Queens Meth Case

• The World’s Not Waiting for California: France Moves to Enforce Decryption

• A New Front in the Second Crypto War

• The Encryption Debate Enters Phase Two

• Apple v. FBI Shows That Lawyers and Tech Speak Different Language on Privacy

• A Coherent Middle Ground in the Apple-FBI All Writs Act Dispute?

• A Possible Tool to Unlock the iPhone Means Something…or Nothing

• The Very Definition of Digital Age Chutzpah

• NSA Isn’t the Going Dark Solution, Part I: Richard Clarke Gets It Wrong

• NSA Isn’t the Going Dark Solution, Part II: There’s No Such Thing As Magi

• NSA Isn’t the Going Dark Solution, Part III: “Beat Me If You Can”

• Encryption Legislation Advances in France

• Encryption Legislation: Critics Blinded by Outrage are Blinded to the Lessons

• Million Dollar Vulnerabilities and an FBI for the Twenty-First Century

• An Approach to James Comey's Technical Challenge

• The Encrypted Living Will

• Setting up a Straw Man: ODNI's Letter in Response to "Don't Panic"

• Sextortion and the Going Dark Debate

• A Bipartisan Call for Serious Consideration of Potential Solutions to the Encryption Challenge

• Apple at BlackHat: Reopening the "Going Dark" Debate

• Apple's Cloud Key Vault and Secure Law Enforcement Access

• Securing Phones and Securing Us (Revisited)

• Lawful Hacking and the Case for a Strategic Approach to “Going Dark”

• Rule 41: Resolving Procedural Debates to Face the Tough Questions on Government Hacking