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- AR: RS shown for boating while intoxicated stop
- W.D.Mo.: Wrong address in SW wasn’t fatal where right house was searched
- NY: Failure to show independent source for officer’s observation of def required reversal
- VA: Outline of a gun in def’s pocket was RS
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-24,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 425,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 45,000 posts since 2003 (26,730+ on WordPress as of 12/31/23) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
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Section 1983 Blog -
"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) -
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew "The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
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Category Archives: ECPA
The Hill: Bill to limit reach of US warrants faces uphill battle in Congress
The Hill: Bill to limit reach of US warrants faces uphill battle in Congress by Mario Trujillo: Congress faces a tough slog to update the email privacy law at the center of Microsoft’s fight against a U.S. warrant mandating that … Continue reading
The Hill: The quiet battle for privacy in the cloud
The Hill: The quiet battle for privacy in the cloud by Dan Horowitz: Why is the Second Circuit being forced to defend our electronic privacy and preserve an international agreement from the Obama administration? Recently, a Federal Judge in New … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: CSLI doesn’t yet require a SW; if it now did, Davis GFE would apply
Obtaining Cell site location information doesn’t yet require a search warrant on probable cause under ECPA or the Fourth Amendment in the Ninth Circuit or in any district court in the circuit. Even if all those courts are wrong, the … Continue reading
Reason: Congress Trudges Ahead on Perhaps Honoring the Fourth Amendment
Reason: Congress Trudges Ahead on Perhaps Honoring the Fourth Amendment by Brian Doherty: The continuing fight for e-mail privacy and against terrible aspects of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Ronald Bailey wrote on Reason earlier this month on one piece … Continue reading
The Hill: Republican senator pushes bill to require warrants for emails
The Hill: Republican senator pushes bill to require warrants for emails by Mario Trujillo: The senator’s bill limits access to data stored in clouds and overseas.
Ripon Advance: Electronic Communications Privacy bill gains new ally
Ripon Advance: Electronic Communications Privacy bill gains new ally: U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI) said on Monday that he has joined the effort to pass House Bill 699, also known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Amendments Act, which aims to … Continue reading
The Hill: Senators resurrect bill to require a warrant for email searches
The Hill: Senators resurrect bill to require a warrant for email searches by Mario Trujillo Sens. Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee plan to re-introduce legislation in the “coming weeks.”
Center for Democracy and Technology: Data Privacy Day: A Reminder of the Need to Update ECPA
Center for Democracy and Technology: Data Privacy Day: A Reminder of the Need to Update ECPA by Chris Calabrese: For years CDT has been leading the charge to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), the law that governs how … Continue reading
EFF: Automated Mass Surveillance is Unconstitutional, EFF Explains in Jewel v. NSA
EFF: Automated Mass Surveillance is Unconstitutional, EFF Explains in Jewel v. NSA by Cindy Cohn and Andrew Crocker and Jamie Lee Williams Today EFF filed our latest brief in Jewel v. NSA, our longstanding case on behalf of AT&T customers … Continue reading
NLJ: Justice Dept. Phone Data Memo to Remain Secret
NLJ: Justice Dept. Phone Data Memo to Remain Secret: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to step into a dispute over public access to a secret U.S. Department of Justice memo about the government’s ability to acquire phone data … Continue reading
60 Minutes: FBI director on privacy, electronic surveillance
60 Minutes: FBI director on privacy, electronic surveillance: FBI Director James Comey speaks with Scott Pelley about our lives online and the need for government electronic surveillance, but only with a court order.
Above the Law: Does The Mass Collection Of Phone Records Violate The Fourth Amendment?
Above the Law: Does The Mass Collection Of Phone Records Violate The Fourth Amendment? by Joe Patrice: Not to get all originalist, but isn’t “government collecting evidence at random based on vague suspicion” exactly the scenario that the Framers of … Continue reading
news.gnom.es: California Governor Signs Anti-Surveillance Bill
news.gnom.es: California Governor Signs Anti-Surveillance Bill: California Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a bill prohibiting the state from supplying “material support, participation, or assistance” in response to certain federal requests for metadata and electronic communications. The so-called Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
KC Star: Question of electronic privacy on Missouri’s August ballot
KC Star: Question of electronic privacy on Missouri’s August ballot by Caroline Baumanthe: Many Missouri lawmakers think an amendment on the Aug. 5 ballot will bring privacy protection in the state into the 21st Century. Amendment 9 would change the … Continue reading
WaPo: Low-level federal judges balking at law enforcement requests for electronic evidence
WaPo: Low-level federal judges balking at law enforcement requests for electronic evidence by Ann E. Marimow and Craig Timberg: Judges at the lowest levels of the federal judiciary are balking at sweeping requests by law enforcement officials for cellphone and … Continue reading
eff.org: Is the SEC Obtaining Emails Without a Warrant?
eff.org: Is the SEC Obtaining Emails Without a Warrant?
M.D.Pa.: Police recording the one side of a telephone conversation they could already hear did not implicate ECPA
Police recording the one side of a telephone conversation they could already hear did not implicate the Electronic Communications Privacy act. United States v. Ray, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49647 (M.D. Pa. April 10, 2014):