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- TX: If electronic search was illegal, it was harmless
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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"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)
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“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, Let it Bleed (album, 1969) -
"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] -
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.”
– John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper -
"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) -
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Category Archives: Reasonable expectation of privacy
he Atlantic: A Hotel’s Right to Protect the Privacy of Its Guests
The Atlantic: A Hotel’s Right to Protect the Privacy of Its Guests by Conor Friedersdorf: Can police can demand records of where, when, and with whom people slept without a warrant? Imagine that you own a small hotel or motel. … Continue reading
WaPo: ICE twice breached privacy policy with license-plate index
WaPo: ICE twice breached privacy policy with license-plate index by By Ellen Nakashima: After the Department of Homeland Security canceled a plan for broad law enforcement access to a national license-plate tracking system in February, officials established a policy that … Continue reading
PA: Search of an aspirin bottle on entering a courthouse was reasonable; cocaine found
Defendant entered a county courthouse and emptied his pockets for the metal detector. He left an aspirin bottle in the tray which the officer shook. He concluded it contained something other than aspirin. Defendant wasn’t detained but the bottle was. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: No REP in the magnetic strip on a counterfeit credit card
Defendant challenged the government reading the magnetic strips on the back of allegedly counterfeit credit cards; not the seizure of the cards in the first place. The court finds that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the magnetic … Continue reading
FL: Real-time cell site location information is protected under Fourth Amendment
Real-time cell site location information is protected under Fourth Amendment. Tracey v. State, 2014 Fla. LEXIS 3072 (October 16, 2014). This is a fascinating opinion, and it’s the most sensitive review of the issue yet:
USPS Audit Report: Postal Inspection Service Mail Covers Program
Politico: Snail mail snooping safeguards not followed by Josh Gerstein: Cutting-edge data-gathering techniques may have grabbed the spotlight lately, but it turns out the government has been playing fast and loose with a more old-school surveillance method: snail-mail snooping. The … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Def can’t challenge the search and seizure of a computer server in Iceland because he claims no interest in it or its information
In the Silk Road case, defendant can’t challenge the search and seizure of a computer server in Iceland in 2013 because he claims no interest in it or its information. United States v. Ulbricht, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145553 (S.D.N.Y. … Continue reading
OR: No privacy interest in a text message in the recipient’s cell phone
One who sends a text message to another cell phone has no privacy in that interest when it’s in the other phone. There is a privacy interest in the content of a telephone call, but not once it’s shared with … Continue reading
JD Supra: Privacy and Fourth Amendment Issues Among Legal Concerns for Law Enforcement Use of Body-Worn Cameras
JD Supra: Privacy and Fourth Amendment Issues Among Legal Concerns for Law Enforcement Use of Body-Worn Cameras byGary Schons: While there are many considerations for police departments interested in using body-worn cameras in the field, including policy issues and deployment … Continue reading
NPR: Apple Says iOS Encryption Protects Privacy; FBI Raises Crime Fears
NPR: Apple Says iOS Encryption Protects Privacy; FBI Raises Crime Fears by Brian Naylor: The FBI says Apple encryption software could make it harder for the police to solve crimes. But Apple CEO Tim Cook disagrees, saying this is about … Continue reading
NJLJ: Bills Would Restrict Access to Cars’ ‘Black Box’ Data
NJLJ: Bills Would Restrict Access to Cars’ ‘Black Box’ Data: New Jersey lawmakers may soon enact legislation that would limit access to information from event data recorders installed in automobiles that track speed, location, time of use and the number … Continue reading
TN: One controlled buy 3 days ago without ID’g source person was not PC to search; could have been a visitor
A CI’s statement that a controlled buy occurred out of defendant’s apartment failed to show probable cause where there was no connection to the sale and the owner or tenant shown. It could have been a mere visitor. State v. … Continue reading
NYTimes: Facebook Lawsuit Over Search Warrants Can Proceed, a Court in Manhattan Rules
NYTimes: Facebook Lawsuit Over Search Warrants Can Proceed, a Court in Manhattan Rules by James C. McKinley: An appeals court ruled on Thursday that a lawsuit filed by Facebook against the Manhattan district attorney’s office can proceed, paving the way … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: A smart electric meter that transmits information about electric usage is not a search and seizure
A smart electric meter that transmits information about electric usage every 15 minutes is not a search and seizure. Naperville Smart Meter Awareness v. City of Naperville, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 134861 (N.D. Ill. September 25, 2014)*:
NYTimes: Omnipresence: I’ll Be Watching You
NYTimes: Omnipresence: I’ll Be Watching You by Stephen Farrell: In the projects of Brownsville, Brooklyn, the New York Police Department’s new strategy, Omnipresence, is what it says. Despite promises of change, to some it feels like stop and frisk by … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Lengthy pole camera surveillance of commercial property is far different than surveillance of the home
Lengthy pole camera surveillance of commercial property is far different than pole camera surveillance of the home. It was all of a public area where there was a diminished expectation of privacy. United States v. Moore, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
MT: Katz test applies to informational privacy
Montana applies the Katz reasonable expectation of privacy case to informational privacy, here a worker’s comp case. By filing a worker’s comp claim, the claimant did not waive all privacy rights in medical records. Malcomson v. Liberty Northwest, 2014 MT … Continue reading
Daily Beast: Your Arrest Video Is Going Online. Who Will See It?
Daily Beast: Your Arrest Video Is Going Online. Who Will See It? by Jacob Seigel: America is rushing to outfit cops with cameras, but even experts aren’t sure of the laws regulating the storage of the videos they capture—or determining … Continue reading