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- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
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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: FISA
RT: Secret report cited in NSA surveillance lawsuit, govt silent on its existence
RT: Secret report cited in NSA surveillance lawsuit, govt silent on its existence: Civil rights and federal attorneys sparred at a hearing over a case involving domestic dragnet surveillance by the federal government. The plaintiffs argued the searches are illegal, … Continue reading
Law.com/The Recorder: Judge Questions Legality of NSA Internet Surveillance
Law.com/The Recorder: Judge Questions Legality of NSA Internet Surveillance by Russ Todd: Central to the long-running challenge is whether there’s a distinction between human and automated searches. Since the gathering of “information” is also a search under Jones, WTH not?
Just Security: In 2007, One Judge Said No to the NSA
Just Security: In 2007, One Judge Said No to the NSA by Patrick C. Toomey: Last week, the government quietly released a new cache of court filings and orders from late 2006 and early 2007 that together reveal a watershed … Continue reading
Think Progress: How The Supreme Court Could Decide The Fate Of NSA Surveillance
Think Progress: How The Supreme Court Could Decide The Fate Of NSA Surveillance by Lauren C. Williams: An Idaho nurse is leading the latest charge against the Obama administration for the U.S. National Security Agency’s dragnet phone data surveillance program. … Continue reading
WaPo: Ninth Circuit hears NSA program challenge
WaPo: Ninth Circuit hears NSA program challenge by Orin Kerr: On Monday, the Ninth Circuit held oral argument in Smith v. Obama, a Fourth Amendment challenge to the Section 215 telephony metadata program. You can watch a video of the … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Even if NSA captured def’s calls, search of laptop at LAX was attenuated and with RS
Defendant was charged with violating the trade embargo with Iran. The government refused to provide details of how it accessed telephone call information, the defendant asserting that the NSA must have captured his call information. Assuming, then, that the search … Continue reading
The Hill: How to stop NSA from snooping on you
The Hill: How to stop NSA from snooping on you by Cory Bennett: The first thing to know about securing your phone is that you can’t secure your phone.
Lawfare: A Quick Summary of Oral Argument in In Re Directives
Lawfare: A Quick Summary of Oral Argument in In Re Directives by Alex Ely: Earlier this Fall I wrote about how certain materials from the In Re Directives litigation before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (“FISCR” or “Court”) … Continue reading
Reason.com: USA FREEDOM and Rand Paul
Reason.com: USA FREEDOM and Rand Paul by Ronald Bailey: Civil libertarians are disappointed by the Kentucky senator’s vote against debate on NSA reform legislation. In June 2013, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act, a bill declaring … Continue reading
TechDirt: FISA Judge To Yahoo: If US Citizens Don’t Know They’re Being Surveilled, There’s No Harm
TechDirt: FISA Judge To Yahoo: If US Citizens Don’t Know They’re Being Surveilled, There’s No Harm by Tim Cushing: A legal battle between Yahoo and the government over the Protect America Act took place in 2008, but details (forced from … Continue reading
NYTimes: N.S.A. Phone Data Collection Could Go On, Even if a Law Expires
NYTimes: N.S.A. Phone Data Collection Could Go On, Even if a Law Expires by Charlie Savage: WASHINGTON — A little-known provision of the Patriot Act, overlooked by lawmakers and administration officials alike, appears to give President Obama a possible way … Continue reading
Salon: This is America? Secret courts, no 4th amendment and… magic pixie dust
Salon: This is America? Secret courts, no 4th amendment and… magic pixie dust by Marcy Wheeler The claims judges are making in secret hearings about your privacy would be funny — if they weren’t so alarming
NYTimes: Bill to Restrict N.S.A. Data Collection Blocked in Vote by Senate Republicans
NYTimes: Bill to Restrict N.S.A. Data Collection Blocked in Vote by Senate Republicans by Charlie Savage and Jeremy W. Peters: WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a sweeping overhaul of the once-secret National Security Agency program that collects records … Continue reading
NYTimes Editorial: A Crucial Vote on the Surveillance Bill
NYTimes Editorial: A Crucial Vote on the Surveillance Bill: The Republican Party is so badly fractured that it is impossible to tell what steps it will take on domestic surveillance once it assumes control of Congress in January. Its rising … Continue reading
ACLU: Americans’ Confidence in Privacy of Electronic Communications is Very Low
ACLU: Americans’ Confidence in Privacy of Electronic Communications is Very Low by Jay Stanley: Pew has a new poll out on Americans’ attitudes toward privacy, and it is full of interesting findings. A New York Times blog piece on the … Continue reading
WaPo: Senate poised to vote on USA Freedom Act as early as next week
WaPo: Senate poised to vote on USA Freedom Act as early as next week by Ellen Nakashima: The Senate is poised to vote as early as next week on the USA Freedom Act, legislation that would end the National Security … Continue reading
FISC: Another FISC case disagreeing with Klayman released
Another FISC case disagreeing with Klayman released (without adversarial briefing, of course). In re Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for an Order Requiring the Production of Tangible Things from [Redacted], 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157864 (For. Intel. Surv. … Continue reading
The Atlantic: Now the GOP Must Choose: Mass Surveillance or Privacy?
The Atlantic: Now the GOP Must Choose: Mass Surveillance or Privacy? by Conor Friedersdorf: Before May, Congress has no alternative but to endorse or end NSA spying on the phone calls of virtually every American. What does the new party … Continue reading
Techdirt: Documents Obtained By The ACLU Show NSA’s Inability To Prevent Collection Of US Persons’ Data And Communications
Techdirt: Documents Obtained By The ACLU Show NSA’s Inability To Prevent Collection Of US Persons’ Data And Communications: from the sued-into-translucence dept The ACLU has freed up more NSA documents — again as the result of a FOIA lawsuit. Some … Continue reading
Lawfare: Recap of Yesterday’s Argument in the Section 215 Case
Lawfare: Recap of Yesterday’s Argument in the Section 215 Case by Wells Bennett: Below you’ll find a recap of yesterday morning’s argument in Klayman v. Obama. A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit yesterday considered a key challenge to the … Continue reading