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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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Solicitor General's site
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Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
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"On the Docket"–Medill
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General (many free):
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F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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
Privacy Foundation
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
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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
The Atlantic: Congress Still Has No Idea How Much the NSA Spies on Americans
The Atlantic: Congress Still Has No Idea How Much the NSA Spies on Americans by Conor Friedersdorf: Adequate oversight is impossible when even diligent members of the Senate Intelligence Committee can’t get basic facts about surveillance.
The Hill: FBI wants expanded hacking authority
The Hill: FBI wants expanded hacking authority by Cory Bennett: The FBI is pressing the little-known Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules to give it expanded authority to remotely hack and spy on computers in the U.S. and abroad. Civil liberties … Continue reading
The Guardian: FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance
The Guardian: FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance by Ed Pilkington: Agency requests rule change but civil liberties groups say ‘extremely invasive’ technique amounts to unconstitutional power grab The FBI is attempting to persuade … Continue reading
NYTimes: Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S.
NYTimes: Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S. by Ron Nixon: WASHINGTON — In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law … Continue reading
Techdirt: Feds Want To Keep A Big Part Of Their Argument Against Lawsuit Over Internet Spying A Total Secret
Techdirt: Feds Want To Keep A Big Part Of Their Argument Against Lawsuit Over Internet Spying A Total Secret by Mike Masnick: from the because-nsa dept The big Jewel v. NSA case is still moving forward. This is the pre-Snowden … 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
Reason: How Federal Agents Illegally Force Twitter, Google, and Banks to Turn Over Private Customer Data Without a Proper Warrant
Reason: How Federal Agents Illegally Force Twitter, Google, and Banks to Turn Over Private Customer Data Without a Proper Warrant by Andrew Napolitano: Private companies are fighting the federal government in court over the Patriot Act’s “National Security Letters,” which … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh: Intelligence Squared debate: Mass collection of U.S. phone records violates the Fourth Amendment
WaPo: Volokh: Intelligence Squared debate: Mass collection of U.S. phone records violates the Fourth Amendment by Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz: Intelligence Squared presented an excellent debate last week at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia — “Resolved: Mass collection of U.S. … 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.
Just Security: Executive Order 12333 and the Golden Number
Just Security: Executive Order 12333 and the Golden Number by Alvaro Bedoya: I recently moderated a debate between Professor Nathan Sales of Syracuse Law, Professor Laura Donohue of Georgetown Law, Bob Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director … Continue reading
Courthouse News Service: U.S. Must Reveal Some Tracking Technology
Courthouse News Service: U.S. Must Reveal Some Tracking Technology by Elizabeth Warmerdam: The Department of Justice must release documents on government policies and procedures for use of location-tracking technology in Northern California, a federal judge ruled.
WSJ: Long-Term Secrecy Surrounds Electronic Monitoring
WSJ: Long-Term Secrecy Surrounds Electronic Monitoring by Michael Siconolfi: A federal judge’s recent unsealing of a secret government request for electronic monitoring shines a light on how such applications are kept hidden from the public long after criminal cases that … Continue reading
BLT: NSA Hearing in the D.C. Circuit Will Not Be Televised
BLT: NSA Hearing in the D.C. Circuit Will Not Be Televised: The U.S. Court of Appeals for he D.C. Circuit will not televise its Nov. 4 oral argument over the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records.
Courthouse News Service: US Defends Legality of NSA Spying That It Won’t Explain Further
Courthouse News Service: US Defends Legality of NSA Spying That It Won’t Explain Further by Arvin Temkar: OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) – Even if there were evidence that a domestic spying program was unconstitutional, interference by the courts could cause “exceptionally … Continue reading
Global Research: Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12333: End-Running the Fourth Amendment; “Legalizing” Police State Surveillance
Global Research: Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12333: End-Running the Fourth Amendment; “Legalizing” Police State Surveillance by Peter Van Buren: Historians of the Constitutional Era of the United States (1789-2001, RIP) will recall the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the one … Continue reading
LawFare: Updated Version of In Re Directives: A Quick Summary
LawFare: Updated Version of In Re Directives: A Quick Summary by Alex Ely: Readers likely recall that last week, documents from the In Re Directives litigation, regarding foreign intelligence surveillance directives issued to Yahoo!, were declassified. Chief among them: a … Continue reading
Center for Democracy & Technology: Yahoo Court Documents Reveal Pitched Battle Over Surveillance Power
Center for Democracy & Technology: Yahoo Court Documents Reveal Pitched Battle Over Surveillance Power by Harley Geiger: Documents released yesterday as a result of litigation brought by Yahoo show how the court charged with assessing government intelligence surveillance requests secretly … Continue reading
AOL: Typing errors led FBI/NSA to spy on wrong people
AOL: Typing errors led FBI/NSA to spy on wrong people: The FBI might be spying on you –– but before you start fighting back with methods your ninth grade copy of “1984” taught you, take a look at the embarrassing … Continue reading
NYTimes: Reagan-Era Order on Surveillance Violates Rights, Says Departing Aide
NYTimes: Reagan-Era Order on Surveillance Violates Rights, Says Departing Aide by Charlie Savage: WASHINGTON — After President Obama delivered a speech in January endorsing changes to surveillance policies, including an end to the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Failing Expectations: Fourth Amendment Doctrine in the Era of Total Surveillance
New Law Review Article: Failing Expectations: Fourth Amendment Doctrine in the Era of Total Surveillance by Olivier Sylvain, 49 Wake Forest L. Rev. 485 (2014). Abstract: Today’s reasonable expectation test and the third-party doctrine have little to nothing to offer … Continue reading