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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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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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
Ars Technica: Analysis: Bill banning phone metadata collection gives NSA access to it
Ars Technica: Analysis: Bill banning phone metadata collection gives NSA access to it by David Kravets: A prominent senator unveiled legislation Tuesday that would end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of all telephone metadata—a package that still provides the … Continue reading
TechDirt: EFF Asks Court To Declare NSA’s ‘Internet Backbone’ Collections Unconstitutional
TechDirt: EFF Asks Court To Declare NSA’s ‘Internet Backbone’ Collections Unconstitutional by Tim Cushing: This case is also at the center of the DOJ’s on-again, off-again metadata destruction plans, which ultimately resulted in the FISA court backing up the district … Continue reading
The Hill: Survey: Journalists, lawyers change habits to avoid NSA snooping
The Hill: Survey: Journalists, lawyers change habits to avoid NSA snooping by Julia Hattem: A new report says government spying corrodes the way lawyers and the media work.
WaPo: White House and senators near deal on surveillance
WaPo: White House and senators near deal on surveillance by Ellen Nakashima: The Obama administration and key U.S. senators are close to a deal on legislation that aims to end the National Security Agency’s collection of millions of Americans’ phone … Continue reading
The Atlantic: New Surveillance Whistleblower: The NSA Violates the Constitution
The Atlantic: New Surveillance Whistleblower: The NSA Violates the Constitution by Conor Friedersdorf: A former Obama administration official calls attention to unaccountable mass surveillance conducted under a 1981 executive order.
NYTimes: Racy Photos Were Often Shared at N.S.A., Snowden Says
NYTimes: Racy Photos Were Often Shared at N.S.A., Snowden Says by Michael S. Schmidt: WASHINGTON — The former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden said in a wide-ranging interview published on Sunday that the oversight of surveillance programs was … Continue reading
WaPo: Op-ed: Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans
WaPo: Op-ed: Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans by John Napier Tye: Public debate about the bulk collection of U.S. citizens’ data by the NSA has focused largely on Section 215 of … Continue reading
Politico: Hill surveillance reform: Time is not on its side
Politico: Hill surveillance reform: Time is not on its side by Alex Byers: Privacy advocates disagree over how best to end the government’s bulk phone records program.
eff.org: EFF, ACLU Join Idaho Mom’s Legal Challenge to NSA Surveillance
eff.org: EFF, ACLU Join Idaho Mom’s Legal Challenge to NSA Surveillance: Court of Appeals Agrees to Expedite Case Over Telephone Records Collection Coeur d’Alene, Idaho – The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Bulk Metadata Collection: Statutory and Constitutional Considerations
Bulk Metadata Collection: Statutory and Constitutional Considerations, Laura K. Donohue, 37 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 757 (2014). Abstract:
New Law Review Article: The Legality of the National Security Agency’s Bulk Data Surveillance Programs
The Legality of the National Security Agency’s Bulk Data Surveillance Programs, John Yoo, 37 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 901 (2014). Abstract:
The New American: So Much Warrantless Surveillance, Feds Can’t Keep Track
The New American: So Much Warrantless Surveillance, Feds Can’t Keep Track by Joe Wolverton, II: The National Security Agency (NSA) conducts warrantless surveillance of millions of people around the world and very little of it has anything to do with … Continue reading
BLT: NSA Privacy Report by Fed Watchdog Seen as Too Weak
BLT: NSA Privacy Report by Fed Watchdog Seen as Too Weak Leading technology and civil liberties groups are disappointed with a study [PDF] the U.S. government’s privacy watchdog released in support of a major U.S. foreign surveillance program that collects … Continue reading
Just Security: Cloud City: A Fourth Amendment Thought Experiment
Just Security: Cloud City: A Fourth Amendment Thought Experiment by Julian Sanchez: Reading the Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s rather tepid report on NSA surveillance under §702 of the FISA Amendments Act last night, I found myself thinking of … Continue reading
Politico: Phone ruling resonates in NSA fight
Politico: Phone ruling resonates in NSA fight by Josh Gerstein: The ruling could also give a boost to lawsuits challenging the NSA’s collection of phone call data.
No-fly list violates constitutional rights
WaPo: AP: Judge: No-fly list violates constitutional rights: PORTLAND, Ore. — The U.S. government offers no adequate method for people to challenge their placement on its no-fly list, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a case involving 13 Muslims who … Continue reading
NYT Editorial: The House Actually Did Something About Warrantless Surveillance
NYT Editorial: The House Actually Did Something About Warrantless Surveillance by Andrew Rosenthal: In an unusual display of unity from the divided, do-nothing House, a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed through a bill that basically says, yes, the Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
The Hill: Senators: No ‘watered down’ NSA reform
The Hill: Senators: No ‘watered down’ NSA reform by Julian Hattem Three senators are doubling down on their call for a sweeping end to the National Security Agency’s “dragnet surveillance.” Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall … Continue reading
CA7: Defense counsel’s security clearance doesn’t help see FISA material for Franks challenge
Just because defense counsel has security clearance, he doesn’t get to see all the material used in a FISA warrant for a Franks challenge. Balancing is required. On de novo review, defense counsel doesn’t get it. United States v. Daoud, … Continue reading
AP: Microsoft: US seizure of cloud data threatens Fourth Amendment
AP: Microsoft: US seizure of cloud data threatens Fourth Amendment: Microsoft Corp. and four other large American technology companies are using a Manhattan court case to draw a line in the cloud, saying the US government has no right to … Continue reading