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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)
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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: FISA
Techdirt: Things The Intelligence Community Is Cool With: Backdoor Searches, Skirting Reporting Requirements, Parallel Construction
Techdirt: Things The Intelligence Community Is Cool With: Backdoor Searches, Skirting Reporting Requirements, Parallel Construction by Tim Cushing:
MSNBC: FBI Director seems to confirm use of FISA warrants in Russia Probe
MSNBC: FBI Director seems to confirm use of FISA warrants in Russia Probe (video) No wonder the President wants a private CIA.
NYTimes: Warrantless Surveillance Can Continue Even if Law Expires, Officials Say
NYTimes: Warrantless Surveillance Can Continue Even if Law Expires, Officials Say by Charlie Savage: The Trump administration has decided that the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. can lawfully keep operating their warrantless surveillance program even if Congress fails to … Continue reading
techdirt: Intelligence Director Says Gov’t Can Demand Encryption Backdoors Without Having To Run It By The FISA Court
techdirt: Intelligence Director Says Gov’t Can Demand Encryption Backdoors Without Having To Run It By The FISA Court by Tim Cushing:
WaPo: House Intelligence Committee passes spy-bill renewal, but on party lines
WaPo: House Intelligence Committee passes spy-bill renewal, but on party lines by Karoun Demirjian: The House Intelligence Committee passed a bill Friday to restrain the government’s access to data collected under a powerful authority to collect foreign intelligence on U.S. … Continue reading
The Intercept: NSA Secretly Helped Convict Defendants in U.S. Courts, Classified Documents Reveal
The Intercept: NSA Secretly Helped Convict Defendants in U.S. Courts, Classified Documents Reveal (Part 7) by Trevor Aaronson: By withholding evidence of warrantless spying, the government avoided a court challenge to controversial mass surveillance – which is now before Congress.
The Hill: Clock ticking down on NSA surveillance powers
The Hill: Clock ticking down on NSA surveillance powers by Katie Bo Williams:
D.D.C.: Klayman v. NSA finally ends in the District Court
Klayman v. NSA finally ends in the District Court, the court finding no jurisdiction (despite prior injunctions) and because Congress ended the program sued over before the suit was even filed and then the NSA was ordered to retain data … Continue reading
WaPo: Senate bill would impose new privacy limits on accessing NSA’s surveillance data
WaPo: Senate bill would impose new privacy limits on accessing NSA’s surveillance data by Karoun Demirjian and Ellen Nakashima:
Techdirt: Most Senate Intelligence Committee Members Are Fine With Domestic Surveillance By The NSA
Techdirt: Most Senate Intelligence Committee Members Are Fine With Domestic Surveillance By The NSA by Tim Cushing: The Senate Intelligence Committee has released its report [PDF] on its Section 702 reauthorization plan. Rather than adopt any serious reforms — like … Continue reading
LATimes: Editorial: Fix a surveillance law to stop backdoor searches of Americans
LATimes: Editorial: Fix a surveillance law to stop backdoor searches of Americans Congress is currently deciding: whether to let the National Security Agency continue to eavesdrop on the phone calls, emails and other electronic communications of foreigners located abroad. This … Continue reading
EFF: House Judiciary Committee Forced Into Difficult Compromise On Surveillance Reform
EFF: House Judiciary Committee Forced Into Difficult Compromise On Surveillance Reform by David Ruiz
Reason: Showdown Looming over Reform of Federal Surveillance Laws
Reason: Showdown Looming over Reform of Federal Surveillance Laws by Scott Shackford: The House Judiciary Committee has advanced a bill that would provide Americans modest protections from unwarranted surveillance, but falls far short of what civil liberties and privacy groups … Continue reading
The Hill: House Judiciary advances warrantless wiretapping reform bill
The Hill: House Judiciary advances warrantless wiretapping reform bill by Katie Bo Williams:
The Register: US domestic foreign spying bill progresses through Congress
The Register: US domestic foreign spying bill progresses through Congress by Kieren McCarthy
EFF: Sen. Feinstein Supports “Backdoor” Warrants, So Why Don’t Reps. Nunes and Schiff?
EFF: Sen. Feinstein Supports “Backdoor” Warrants, So Why Don’t Reps. Nunes and Schiff? by David Ruiz: As the deadline for renewing and reforming key portions of the NSA’s spying apparatus looms less than two months away, two of the most … Continue reading
Reason: Rand Paul Worries Whether Surveillance Reform Will Even Be Debated in Senate
Reason: Rand Paul Worries Whether Surveillance Reform Will Even Be Debated in Senate by Scott Shackford: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is concerned his peers will attempt to reauthorize and possibly even expand the federal government’s surveillance powers without any public … Continue reading
EFF: EFF and ACLU Ask Appeals Court to Find Section 702 Surveillance Unconstitutional
EFF: EFF and ACLU Ask Appeals Court to Find Section 702 Surveillance Unconstitutional by Andrew Crocker: As Congress considers reforming Section 702, the NSA’s warrantless surveillance authority, EFF and ACLU are asking a federal court of appeals in New York … Continue reading
Reason: Sens. Rand Paul and Ron Wyden Unveil Long-Awaited, Privacy-Protecting Surveillance Reform Bill
Reason: Sens. Rand Paul and Ron Wyden Unveil Long-Awaited, Privacy-Protecting Surveillance Reform Bill by Scott Shackford The Fourth Amendment matters to some legislators.
EFF: FBI Director Wray is Wrong About Section 702 Surveillance
EFF: FBI Director Wray is Wrong About Section 702 Surveillance by David Ruiz: Newly-minted FBI Director Christopher Wray threw out several justifications for the continued, warrantless government search of American communications. He’s wrong on all accounts.