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- CA7: Scrolling through def’s cell phone was a reasonable border search
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- D.Mont.: This ping warrant was based on PC and was not governed by Chatrie
- KY: Unrelated questions during ongoing traffic stop didn’t extend it under Rodriguez
- TX1: Defendant had no REP in a package of drugs he never possessed and on another person
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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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"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: Informational privacy
WaPo: Another federal judge rules on legality of NSA surveillance
WaPo: Another federal judge rules on legality of NSA surveillance by Orin Kerr: The opinion is Smith v. Obama from Judge Winmill of the District of Idaho. Judge Winmill concludes that the NSA program complies with the Fourth Amendment as … Continue reading
WaPo: Indigent and need a lawyer? It may cost you the Fourth Amendment
WaPo: Indigent and need a lawyer? It may cost you the Fourth Amendment by Radley Balko: Add this one to your “criminalization of poverty” files. It seems that McLennan County, Tex., has a new public employee: The presence of a … Continue reading
news.gnom.es: Quantifying Privacy: A Week of Location Data May Be an “Unreasonable Search” & New Law Review Article: Mosaic Theory and Machine Learning
News Gnomes: Quantifying Privacy: A Week of Location Data May Be an “Unreasonable Search” When does the simple digital tracking of your location and movements — the GPS bleeps from most of our smartphones — start to be truly revealing? … Continue reading
WaPo Editorial: Consumers should be able to see the data companies collect about them
WaPo Editorial: Consumers should be able to see the data companies collect about them: MANY AMERICANS are discovering the hard way that they live in a world of prying eyes. This is the underside of the digital revolution. Tens of … Continue reading
WaPo: E-mail privacy hasn’t been updated in 28 years. This could be the bill to do it.
WaPo: E-mail privacy hasn’t been updated in 28 years. This could be the bill to do it. by Brian Fung: Thanks to a law that was written before “Robocop,” law enforcement agencies are allowed to poke around inside your e-mail … Continue reading
BizPac Review: Electronic privacy battles taking place in 20 states
BizPac Review: Electronic privacy battles taking place in 20 states State lawmakers are pushing back against the surveillance alliance between the executive branch and law enforcement agencies at all levels of society. According to data published by the privacy advocacy … Continue reading
NYT: Some Privacy, Please? Facebook, Under Pressure, Gets the Message
NYT: Some Privacy, Please? Facebook, Under Pressure, Gets the Message by Vindu Goel: The move responds to complaints that the service’s privacy settings are too complicated and that people often don’t know who can see what they’re posting.
Politico: Who watches the watchers? Big Data goes unchecked
Politico: Who watches the watchers? Big Data goes unchecked by Josh Gerstein and Stephanie Simon: The National Security Agency might be tracking your phone calls. But private industry is prying far more deeply into your life. Commercial data brokers know … Continue reading
SFGate: Magistrate waxes poetic while rejecting Gmail search request by Henry K. Lee
SFGate: Magistrate waxes poetic while rejecting Gmail search request by Henry K. Lee SAN JOSE — A federal magistrate on Friday rejected a bid by prosecutors to search an unidentified target’s Google e-mail account, criticizing the “seize first, search second” … Continue reading
BLT: Court: Privacy Outweighs Public Interest in Dispute Over Cell Tracking Records
BLT: Court: Privacy Outweighs Public Interest in Dispute Over Cell Tracking Records by Zoe Tillman: The public doesn’t have a right to information on criminal cases involving warrantless cell phone tracking if the defendant was acquitted or had their case … Continue reading
Grits for Breakfast: Virginia, Utah, require warrants for phone location data, Tennessee bill awaiting gov’s signature
Grits for Breakfast: Virginia, Utah, require warrants for phone location data, Tennessee bill awaiting gov’s signature: More states have approved legislation requiring law enforcement to obtain warrants to track cell-phone location data, measure that passed the Texas House last year … Continue reading
Network World: No reasonable expectation of privacy when third parties cross the creepy line?
Network World: No reasonable expectation of privacy when third parties cross the creepy line? by Ms. Smith: A former DHS official suggests SCOTUS has no business expanding Fourth Amendment protections to protect our privacy from third parties who cross the … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh: Smith v. Maryland as a good first-order estimate of reasonable privacy expectations
WaPo: Volokh: Smith v. Maryland as a good first-order estimate of reasonable privacy expectations by Stewart Baker: Earlier, I promised a post that would make the positive case for the third-party doctrine and Smith v. Maryland. The case against it … Continue reading
WaPo: Apple, Facebook, others defy authorities, notify users of secret data demands
WaPo: Apple, Facebook, others defy authorities, notify users of secret data demands by Craig Timberg: Major U.S. technology companies have largely ended the practice of quietly complying with investigators’ demands for e-mail records and other online data, saying that users … Continue reading
eff.org: Campus Activism Against NSA Spying is Growing Fast [Oh? Not so fast]
eff.org: Campus Activism Against NSA Spying is Growing Fast by April Glaser: EFF has been on the road, traveling to cities and towns across the country to bring our message of digital rights and reform to community and student groups. … Continue reading
Journal-Advocate (CO): Protections for e-data clear Senate committee
Journal-Advocate (CO): Protections for e-data clear Senate committee by Marianne Goodland: A resolution to add “electronic data” to the Colorado constitution’s equivalent of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution got unanimous support this week from a Senate committee. The … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Policing By the Numbers: Big Data and the Fourth Amendment
New Law Review Article: Elizabeth Joh, Policing By the Numbers: Big Data and the Fourth Amendment, 89 Wash. L. Rev. 35 (2014): The age of “big data” has come to policing. In Chicago, police officers are paying particular attention to … Continue reading
NYT: Taxi Driver Charged in $28,000 Toll Fraud; caught by pings from lost E-ZPass
NYT: Taxi Driver Charged in $28,000 Toll Fraud by J. Daivd Goodman: Caught by using a lost E-ZPass that always transmits its signal. He tailgated and piggybacked other drivers through the gates. Then the pings were matched to video. Moral: … Continue reading