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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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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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"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, 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: Drones
NY Times: Drones Spotted, but Not Halted, Raise Concerns
NY Times: Drones Spotted, but Not Halted, Raise Concerns by Michael S. Schmidt and Michael D. Shear: As Major League Baseball’s top players took the field at the All-Star Game in Minneapolis in July, a covert radar system scanned the … Continue reading
The Hill: Bill filed in Senate to boost drone privacy
The Hill: Bill filed in Senate to boost drone privacy by Keith Lang: The outgoing chairman of the Senate committee that oversees transportation issues has filed a bill to protect U.S. residents’ privacy if nonmilitary drone use is drastically increased … Continue reading
JDSupra: Drone on Drones: New Court Decision Reflects Shifting Views on Privacy in Public
JDSupra: Drone on Drones: New Court Decision Reflects Shifting Views on Privacy in Public by Jordan Ferguson & Benjamin Hampton: Whenever drone policy is raised as a topic, privacy concerns follow close behind it as a discussion point. The idea … Continue reading
NPR: Sources: FAA May Require Licenses To Fly Commercial Drones
NPR: Sources: FAA May Require Licenses To Fly Commercial Drones: According to sources, the FAA is considering requiring operators of commercial drones to get a license; the drones could be flown only as far as the operator could see them, … Continue reading
The Hill: Week ahead: House weighs drone regulations
The Hill: Week ahead: House weighs drone regulations by Tim Devaney and Lydia Wheeler: House Republicans are zeroing in on Obama administration policies restricting the use of unmanned commercial aircraft.
NY Times: News Analysis: Things to Consider Before Buying That Drone
NY Times: News Analysis: Things to Consider Before Buying That Drone by Kate Murphy: Drones – usually the camera-equipped, multiple rotor variety – have also been spotted peeping into the windows of high-rise condos, interfering with medevac helicopters and buzzing … Continue reading
The Recorder: CA Lawmaker Offers New Bill to Regulate Drones
The Recorder: Lawmaker Offers New Bill to Regulate Drones by Cheryl Miller: SACRAMENTO — A state lawmaker has revived legislation to curb public agencies’ use of drones just two months after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill with nearly identical … Continue reading
NY Times: Now, Anyone Can Buy a Drone. Heaven Help Us
NY Times: Now, Anyone Can Buy a Drone. Heaven Help Us by Nick Wingfield: Pranksters’ antics are forcing public safety officials to look at the air above them, generally thought safe and secure, as a place for potential trouble.
San Francisco Appeal: FBI Might Have Used Drones To Spy On Defendant In Senator Leland Yee Corruption Case
San Francisco Appeal: FBI Might Have Used Drones To Spy On Defendant In Senator Leland Yee Corruption Case by Max A. Cherney: In a recent court filing from Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow, one of his attorneys, Curtis Briggs, states that … Continue reading
AP Exclusive: Drones Patrol Half of Mexico Border
AP Exclusive via ABC: Drones Patrol Half of Mexico Border by Elliot Spagat and Brian Skoloff: The U.S. government now patrols nearly half the Mexican border by drones alone in a largely unheralded shift to control desolate stretches where there … Continue reading
United Nations: Growing use of drones in law enforcement may violate human rights, warns UN expert
United Nations: Growing use of drones in law enforcement may violate human rights, warns UN expert The increasing use of armed drones within domestic law enforcement risks depersonalizing the use of force and infringing upon the rights of individual citizens, … Continue reading
WPIX: NYPD arrests drone user after close call with police helicopter
WPIX: NYPD arrests drone user after close call with police helicopter by Ayana Harry: The New York Police Department says they grounded a helicopter in the middle of a missing person search in Brooklyn on September 17th after a drone … Continue reading
LATimes: Governor vetoes bill that would have limited police use of drones
LATimes: Governor vetoes bill that would have limited police use of drones by Phil Willon & Melanie Mason: Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday vetoed a bill that would have required law enforcement agencies to obtain warrants to use drones … Continue reading
Sacramento Bee: Viewpoints: Police should get warrants for drones
Sacramento Bee: Viewpoints: Police should get warrants for drones by Erwin Chemerinsky: Gov. Jerry Brown should sign Assembly Bill 1327 to limit the ability of police in California to use drones to spy on people. The issue of police use … Continue reading
RawStory: LAPD insists it won’t use new unmanned drones until rules for their use are set
Reuters: LAPD insists it won’t use new unmanned drones until rules for their use are set (Reuters): The Los Angeles Police Commission, an independent board that oversees the LAPD, responded on Monday by saying the drones had been placed in … Continue reading
CNET: California bill would ban police drone spying without warrant
CNET: California bill would ban police drone spying without warrant by Daniel Terdiman: The bill, which is now on the governor’s desk, pits privacy advocates against law enforcement interests in managing the emerging technology.
Slate: Sotomayor Concerned About Drones and Privacy, Says You Should Be Too
Slate: Sotomayor Concerned About Drones and Privacy, Says You Should Be Too by Lily Hay Newman: Justice Sonia Sotomayor told law students and faculty at Oklahoma City University on Thursday that Americans should be feeling very concerned about the potential … Continue reading
Reuters: California Senate approves measure banning warrantless drone surveillance
Reuters: California Senate approves measure banning warrantless drone surveillance: The California State Senate passed legislation on Tuesday imposing strict regulations on how law enforcement and other government agencies can use drones, a move supporters said will protect privacy and prevent … Continue reading
Baltimore Sun: More police departments considering the use of drones
Baltimore Sun: More police departments considering the use of drones by Jessica Anderson: Uncertainty about regulations and privacy concerns keep many from adopting technology.