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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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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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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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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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Category Archives: Surveillance technology
NYTimes: A Face Search Engine Anyone Can Use Is Alarmingly Accurate
NYTimes: A Face Search Engine Anyone Can Use Is Alarmingly Accurate (“PimEyes is a paid service that finds photos of a person from across the internet, including some the person may not want exposed.”)
WaPo: AI may be searching you for guns the next time you go out in public
WaPo: AI may be searching you for guns the next time you go out in public (“A Massachusetts company says it could help stop shootings like the Tops massacre in Buffalo. Its surveillance product is increasingly popular — and, critics … Continue reading
Scientific American: Yes, Phones Can Reveal if Someone Gets an Abortion
Scientific American: Yes, Phones Can Reveal if Someone Gets an Abortion by Sophie Bushwick (“To protect personal information from companies that sell data, some individuals are relying on privacy guides instead of government regulation or industry transparency.”)
LATimes: Immigration officials created network that can spy on majority of Americans, report says
LATimes: Immigration officials created network that can spy on majority of Americans, report says by Cindy Carcamo (“Immigration and Customs Enforcement has crafted a sophisticated surveillance dragnet designed to spy on most people living in the United States, without the … Continue reading
WaPo: Editorial: Lack of a federal privacy law opens the door to dystopia
WaPo: Editorial: Lack of a federal privacy law opens the door to dystopia (“Imagine every one of us could be located using only a photograph, or identified based on the way we walk — that our fingerprints could be scanned … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: Democracies shouldn’t surrender to a future of limitless surveillance
WaPo: Opinion: Democracies shouldn’t surrender to a future of limitless surveillance (“‘Almost all governments in Europe are using our tools.’ This boast from the chief executive of Israeli spyware company NSO Group reveals the extent to which surveillance software has … Continue reading
Reason: Houston Says Businesses Must Install Surveillance Cameras and Cops Can View Footage Without a Warrant
Reason: Houston Says Businesses Must Install Surveillance Cameras and Cops Can View Footage Without a Warrant by Elizabeth Nolan Brown:
The New Yorker: How Democracies Spy on Their Citizens
The New Yorker: How Democracies Spy on Their Citizens by Ronan FarrowThe inside story of the world’s most notorious commercial spyware and the big tech companies waging war against it.
WaPo: Cryptocurrency could help governments and businesses spy on us
WaPo: Cryptocurrency could help governments and businesses spy on us by Eswar Prasad (“The popularity of digital currencies like bitcoin could erode the last vestiges of financial privacy online”)
NYT: Does the End of Cash Mean the End of Privacy?
NYT: Does the End of Cash Mean the End of Privacy? by Peter Coy (“As cash disappears from the modern economy, privacy disappears with it. You can’t spend money with a credit card, debit card or check without creating a … Continue reading
CO: Warrantless cell phone ping of wanted murderer was based on exigency
Defendant was a suspect in a murder that just happened captured on surveillance video where the deceased was executed by five shots to the head. The police recovered no weapon, and defendant was on the run. They sought a cell … Continue reading
WaPo: Facial recognition firm Clearview AI tells investors it’s seeking massive expansion beyond law enforcement
WaPo: Facial recognition firm Clearview AI tells investors it’s seeking massive expansion beyond law enforcement by Drew Harwell (“The company is pushing toward 100 billion images in its ‘index of faces,’ even as lawmakers worry the company poses a dangerous … Continue reading
Reason: Teacher Spying Is Instilling Surveillance Culture Into Students
Reason: Teacher Spying Is Instilling Surveillance Culture Into Students by Liam Day (“‘We totally stalked what they were doing on Google,’ one teacher said.”)
NYTimes: I Used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS Tracker to Watch My Husband’s Every Move
NYTimes: I Used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS Tracker to Watch My Husband’s Every Move by Kashmir Hill (“A vast location-tracking network is being built around us so we don’t lose our keys: One couple’s adventures in the consumer … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: The IRS should not make you scan your face to see your tax returns
WaPo: Opinion: The IRS should not make you scan your face to see your tax returns:
Yahoo Finance: Apple’s AirTags are being used to stalk people, here’s how to prevent that
Yahoo Finance: Apple’s AirTags are being used to stalk people, here’s how to prevent that by Daniel Howley:
WaPo: Surveillance will follow us into ‘the metaverse,’ and our bodies could be its new data source
WaPo: Surveillance will follow us into ‘the metaverse,’ and our bodies could be its new data source by Tatum Hunter (“Virtual reality headsets learn more about you than traditional screens. That could be good news for creepy companies.”)
WaPo: You’re not paranoid to cover your webcam. But the cameras you can’t cover are scarier.
WaPo: You’re not paranoid to cover your webcam. But the cameras you can’t cover are scarier. by Tatum Hunter:
Slate: “Creepiness” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Privacy
Slate: “Creepiness” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Privacy by Neil Richards:
Engadget: The Treasury Department is buying sensitive app data for investigations
Engadget: The Treasury Department is buying sensitive app data for investigations by Jon Fingas (“There are concerns investigators are bypassing due process” and the Fourth Amendment. This isn’t new information.)