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- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
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- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
- S.D.W.Va.: “Shocking” nature of immigration raid on a Mexican restaurant at lunchtime didn’t warrant suppression
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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)
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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: Cell site location information
CA6: Turning off dashcam when drug dog arrived “concerning” but not fatal to the dog sniff
CSLI was obtained by a warrant with probable cause defendant was involved in drug dealing, and that’s nexus between the cell phone and the crime. When the car was stopped, there was at least reasonable suspicion and the stop was … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Drive-by shooting led to emergency ping order which led to valid protective sweep
“Defendant lacks standing to challenge the sweep of Ms. Wells’ home. At best, Defendant was a frequent visitor to the home where he babysat children and worked on cars in the yard. Those limited connections to the home are insufficient … Continue reading
The Atlantic: A Liberal-Conservative Alliance on the Supreme Court Against Digital Surveillance
The Atlantic: A Liberal-Conservative Alliance on the Supreme Court Against Digital Surveillance Jeffrey Rosen: Justices found common ground in asserting the relevance of the Fourth Amendment in the electronic age, even as they cited sharply different rationales.
The Hill: It’s too easy for the government to invade privacy in name of security
The Hill: It’s too easy for the government to invade privacy in name of security by Jonathan Turley:
NYTimes: Justices Seem Ready to Boost Protection of Digital Privacy
NYTimes: Justices Seem Ready to Boost Protection of Digital Privacy by Adam Liptak:
SCOTUSBlog: Wednesday round-up [Carpenter]
SCOTUSBlog: Wednesday round-up by Edith Rogers:
Daily Beast: Would the Founding Fathers Have Tracked Your Cell Phone?
Daily Beast: Would the Founding Fathers Have Tracked Your Cell Phone? by Jay Michaelson: It’s a concept the Constitution’s framers couldn’t have imagined, and that shows why ‘originalism’ like Justice Gorsuch’s is bunk. Your cellphone company knows where you are … Continue reading
Vice News: How cops hack into your phone without a warrant
Vice News: How cops hack into your phone without a warrant by y Isabella McKinley Corbo [re: Carpenter]: Right now, a murky web of federal and state statutes determine how easily cops can access data on Americans’ cell phones. While … Continue reading
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy Blog: Four thoughts on the briefing in Carpenter v. United States
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy Blog: Four thoughts on the briefing in Carpenter v. United States by Orin Kerr: The Supreme Court will hear argument on Nov. 29th in Carpenter v. United States, a case on whether the Fourth Amendment applies … Continue reading
LA5: Five armed robberies in a month was exigency for ping order; GFE applied, too
Police developed defendant as a suspect in a string of five armed robberies in a month, and they sought and obtained an exigent circumstances cell phone ping order of defendant’s phone. His argument is that there were no exigent circumstances … Continue reading
WaPo: Debate on ‘Carpenter v. United States,’ the Fourth Amendment cell-site case
WaPo: Debate on ‘Carpenter v. United States,’ the Fourth Amendment cell-site case by Orin Kerr: Last Thursday, I participated in an excellent debate on Carpenter v. United States, the pending Fourth Amendment case on government access to historical cell-site records. … Continue reading
Wired: Supreme Court’s Cell Phone Tracking Case Could Hurt Privacy
Wired: Supreme Court’s Cell Phone Tracking Case Could Hurt Privacy by Nick Sibilla
Forbes: Is Warrantless Access To Cell Site Info A Fourth Amendment Violation? A Primer On Carpenter v. US
Forbes: Is Warrantless Access To Cell Site Info A Fourth Amendment Violation? A Primer On Carpenter v. US by John Villasenor
D.S.D.: Pinging cell phone to locate def after arrest warrant issued didn’t implicate 4A
Pinging defendant’s cell phone to locate him after an arrest warrant issued didn’t implicate the Fourth Amendment. There was also exigency from fear for safety of the CI and of destruction of evidence. United States v. Sauceda, 2017 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
Westlaw Insider: The Fourth Amendment in a Digital Age
Westlaw Insider: The Fourth Amendment in a Digital Age:
Carpenter oral set for Nov. 29, briefs all in
The oral argument in the cell site location information-third party doctrine case this past week was set for November 29th. ScotusBlog here with links to all the briefs, both parties and amici. Petitioner’s brief Amici: Competitive Enterprise Institute, et al. … Continue reading
OH12: SW for text messages on cell phone was particular when limited to one person’s messages
Defendant was a police officer who was suspected of sexual battery of a student ride along. There were text messages, and a search warrant was obtained for his cell phone. The lack of a time frame for the text messages … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Over a year of CSLI was reasonable where the conspiracy covered over two years
Defendants were charged with a series of ATM robberies, and the government sought historical CSLI to link the defendants together. This is third party information. The fact that information was sought for over a year in some of the defendants’ … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Use of a Stingray to track a phone is a search requiring a warrant, except in exigent circumstances
Use of a Stingray is a “search” and requires a warrant. The court notes the differing approaches of the courts, but this court has already weighed in in favor of the citizen. “Accordingly, the court determines that a warrant was … Continue reading
The Hill: Verizon reports spike in government requests for cell ‘tower dumps’
The Hill: Verizon reports spike in government requests for cell ‘tower dumps’ by Katie Bo Williams Government requests for the mass disclosure of every caller who connected to a particular cellphone tower have spiked during the first half of 2017, … Continue reading