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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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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)
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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
WaPo: Applying the Fourth Amendment to cell-site simulators
WaPo: Applying the Fourth Amendment to cell-site simulators by Orin Kerr: The widespread use of cellphones gives the government a way to locate criminal suspects using a device known as a cell-site simulator. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals recently … Continue reading
TX14: State const. affords no broader privacy in CSLI than Fourth Amendment
Defendant was an occasional guest in the house of another. Assuming he had standing, it’s clear that the owner had authority to consent and did consent to a search. Randolph doesn’t require seeking out the defendant to get consent from … Continue reading
MD: Stringray/Hailstorm cell phone tracking device a search; nondisclosure agreement unconstitutional
The use of a Stingray/Hailstorm device to track a cell phone is a search under the Fourth Amendment. The Nondisclosure Agreement is essentially unconstitutional because of the state’s argument they don’t have to disclose what they were doing. The court … Continue reading
WaPo: Court asks: Do police need a warrant to track your cellphone for months at a time?
WaPo: Court asks: Do police need a warrant to track your cellphone for months at a time? by Ann E. Marimow: Law enforcement officials have long relied on location details gleaned from cellphone towers as a powerful tool for tracing … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: CSLI is third-party information and SW not required, rejecting CA4’s Graham
CSLI information is merely third party information in which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, and no warrant was required to collect it. If SCOTUS wanted to deal with third party data it could, but it hasn’t. The Fourth … Continue reading
Heritage.org: Hearing Before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Heritage.org: Hearing Before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by Paul J. Larkin, Jr. before United States House of Representatives (March 2, 2016)
FCW: Lawmakers seek controls for access to geolocation data
FCW: Lawmakers seek controls for access to geolocation data by Chase Gunter: Members on both sides of the aisle on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee believes that the Department of Justice is required to obtain a search warrant … Continue reading
D.Conn.: As much as everybody hates the “third party doctrine,” it’s still good law, and CSLI accessible by subpoena
The government obtained 22 days of defendant’s CSLI information by subpoena and not search warrant, and, as much as the third party doctrine is despised by the commentators, it remains good law today. United States v. Chavez, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Cell phone ping order was issued on PC; additional claim of exigency to speed it up wasn’t unconstitutional
The government obtained a tracking warrant from a Kansas state court judge to ping two cell phones to find the owners, and they were issued on probable cause and complied with the Fourth Amendment. Because it was the weekend, the … Continue reading
techdirt: Prosecutors Argue Cell Site Location Data Is Something Every User Shares With ‘The Rest Of The World’
techdirt: Prosecutors Argue Cell Site Location Data Is Something Every User Shares With ‘The Rest Of The World’ by Tim Cushing: The state of Maryland’s defense of the Baltimore PD’s warrantless use of Stingray devices continues, taking the form of … Continue reading
techdirt: Prosecutors Say Cops Don’t Need Warrants For Stingrays Because ‘Everyone Knows’ Cell Phones Generate Location Data
techdirt: Prosecutors Say Cops Don’t Need Warrants For Stingrays Because ‘Everyone Knows’ Cell Phones Generate Location Data by Tim Cushing: Up in Baltimore, where law enforcement Stingray device use hit critical mass faster and more furiously than anywhere else in … Continue reading
MA Suffolk: Since state constitution protects CSLI, it also protects against gathering constant pinging info without probable cause for warrant
Since the SJC said in Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 230, 4 N.E.3d 846 (2014), that CSLI was protected under the state constitution, it must also apply to information about constant pinging which is even more intrusive. Commonwealth v. Jordan, … Continue reading
TX: No SW needed for historical SCLI
“Did the State’s warrantless acquisition of four days worth of historical cell-site-location information—recorded by Jon Thomas Ford’s cell-phone service provider—violate the Fourth Amendment? No. We agree with the San Antonio Court of Appeals that, because a third-party, AT&T, gathered and … Continue reading
New Haven Register: New Haven judge says police need warrant for phone tracking data
New Haven Register: New Haven judge says police need warrant for phone tracking data (AP): A Connecticut judge says police have been improperly using data from cellphones to track the location of suspects. New Haven Superior Judge Jon Blue agreed … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: No REP in CSLI
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his banking records and even in his CSLI. “Finally, Defendant cites persuasive authority holding that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in CSLI. See D.E. 51 at 29. However, none of … Continue reading
Conn.L.Trib.: Conn. Judge Criticizes Police Use of Cellphone Data
Conn.L.Trib.: Conn. Judge Criticizes Police Use of Cellphone Data via AP: A Connecticut judge says police have been improperly using data from cellphones to track the location of suspects.
NLJ: Justices Hang Up on Call for Cellphone Location Protection
NLJ: Justices Hang Up on Call for Cellphone Location Protection by Marcia Coyle: Supreme Court denies petition that said authorities should get a warrant to obtain cell tower info. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to decide whether law … Continue reading
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: Fourth Circuit grants rehearing, eliminates split, on cell-site surveillance
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: Fourth Circuit grants rehearing, eliminates split, on cell-site surveillance by Orin Kerr: If you’ve been waiting for the Supreme Court to decide whether the Fourth Amendment applies to government collection of cell-site records, you will probably … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Court order for CSLI under SCA not “clearly unconstitutional”
A court order on probable cause for CSLI information under the SCA was not clearly unconstitutional and good faith would apply in any event. [It it’s issued on probable cause, what’s the problem?] United States v. Letellier, 2015 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
Forbes: While The Supreme Court Hesitates On Warrantless Cell Location Data Collection, Your Privacy Remains At Risk
Forbes: While The Supreme Court Hesitates On Warrantless Cell Location Data Collection, Your Privacy Remains At Risk by Abigail Tracy: Two conflicting federal court rulings at the appellate level over whether or not the government can obtain your cellphone location … Continue reading