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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
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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
E.D.Va.: CSLI order issued before binding CA4 case was with good faith
A USMJ issued an order for CSLI, and, for the sake of argument, the court assumes it was without probable cause and it was before United States v. Graham (“Graham II”), 796 F.3d 332 (4th Cir. 2015). Reliance on the … Continue reading
TechDirt: Defendants Counter Government’s Arguments That Appeals Court Should Treat Cellphones As ‘Personal Homing Beacons’
TechDirt: Defendants Counter Government’s Arguments That Appeals Court Should Treat Cellphones As ‘Personal Homing Beacons’ by Tim Cushing. A couple of weeks ago, the government petitioned the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for an en banc rehearing of its decision … Continue reading
MA: CSLI seized before state law clarified; remanded
CSLI was seized: one defendant five days worth, another seven days worth. State case law all developed after that happened, so remanded to reconsider the CSLI under those cases. Commonwealth v. Tewolde, 2015 Mass. App. LEXIS 156 (October 1, 2015). … Continue reading
MA already held 6 hrs CSLI needs no warrant; here it was two weeks worth but only 6 hrs used at trial, so warrant required
The Massachusetts court had already held that six hours of CSLI did not need a warrant. Here, however, two weeks’ worth were sought by subpoena, and the state sought to admit only six hours worth to comply with the prior … Continue reading
Atlantic (via NextGov): All the Ways the Government Can Use Your Phone to Watch You
Atlantic (via NextGov): All the Ways the Government Can Use Your Phone to Watch You by Robinson Meyer: Last week, the state of cellphone tracking became slightly more confusing. The U.S. Department of Justice announced that, except in emergency situations, … Continue reading
NC: CSLI that was 5-7 minutes old when received was not “real time” information, so PC and a warrant not required
Cell site location information that was sent to the police periodically that was tracking the defendant was not “real time” information when it was 5-7 minutes old when received. Thus, a warrant on probable cause was not required. State v. … Continue reading
Reason: DOJ Announces ‘New Policy’ of Acknowledging Fourth Amendment for CSLI
Reason: DOJ Announces ‘New Policy’ of Acknowledging Fourth Amendment by Scott Shackford: Will require agents get warrants for devices that track mobile phone locations …. While this new policy covers only federal law enforcement, it’s also been established that the … Continue reading
NYTimes: Justice Dept. to Require Warrants for Some Cellphone Tracking
NYTimes: Justice Dept. to Require Warrants for Some Cellphone Tracking by Nicholas Fandos: The Justice Department will regularly require federal agents to seek warrants before using secretive equipment that can locate and track cellphones, the agency announced Thursday, the first … Continue reading
The Hill: Supreme Court pressed to rule on police access to cellphone data
The Hill: Supreme Court pressed to rule on police access to cellphone data by Lydia Wheeler:
ACLU blog: ACLU Suit Shows the DOJ Gathered Location Data Without Probable Cause
ACLU blog: ACLU Suit Shows the DOJ Gathered Location Data Without Probable Cause by Linda Lye: After three years of litigation, we’ve finally settled a portion of one of our long-running Freedom of Information Act suits against the federal government … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Arguing for trespass rather than the reasonable expectation of privacy standard doesn’t enhance the likelihood of showing standing
Arguing for trespass rather than the reasonable expectation of privacy standard doesn’t enhance the likelihood of showing standing. “Proceeding under the trespass theory, rather than the reasonable expectation of privacy theory, defendants have not demonstrated that they have a possessory … Continue reading
Just Security: Warrantless Phone Tracking: The Fourth Amendment and Circuit Splits
Just Security: Warrantless Phone Tracking: The Fourth Amendment and Circuit Splits by Andy Wright: Last week, a divided three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled in United States v. Graham that the government must obtain a warrant to obtain from … Continue reading
WaPo: When and how will the Supreme Court enter the cell-site fray?
WaPo: When and how will the Supreme Court enter the cell-site fray? by Orin Kerr: In an earlier post, I noted the Fourth Circuit’s new decision on Fourth Amendment protection for historical cell-site data. In this post, I want to … Continue reading
CA4: Cell site location information requires a search warrant or other court order; but GFE applies this time
Cell site location information requires a search warrant or other court order. The government, however, gets a good faith argument for reliance on the Stored Communications Act. [Not so the next time.] United States v. Graham, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: CSLI in mid-2014 was subject to GFE
The government’s warrantless collection of cell site location data in mid-2014 was not clearly contrary to any established law, so the government’s actions were in good faith. The court also follows the fact they were third-party records. United States v. … Continue reading
ars technica: Warrantless mobile phone location tracking heads to Supreme Court
ars technica: Warrantless mobile phone location tracking heads to Supreme Court by David Kravets: [SCOTUS case no. 15-146, docketed July 31]
N.D.Cal.: Gov’t cell site location information collection and analysis requires SW
Cell site location information today is so specific that collection and analysis requires a search warrant. It is as specific as GPS, and it can now pinpoint locations in a house. GPS was on a car; cell phones are on … Continue reading
OH10: Asking for DL of driver of parked car was a stop of everybody in the car
Defendant was in a parked car with others when the police pulled up. It became a stop of everybody in the car under Brendlin when the officer asked for ID, and there was no reasonable suspicion of any crime whatsoever. … Continue reading
techdirt: CA Legislators Pass Warrant Requirement For Phone Searches, Gut Transparency Stipulations To Appease Law Enforcement
techdirt: CA Legislators Pass Warrant Requirement For Phone Searches, Gut Transparency Stipulations To Appease Law Enforcement by Tim Cushing: The California Senate has passed a bill that creates a warrant requirement for searches of cellphones, tablets and electronic devices. This … Continue reading
National Review: Think Your Cellphone Usage is Private? Think Again
National Review: Think Your Cellphone Usage is Private? Think Again by Naomi R. Alzate & Scott N. Wagner: In a closely-watched case out of Miami [Davis], the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals redefined the zone of privacy for cell phone … Continue reading