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- TX: If electronic search was illegal, it was harmless
- CA: Two SWs for ballots alleging no crime
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- W.D.Pa.: Def can’t repackage a losing 4A standing claim into a due process claim
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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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: Computer and cloud searches
TX4: Leaving flash drive with CP on it in a computer lab was a waiver of REP
Defendant left an unmarked flash drive in a university classroom. A teacher opened the drive to attempt to identify the owner and found papers with two names on it. She looked at the photos folder and found child pornography which … Continue reading
Gizmodo: How the Silk Road Trial Could Lead to a Dangerous Legal Precedent
Gizmodo: How the Silk Road Trial Could Lead to a Dangerous Legal Precedent by Kate Knibbs: The Silk Road trial is over. A jury found Ross Ulbricht guilty on all seven charges, including money laundering, drug trafficking, and the “kingpin” … Continue reading
Reason.com: Why the Prosecution of Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht is “The Most Important Trial in America”
Reason.com: Why the Prosecution of Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht is “The Most Important Trial in America” by Nick Gillespie. Pay attention if you care about due process, Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches, the limits of government surveillance, and … Continue reading
CA7: SW for computers with CP on premises permitted search of hard drive found hidden in def’s mother’s car
Officers had a search warrant for child pornography on computer devices on the premises, and the search warrant named the premises and one vehicle. At the time of execution of the warrant, defendant’s mother was there with her car, and … Continue reading
IA: Defendant claimed no interest in the house searched or what was seized, so he lacked standing
“The flaw in Jackson’s [IAC] argument is that he never claimed any expectation of privacy at his girlfriend’s apartment. In fact, Jackson claimed to have no interest in the apartment, denying he resided there or that any of the possessions … Continue reading
No REP in peer-to-peer file sharing. Yes, that issue is still raised
Defendant’s computer was on the Gnutella peer-to-peer network. The police went in and found 1571 files for sharing and did a software driven search and found child porn on some of them. A week later they went back and found … Continue reading
N.-M. Ct.Crim.App.: Sexual solicitation of children created fair inference of possession of child pornography
NCIS received a local inquiry about a man who had just solicited a child who just got off a school bus for sex. They had a description and license number. That same description (apparently without the LPN) was tied to … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Flexibility permitted in computer file searches because of ease of hiding things
A computer search warrant isn’t overbroad because it doesn’t specify the files to be searched with complete particularity. It isn’t feasible or reasonable to require it because file names and dates can be changed to hide things. United States v. … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Community caretaking entry must be objectively reasonable and still be wrong
Officers’ legitimate concerns that a person inside a house was in danger or restrained, although wrong, were reasonable, and that authorized an entry under the community caretaking function. The fact they were wrong doesn’t matter if their belief was reasonable. … Continue reading
Poker Update: FBI Sabotages Internet Connection to Send in Trojan Horse; Test Boundaries of Privacy Rights
Poker Update: FBI Sabotages Internet Connection to Send in Trojan Horse; Test Boundaries of Privacy Rights by Bradley Chalupski: A warrant obtained by the FBI that resulted in the arrest of “One-Drop” participant Wei Seng Phua constituted an illegal search … Continue reading
LTN: The Golden Rule of Data Privacy
LTN: The Golden Rule of Data Privacy by Kathryn Hume: ARMA panel identifies principles that are changing law firm practices. At last week’s ARMA session, “Data Privacy—Emerging Information Governance Challenges” Brian McCauley, director of information governance at McDermott, Will & … Continue reading
Digital Journal: FBI seeking new invasive global hacking powers
Digital Journal: FBI seeking new invasive global hacking powers by Brett Wilkins: Washington – The Federal Bureau of Investigation has proposed a rule change that would grant the agency broad new powers to hack into and carry out surveillance of … Continue reading
Gizmodo: When Can the Police Search Your Phone and Computer?
Gizmodo: When Can the Police Search Your Phone and Computer? by Hanni Fakhoury and Nadia Kayyali of EFF: Your computer, phone, and other digital devices hold vast amounts of personal information about you and your family. This sensitive data is … Continue reading
WaPo: Would a new crime of ‘willful refusal to comply with a decryption order’ be the best answer to the device decryption puzzle?
WaPo: Would a new crime of ‘willful refusal to comply with a decryption order’ be the best answer to the device decryption puzzle? by Orin Kerr: FBI Director James Comey is worried that the government won’t be able to decrypt … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Def can’t challenge the search and seizure of a computer server in Iceland because he claims no interest in it or its information
In the Silk Road case, defendant can’t challenge the search and seizure of a computer server in Iceland in 2013 because he claims no interest in it or its information. United States v. Ulbricht, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145553 (S.D.N.Y. … Continue reading
Wired.com: Feds ‘Hacked’ Silk Road Without A Warrant? Perfectly Legal, Prosecutors
Wired.com: Feds ‘Hacked’ Silk Road Without A Warrant? Perfectly Legal, Prosecutors Argue by Andy Greenberg:
Cal.1st: Govt search of computer exceeded prior private search
The government search of defendant’s computer here exceeded the private search, going into the container within a container rationale. People v. Evans, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 887 (1st Dist. October 3, 2014):
S.D.N.Y.: NYPD warrantlessly searched a camera memory card; govt must brief whether Riley applies
Defendant didn’t show standing to challenge the search of a car that produced some evidence and a digital camera. He was, however, the undisputed owner of a digital camera that the NYPD removed the memory card from and searched without … Continue reading