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- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
- D.Idaho: Not unreasonable for PO to hand over def’s cell phone to LEO for extraction after RS developed from Snapchat app
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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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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)
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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) -
“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: Digital privacy
NYTimes: The Illusion of Privacy Is Getting Harder to Sell
NYTimes: The Illusion of Privacy Is Getting Harder to Sell by Greg Bensinger:
WaPo: Apple plans to scan iPhones to find sexual predators. Some fear the software could be weaponized.
WaPo: Apple plans to scan iPhones to find sexual predators. Some fear the software could be weaponized. By Reed Albergotti (“The new push pits Apple against civil liberties activists and appears to contradict some of the company’s own long-held assertions … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: Privacy is a fiction in the Internet age. A priest’s case proves it.
WaPo: Opinion: Privacy is a fiction in the Internet age. A priest’s case proves it. (“The top administrator of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resigned last month after a newsletter used data from his cellphone to confirm his use … Continue reading
WaPo: A student’s rape went unsolved for 14 years. Police say the suspect gave his DNA to a genealogy database.
WaPo: A student’s rape went unsolved for 14 years. Police say the suspect gave his DNA to a genealogy database. By Katie Shepherd:
Reason: Cops Say Encryption Hinders Investigations. These Documents Say Otherwise.
Reason: Cops Say Encryption Hinders Investigations. These Documents Say Otherwise. by J.D. Tuccille (“Law enforcers have plenty of tools; they just want to paw through our data without effort or expense.”)
MT: No REP in text message sent to a LEO
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages defendant sent to an undercover federal officer posing as a prostitute, despite Montana’s enhanced right of privacy under its state constitution. State v. Staker, 2021 MT 151, 2021 Mont. LEXIS … Continue reading
BBC: ANOM: Hundreds arrested in massive global crime sting using messaging app
BBC: ANOM: Hundreds arrested in massive global crime sting using messaging app (“More than 800 suspected criminals have been arrested worldwide after being tricked into using an FBI-run encrypted messaging app, officials say. [¶] The operation, jointly conceived by Australia … Continue reading
techdirt: DoD Is Buying Domestic Internet Metadata From Data Brokers
techdirt: Defense Department Is Buying Domestic Internet Metadata From Data Brokers by Tim Cushing (“Joseph Cox broke the news for Motherboard late last year: the US military was also making use of location data purchased from data brokers, joining a … Continue reading
WaPo: Apple’s AirTag trackers made it frighteningly easy to ‘stalk’ me in a test
WaPo: Apple’s AirTag trackers made it frighteningly easy to ‘stalk’ me in a test by Geoffrey A. Fowler (“Apple knows its tiny new lost-item tracker could empower domestic abuse but doesn’t do enough to stop it.”)
The Intercept: Your Car Is Spying On You, And A CBP Contract Shows The Risks
The Intercept: Your Car Is Spying On You, And A CBP Contract Shows The Risks by Sam Biddle (“A ‘vehicle forensics kit’ can reveal where you’ve driven, what doors you opened, and who your friends are.”)
Brennan Center: The Government Can’t Seize Your Digital Data. Except by Buying It.
Brennan Center: The Government Can’t Seize Your Digital Data. Except by Buying It. by Elizabeth Goitein. Despite Carpenter:
NYT: If You Care About Privacy, It’s Time to Try a New Web Browser
NYT: If You Care About Privacy, It’s Time to Try a New Web Browser by Brian X. Chen (“A new crop of internet browsers from Brave, DuckDuckGo and others offer stronger privacy protections than what you might be used to.”) … Continue reading
Bloomberg Law: Surveillance Camera Hack Raises Legal Risk of Digital Device Use
Bloomberg Law: Surveillance Camera Hack Raises Legal Risk of Digital Device Use by Andrea Vittorio & Jake Holland (“A recent hack into a massive collection of security camera data from Verkada Inc. shows the cyber and privacy-related vulnerabilities of digital … Continue reading
WaPo: ICE investigators used a private utility database covering millions to pursue immigration violations
WaPo: ICE investigators used a private utility database covering millions to pursue immigration violations by Drew Harwell (“Government agencies increasingly are accessing private information they are not authorized to compile on their own.”)
M.D.Fla.: Police dog attack on wrong person not promptly called off was excessive
The officer had reasonable suspicion to frisk three men before they fled him. Releasing a police dog was not unreasonable. The dog’s attack of a 40ish woman, however, was not seen to be reasonable, and the dog was not promptly … Continue reading
Vox: Recode: App trackers secretly sell your location data to the government. App stores won’t stop them.
Vox: Recode: App trackers secretly sell your location data to the government. App stores won’t stop them. By Sara Morrison (“Google can’t stop trackers in its apps from selling location data to the government. Maybe the government can.”)
Techdirt: Treasury Oversight Says IRS Should Consider Getting Warrants Before Buying Location Data From Data Brokers
Techdirt: Treasury Oversight Says IRS Should Consider Getting Warrants Before Buying Location Data From Data Brokers by Tim Cushing (“Last October, Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren asked the IRS’s oversight to take a look at the agency’s use of … Continue reading
Foreign Policy Research Institute: The Intelligence Community and Open-Source Information in the Digital Age
Foreign Policy Research Institute: The Intelligence Community and Open-Source Information in the Digital Age by George W. Croner:
NYT: Opinion: They Stormed the Capitol. Their Apps Tracked Them.
NYT: Opinion: They Stormed the Capitol. Their Apps Tracked Them. By Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson (“Times Opinion was able to identify individuals from a trove of leaked smartphone location data.”)
Nothing online is completely private: Parler data dump of “ethically hacked posts”
NYTimes: How Parler Reveals the Alarming Trajectory of Political Violence by Candace Rondeaux and Heather Hurlburt: