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- NE: LEO’s statutory jurisdictional authority is not an unreasonable search and seizure question
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- D.Kan.: Drug dog touching car door handle with nose isn’t unreasonable search
- D.N.M.: DEA’s failure to make a detailed inventory in violation of policy doesn’t require exclusion of evidence
- WaPo: These cities bar facial recognition tech. Police still found ways to access it.
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-24,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 425,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 45,000 posts since 2003 (26,730+ on WordPress as of 12/31/23) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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 -
"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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew "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)
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Category Archives: Digital privacy
N.D.Cal.: Google location history case is dismissed without prejudice
The Google location history case is dismissed without prejudice with leave to amend. Plaintiffs don’t show it is an invasion of privacy just because Google tracked only when using Google services. Carpenter and Jones are rejected as binding authority. In … Continue reading
EFF: Ring Throws Customers Under the Bus After Data Breach
EFF: Ring Throws Customers Under the Bus After Data Breach by Cooper Quintin and Bill Budington:
NYTimes: Giving the Gift of Surveillance
NYTimes: Giving the Gift of Surveillance by Alex Kingsbury (“As 2019 comes to a close, millions of new spying devices are headed for American homes.”)
Bloomberg Law: States Press Ahead With Privacy Laws Even as Congress Stalls
Bloomberg Law: States Press Ahead With Privacy Laws Even as Congress Stalls (“States across the country will keep moving on privacy regulation next year as Congress struggles to come up with a broad federal law, lobbyists and privacy attorneys say. … Continue reading
NYTimes: Be Paranoid About Privacy
NYTimes: Be Paranoid About Privacy by Kara Swisher (“We need to take back our privacy from tech companies — even if that means sacrificing convenience.”):
NYTimes: Opinion: The Privacy Project || Smartphones Are Spies. Here’s Who They Report To.
NYTimes: Opinion: The Privacy Project || Smartphones Are Spies. Here’s Who They Report To. by Stuart A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel: Your smartphone is probably sending your precise location to companies right now. Their job is to turn your shopping … Continue reading
The Economist: Surveillance is a fact of life, so make privacy a human right
The Economist: Surveillance is a fact of life, so make privacy a human right by K.N.C.:
WaPo: Police can keep Ring camera video forever and share with whomever they’d like, Amazon tells senator
WaPo: Police can keep Ring camera video forever and share with whomever they’d like, Amazon tells senator
Security Boulevard: Pew Survey: America Worries About Privacy (But Won’t Do Anything About It)
Security Boulevard: Pew Survey: America Worries About Privacy (But Won’t Do Anything About It) by Richi Jennings:
WaPo: Fingerprints and face scans are the future of smartphones. These holdouts refuse to use them.
WaPo: Fingerprints and face scans are the future of smartphones. These holdouts refuse to use them. by Heather Kelly:
BuzzFeed: Amazon-Owned Ring Shared Data About Tracking Kids On Halloween
BuzzFeed: Amazon-Owned Ring Shared Data About Tracking Kids On Halloween by Caroline Haskins (“The home surveillance company owned by Amazon bragged on Instagram about taping millions of kids going door to door.”)
CSOOline: US Department of Justice push for encryption backdoors might run afoul of First Amendment
CSOOline: US Department of Justice push for encryption backdoors might run afoul of First Amendment by Cynthia Brumfield (“Is encryption code speech? Earlier court rulings suggest that it is, legally, and therefore subject to First Amendment protections.”)
NBC News: Amazon’s Alexa may have witnessed alleged Florida murder, authorities say
NBC News: Amazon’s Alexa may have witnessed alleged Florida murder, authorities say By Minyvonne Burke (“Adam Reechard Crespo is charged with murder in connection to the July death of his girlfriend, Silvia Galva, in Hallandale Beach.”)
NYTimes: How We Spy on Each Other Every Day
NYTimes: How We Spy on Each Other Every Day by Thorin Klosowski (“Technology allows us to do it. Should we?”).
Legal Intelligencer: Commentary: What Is a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Digital World? Part II
Legal Intelligencer: Commentary: What Is a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Digital World? Part II by Leonard Deutchman (“In last week’s article, I discussed the findings of the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s nonprecedential decision in Commonwealth v. Mason, in which … Continue reading