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Recent Posts
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- 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”
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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
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Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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
Privacy Foundation
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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) -
“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
EFF: Proctoring Apps Subject Students to Unnecessary Surveillance
EFF: Proctoring Apps Subject Students to Unnecessary Surveillance by Jason Kelley & Lindsay Oliver (“With COVID-19 forcing millions of teachers and students to rethink in-person schooling, this moment is ripe for an innovation in learning. Unfortunately, many schools have simply … Continue reading
Townhall: One of America’s Largest Cities Is Using a 1984 Tactic to Find Quarantine Violators
Townhall: One of America’s Largest Cities Is Using a 1984 Tactic to Find Quarantine Violators by Beth Baumann:
Gizmodo: Law Enforcement Is Buying Its Way Into Our Breaches
Gizmodo: Law Enforcement Is Buying Its Way Into Our Breaches by Shoshana Wodinsky:
WaPo: California begins enforcing digital privacy law, despite calls for delay
WaPo: California begins enforcing digital privacy law, despite calls for delay by Rachel Lerman (“California’s privacy law, often called the broadest law for digital privacy in the United States, can finally be enforced starting Wednesday. And despite industry calls for … Continue reading
Vox: The police want your phone data. Here’s what they can get — and what they can’t.
Vox: The police want your phone data. Here’s what they can get — and what they can’t. By Sara Morrison (“Phones hold gigabytes of potential evidence, but the government’s ability to access them depends on a patchwork of court decisions … Continue reading
gizmodo: Feds Find Fourth Amendment Workaround, Buy Phone Locations From Marketing Firms
gizmodo: Feds Find Fourth Amendment Workaround, Buy Phone Locations From Marketing Firms by Dell Cameron (“Sidestepping the need to obtain a search warrant, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly been accessing phone location data belonging to millions of … Continue reading
WaPo: How William Barr could make everyone’s iPhone more vulnerable
WaPo: How William Barr could make everyone’s iPhone more vulnerable:
Lawfare: Apple vs FBI: Pensacola Isn’t San Bernardino
Lawfare: Apple vs FBI: Pensacola Isn’t San Bernardino by Nicholas Weaver:
NYTimes: Apple Takes a (Cautious) Stand Against Opening a Killer’s iPhones
NYTimes: Apple Takes a (Cautious) Stand Against Opening a Killer’s iPhones By Jack Nicas and Katie Benner (“The Silicon Valley giant is preparing for a legal fight over encryption, even as it works to reduce tensions with the Justice Department.”)
WaPo: At CES, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are preaching privacy. Don’t believe the hype.
WaPo: At CES, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are preaching privacy. Don’t believe the hype. by Geoffrey A. Fowler
Pacific Legal Foundation: With 5G arriving, the Supreme Court needs to rule on what digital privacy means
Pacific Legal Foundation: With 5G arriving, the Supreme Court needs to rule on what digital privacy means by Daniel Woislaw:
WBUR: How California’s New Privacy Law Could Change The Internet
WBUR: How California’s New Privacy Law Could Change The Internet (“This week, on Jan. 1, the California Consumer Privacy Act takes effect, requiring tech companies to disclose what data they collect on their users and what they’re doing with it.”)
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