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- Reason: Homeland Security Is Monitoring Activists Building Anti-Flock Tech
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- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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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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: GPS / Tracking Data
CA9: No prohibition to placing GPS on car at night
A tracking order was issued with probable cause, and there’s no special requirement that a GPS device can’t be placed at night, compared to the nighttime search requirements. United States v. Brock, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 7195 (9th Cir. April … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Only two hours of warrantless GPS monitoring doesn’t offend Jones
Two hours of GPS monitoring didn’t implicate Jones’s reasonable expectation of privacy standard because it wasn’t long term. Defendant didn’t own the vehicle with the GPS device on it, but he was an authorized driver, and that gives him standing. … Continue reading
CA10: For pre-Jones GPS good faith to apply, Knotts and Karo are enough
In a pre-Jones GPS case, even though there was no authority from this circuit, two SCOTUS cases seemingly authorized warrantless GPS: Knotts (1983) and Karo (1984). Thus, the Davis good faith exception would be applied. “We also note that several … Continue reading
ID erroneously puts burden of proof on driver in DL suspension cases to prove stop was not valid
In DL suspensions in Idaho, the burden is on the driver to show a lack of justification for the stop, not on the state to prove that it was valid. “The hearing officer properly concluded that Wernecke failed to prove … Continue reading
SCOTUS per curiam: Grady v. North Carolina: Satellite based monitoring of sex offenders implicates the Fourth Amendment; reversed for reconsideration under Jones
North Carolina’s satellite based monitoring (SBM) of sex offenders is designed to effect a government search of the location of sex offenders under Jones. It matters not that it is in the context of a civil case. The state court … Continue reading
Ars Technica: Is a lifetime of involuntary GPS monitoring constitutional?
Ars Technica: Is a lifetime of involuntary GPS monitoring constitutional? by David Kravets: When the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that affixing GPS devices to vehicles to track their every move without court warrants was an unconstitutional trespass, the outcome … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Def failed to even attempt to show REP in driveway as curtilage for pre-Jones GPS installation
GPS trackers were placed on two cars in codefendant’s driveway in 2009 (pre-Jones). The defense doesn’t show enough about the driveway and a reasonable expectation of privacy in it to conclude that there was a violation of curtilage here. United … Continue reading
W.D.La.: License plate reader results became a factor in RS analysis
In an alien smuggling case, aside from all the normal factors of nervousness and not knowing the passenger’s names who had no luggage who he professed were friends, one factor in the reasonable suspicion in this case was the police … Continue reading
WaPo: Supreme Court review of cell-site cases?
WaPo: Supreme Court review of cell-site cases? by Orin Kerr: On Tuesday of this week, the en banc Eleventh Circuit will hear oral argument in United States v. Davis, the case I blogged about here and here on whether the … Continue reading
Daily Finance: To Combat Fraud, Visa Wants to Track Your Smartphone
Daily Finance: To Combat Fraud, Visa Wants to Track Your Smartphone by Ken Sweet: NEW YORK — Those days of calling your bank to let them know that, yes, you really are in Thailand, and yes, you really did use … Continue reading
MO: Even if ping order was unlawful, defendant’s flight from police was an intervening act
Defendant was wanted in a double murder, and police got a court approved ping order to locate his phone, and he was in Oklahoma. Defendant saw that he was being followed and led the police on a high speed chase … Continue reading
SC Magazine: Act would require gov’t to get warrant for electronic content, geolocation data
SC Magazine: Act would require gov’t to get warrant for electronic content, geolocation data by Teri Robinson: A bipartisan trio of legislators reintroduced the Online Communication and Geolocation Protection Act to extend Fourth Amendment rights to electronic communications. A bipartisan … Continue reading
NYTimes: Verizon’s Mobile ‘Supercookies’ Seen as Threat to Privacy
NYTimes: Verizon’s Mobile ‘Supercookies’ Seen as Threat to Privacy by Natasha Singer and Brian X. Chenjan: For the last several months, cybersecurity experts have been warning Verizon Wireless that it was putting the privacy of its customers at risk. The … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: SW not required for cell site location information; the third party doctrine hasn’t changed
A search warrant is not required for cell site location information. Jones is inapplicable, and the third party doctrine hasn’t changed. United States v. Lang, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7553 (N.D. Ill. January 23, 2015):
The Hill: Lawmakers push to require a warrant for GPS tracking by police
The Hill: Lawmakers push to require a warrant for GPS tracking by police by Julian Hattem: Lawmakers in both parties are pushing to require that police have a warrant before tracking people’s locations via their cellphones and other GPS devices. … Continue reading
CA7 & Cal.1: GPS placed in 2011 saved by GFE; one case a triple murder
When the GPS was put on defendant’s car in 2011 before Jones, binding precedent said that it was lawful, so the good faith exception applies. United States v. Taylor, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 601 (7th Cir. January 14, 2015); People … Continue reading
techdirt: Baltimore PD Hides Its Stingray Usage Under A Pen Register Order; Argues There’s Really No Difference Between The Two
techdirt: Baltimore PD Hides Its Stingray Usage Under A Pen Register Order; Argues There’s Really No Difference Between The Two by Tim Cushing: Another case involving Stingray devices has made its way into the federal court system, prompting the ACLU … Continue reading
TechDirt: Court Asked Why There’s No Expectation Of Privacy In Cell Location Data, But An Expectation Of Privacy In The Cellphone Itself
TechDirt: Court Asked Why There’s No Expectation Of Privacy In Cell Location Data, But An Expectation Of Privacy In The Cellphone Itself by Tim Cushing: from the warrants-warranted dept
E.D.N.Y.: CSLI collection was shown to be with cause; def likely didn’t even have standing
Defendant used the cell phone of another in this alleged criminal enterprise, and it is doubtful that he has standing to complain of the cell site location information collection. Even if he did have standing, it was all obtained by … Continue reading
OH5: Six weeks after second controlled buy not stale where there’s ongoing drug dealing
There were two controlled buys of marijuana from defendant’s store on May 3d & 21st. A third buy was July 2d but the test results weren’t back when a search warrant was obtained on July 3d. The July 2d buy … Continue reading