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- 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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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
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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
BLT: Fourth Circuit Grapples With Privacy of Cell Tower Data
BLT: Fourth Circuit Grapples With Privacy of Cell Tower Data by Mike Scarcella: Maryland’s top federal prosecutor argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that cellphone users have no privacy expectation in the records that wireless … Continue reading
OH12: Def had no standing to contest pinging wife’s cell phone even though police were looking for him
Defendant was a suspected heroin dealer taking his family on runs to Boston to get the heroin. When defendant left, they went to his house and did a trash pull and got his wife’s cell phone number from a bill … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: 30 day cell phone GPS tracking order requires PC and particularity
A 30 day cell phone GPS tracking order requires probable cause and particularity; otherwise it is a general warrant. Intercepted calls, however, led to a search warrant for his house. The search of the house has a different basis, and … Continue reading
WBAL: ACLU alleges police use of Stringray violates 4th Amendment
WBAL: ACLU alleges police use of Stringray violates 4th Amendment by David Collins (with video) The Baltimore Sun: Stringray used to pinpoint suspect’s location by Justin Fenton: ACLU joins Md. federal case over cellphone tracking
Your recently purchased used car might be tracking you
Arkansas Business: Car-Mart Uses GPS To Improve ‘Efficiency’ by Marty Cook:
WaPo: Phone tracking: From your address to, now, your altitude
WaPo: Phone tracking: From your address to, now, your altitude by Craig Timberg: Cellphone tracking is about to go vertical as the location-services industry, prodded by the U.S. government, solves the riddle of what experts call ‘the z vector.’ Soon … Continue reading
arstechnica: AT&T demands clarity: Are warrants needed for customer cell-site data?
arstechnica: AT&T demands clarity: Are warrants needed for customer cell-site data? by David Kravets Legal uncertainty surrounds a law compelling disclosure of location information. AT&T has entered the legal fracas over whether court warrants are required for the government to … Continue reading
EFF Fights Government’s Effort to Get Cell Location Records Without a Warrant
EFF Fights Government’s Effort to Get Cell Location Records Without a Warrant by Hanni Fakhoury and Jennifer Lynch: Once again, a federal court will decide whether police can track your movements over an extended period of time without a search … Continue reading
Baltimore Sun: Judge threatens detective with contempt for declining to reveal cellphone tracking methods
Baltimore Sun: Judge threatens detective with contempt for declining to reveal cellphone tracking methods by Justin Fenton: Baltimore prosecutors withdrew key evidence in a robbery case Monday rather than reveal details of the cellphone tracking technology police used to gather … Continue reading
ACLU: AT&T Comes Out in Support of Stricter Standards for Police Cell Location Phone Tracking
ACLU: AT&T Comes Out in Support of Stricter Standards for Police Cell Location Phone Tracking (press release): MIAMI – In a landmark move in the battle over privacy rights and new technologies, AT&T has filed a federal court brief arguing … Continue reading
NYTimes: Privacy Concerns for Tracking Apps for Schoolchildren
NYTimes: Privacy Concerns for Tracking Apps for Schoolchildren by Natasha Singer: Many teachers say the ClassDojo app helps them automate the task of recording classroom conduct, but some critics say such apps are being adopted without enough consideration for data … Continue reading
OH: At the time the GPS was installed, SCOTUS authority at least “suggested” in Knotts and Karo that it was constitutional, and that’s good enough for government work
At the time the GPS was put on defendant’s car, SCOTUS authority at least “suggested” in Knotts and Karo, before GPS was even envisioned, that it was constitutional, and that’s good enough for government work. The Davis good faith exception … Continue reading
Lexology: iSpy: tracking employees with GPS technology on mobile devices
Lexology: iSpy: tracking employees with GPS technology on mobile devices by Wilson Elser, Dean A. Rocco and Christopher A. Gelpi: More than 90 percent of the 322 million cellular phones in use in the United States contain global positioning system … Continue reading
CA5: Since court upheld warrantless GPS before Jones, no 2255 relief
The Fifth Circuit upheld GPS tracking without a warrant prior to Jones, so defendant wasn’t entitled to 2255 relief under Davis good faith. (The government also argued that Stone v. Powell applied, which would be true, but the court didn’t … Continue reading
WaPo: The controversial device that helped catch alleged Philadelphia abductor
WaPo: The controversial device that helped catch alleged Philadelphia abductor by Abby Ohlheiser: Delvin Barnes was arrested with the help of a GPS device planted in his Ford Taurus by the dealership.
CA3: GFE for GPS can derive from old law, without binding authority
ACLU: Federal Appeals Court Rules Evidence Obtained From GPS Device Without Warrant Is Admissible: PHILADELPHIA – The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that evidence derived from warrantless use of a GPS tracking device can be used in court, … Continue reading
D.Md.: GPS order could include rental cars for up to 60 days
A GPS warrant could issue for future rental vehicles for a fixed time frame. Defendant used weekly rented rental vehicles to transport drugs and there was no way of predicting what his next vehicle would be. United States v. Miller, … Continue reading