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- CA10: Use of flashlight to aid a drone is still plain view
- D.P.R.: Def can lack standing in the place yet still be in possession to be convicted
- VA: No REP in ALPR
- LA4: Bodycams of warrant execution could be considered where not in evidence but parties agreed court could look
- MS: Failure to include SW materials anywhere in record was waiver of issues about it
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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 $ -
Research Links:
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Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
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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: Surveillance technology
WaPo: Police explore teaming up with a new crime-fighting partner: AI
WaPo: Police explore teaming up with a new crime-fighting partner: AI by Katie Mettler (“The Oklahoma City Police Department is one of 35 law enforcement agencies across the country in the early stages of adopting Longeye, which its San Francisco-based … Continue reading
The Guardian: ‘Creepy surveillance’: why some cities are shutting down Flock cameras amid privacy concerns
The Guardian: ‘Creepy surveillance’: why some cities are shutting down Flock cameras amid privacy concerns by George Chidi (“In recent city council meetings in Dunwoody, Georgia, a spokesman for Flock Safety, a Georgia-based firm that provides automated license plate readers, … Continue reading
NPR: Your data is everywhere. The government is buying it without a warrant
NPR: Your data is everywhere. The government is buying it without a warrant by Jude Joffe-Block:
Reason: The Feds Are Investing in Wearable Health Trackers. That Could Put Your Private Data at Risk.
Reason: The Feds Are Investing in Wearable Health Trackers. That Could Put Your Private Data at Risk. by Jeffrey A. Singer & Patrick Eddington (“By gathering continuous data about sleep, heart rate, and physical activity, biowearable devices can give individuals … Continue reading
FoxNews: Surveillance tech causes police to accuse wrong woman in porch theft investigation
FoxNews: Surveillance tech causes police to accuse wrong woman in porch theft investigation (“License plate reader data led to police accusing the wrong woman of porch theft before new evidence showed the suspect’s vehicle was not at the scene.” It … Continue reading
ABAJ: Surveillance footage enters slapstick comedy TV genre, and that could be dangerous, lawyer says
ABAJ: Surveillance footage enters slapstick comedy TV genre, and that could be dangerous, lawyer says by Adam Banner. About halfway in:
404 Media: CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements
404 Media: CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements by Joseph Cox (“An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to … Continue reading
Baltimore: AI identifies bag of Doritos in school as a gun
BBC: Armed police handcuff teen after AI mistakes [Doritos chip bag] for gun in US by Liv McMahon & Imran Rahman-Jones (“A US teenager was handcuffed by armed police after an artificial intelligence (AI) system mistakenly said he was carrying … Continue reading
Deftechtimes: Financial spy tool yanked from ICE after agents used it to hunt immigrants
Deftechtimes: Financial spy tool yanked from ICE after agents used it to hunt immigrants by Ruta Deshpande (“Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have lost access to a major database that tracked money transfers between the U.S. and Mexico. ICE … Continue reading
Lexology: Constitutional Challenges to AI Monitoring Systems in Public Schools
Lexology: Constitutional Challenges to AI Monitoring Systems in Public Schools (“Two recent federal lawsuits filed against school districts in Lawrence, Kansas and Marana, Arizona highlight emerging legal challenges surrounding the use of AI surveillance tools in the educational setting. Both … Continue reading
Latin Times: Arrest of Mexican Man in Hawaii Shows ICE is Using Remittance Data To Deport Migrants
Latin Times: Arrest of Mexican Man in Hawaii Shows ICE is Using Remittance Data To Deport Migrants by Pedro Camacho (“Critics argue that bulk collection of financial data without a warrant may violate the Fourth Amendment.”) But the third party … Continue reading
RawStory: ‘Horrible!’ Trump accused of using immigrants as guinea pigs for terrifying tech trial
RawStory: ‘Horrible!’ Trump accused of using immigrants as guinea pigs for terrifying tech trial by Matt Lasso:
The Intercept: Border Patrol Wants Advanced AI to Spy on American Cities: Even through walls
The Intercept: Border Patrol Wants Advanced AI to Spy on American Cities by Sam Biddle (“A U.S. Border Patrol ‘Industry Day’ deck also asks for drones, seismic sensors, and tech that can see through walls.”) Really. Never read Kyllo (2001)?
Law Review: Encryption Backdoors and the Fourth Amendment
Robert M. White, Encryption Backdoors and the Fourth Amendment, 108 Marq. L. Rev. 465 (2024). Abstract:
NYLJ: ‘This Is Not Science Fiction’: Trump Administration Uses Peter Thiel’s ‘Planantir’ Surveillance Technology to Spy on Americans
NYLJ: ‘This Is Not Science Fiction’: Trump Administration Uses Peter Thiel’s ‘Planantir’ Surveillance Technology to Spy on Americans by Bennett L. Gershman:
OH: No REP in single location info entered into a phone app
Defendant’s single location information entered into a phone app that was used to set up a robbery was basic third-party information not protected by Carpenter. State v. Diaw, 2025-Ohio-2323 (July 2, 2025):
National Review: Washington State to Use Drivers’ Cell Phone Data to Enforce Traffic Laws
National Review: Washington State to Use Drivers’ Cell Phone Data to Enforce Traffic Laws by John R. Puri (but it just sounds like what Google collects for GPS traffic):
Reason: Florida Used a Nationwide Surveillance Camera Network 250 Times To Aid in Immigration Arrests
Reason: Florida Used a Nationwide Surveillance Camera Network 250 Times To Aid in Immigration Arrests by Autumn Billings (“Flock Safety’s 40,000 cameras present in over 5,000 communities across the U.S. are being used to detain undocumented immigrants, many of whom … Continue reading
Marshall Project: How AI-Powered Police Forces Watch Your Every Move
Marshall Project: How AI-Powered Police Forces Watch Your Every Move by Jamiles Lartley (“Artificial intelligence is changing how police investigate crimes — and monitor citizens — as regulators struggle to keep pace.”)