May 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Archives
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Recent Posts
- OR: Even if original served warrant wasn’t the one returned, it doesn’t warrant suppression
- Two on suicide calls as exigency
- W.D.N.Y.: Civil discovery dispute denies access to other employees’ cell phones as 4A issue
- Reason: All New Cars Could Have Mandatory Surveillance Tech Unless Congress Stops This Mandate
- CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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General (many free):
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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)
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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
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)
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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: Surveillance technology
WaPo: Apple plans to scan iPhones to find sexual predators. Some fear the software could be weaponized.
WaPo: Apple plans to scan iPhones to find sexual predators. Some fear the software could be weaponized. By Reed Albergotti (“The new push pits Apple against civil liberties activists and appears to contradict some of the company’s own long-held assertions … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: Privacy is a fiction in the Internet age. A priest’s case proves it.
WaPo: Opinion: Privacy is a fiction in the Internet age. A priest’s case proves it. (“The top administrator of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resigned last month after a newsletter used data from his cellphone to confirm his use … Continue reading
Star Tribune: Opinion: We must face up to the dangers of surveillance technology
Star Tribune: Opinion: We must face up to the dangers of surveillance technology (“Every day that goes by without effective oversight makes it that much harder to rein the technology back in.”)
WaPo: Private Israeli spyware used to hack cellphones of journalists, activists worldwide
WaPo: Private Israeli spyware used to hack cellphones of journalists, activists worldwide by Dana Priest, Craig Timberg, and Souad Mekhennet (“NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, licensed to governments around the globe, can infect phones without a click”):
Vox: From Macy’s to Ace Hardware, facial recognition is already everywhere
Vox: From Macy’s to Ace Hardware, facial recognition is already everywhere by Rebecca Heilwell (“Facial recognition is popping up at our favorite stores, but customers are largely unaware.”)
MLive: Michigan man misidentified by facial recognition technology warns Congress of risks posed by police surveillance
MLive: Michigan man misidentified by facial recognition technology warns Congress of risks posed by police surveillance by Malachi Barrett (“A Michigan man who was wrongly arrested after being misidentified by facial recognition technology joined expert witnesses who warned a congressional … Continue reading
WaPo: Editorial: Want to know how federal law enforcement uses facial recognition? Tough luck.
WaPo: Editorial: Want to know how federal law enforcement uses facial recognition? Tough luck. (“How is federal law enforcement harnessing facial recognition technology? We don’t know the half of it — because federal law enforcement doesn’t know itself.”)
WaPo: If facial recognition is not regulated now, it will never be used responsibly
WaPo: If facial recognition is not regulated now, it will never be used responsibly (“Facial recognition software is full of peril, but it’s also full of potential. with the powerful technology still in its infancy and regulation next to nonexistent, … Continue reading
WaPo: The latest feature on crime app Citizen raises alarms as it accuses the wrong man of arson
WaPo: The latest feature on crime app Citizen raises alarms as it accuses the wrong man of arson by Rachel Lerman & Heather Kelly (“Citizen, a popular app that tracks crimes in cities, offered a $30,000 reward this weekend for … Continue reading
Inside Hook: Amazon’s Ring Is Basically a Giant Civilian Surveillance Network
Inside Hook: Amazon’s Ring Is Basically a Giant Civilian Surveillance Network by Kirk Miller (“After partnering with almost 2,000 police departments, is this home security product a threat to democracy?”)
WaPo: Amazon extends ban on police use of its facial recognition technology indefinitely
WaPo: Amazon extends ban on police use of its facial recognition technology indefinitely by Drew Harwell (“The tech giant said in June its freeze would last a year to ‘give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules.’ No federal laws … Continue reading
The Intercept: Your Car Is Spying On You, And A CBP Contract Shows The Risks
The Intercept: Your Car Is Spying On You, And A CBP Contract Shows The Risks by Sam Biddle (“A ‘vehicle forensics kit’ can reveal where you’ve driven, what doors you opened, and who your friends are.”)
EFF: Your Service Provider’s Terms of Service Shouldn’t Overrule Your 4A Rights
EFF: Your Service Provider’s Terms of Service Shouldn’t Overrule Your Fourth Amendment Rights by Jennifer Lynch:
Reason: Lawmakers Look To Stop the Feds From Secretly Buying Your Private Data
Reason: Lawmakers Look To Stop the Feds From Secretly Buying Your Private Data by Scott Shackford (“A 2018 Supreme Court decision was supposed to protect your location data from federal snooping. That’s not what happened.”)
The Detroit News: Lawsuit: Man suffered ‘great harm’ after wrongful arrest based on Detroit’s facial recognition technology
The Detroit News: Lawsuit: Man suffered ‘great harm’ after wrongful arrest based on Detroit’s facial recognition technology by George Hunter (“Attorneys representing a Farmington Hills man filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking undisclosed damages from the city, its police chief … Continue reading
Reason: Cops Are Using Facial Recognition Technology More Than Previously Revealed
Reason: Cops Are Using Facial Recognition Technology More Than Previously Revealed by J.D. Tuccille (“The surveillance state is available as a plug-and-play solution for any cop interested in a free trial period.”)
Virginian Pilot: Virginia State Police admit — after repeated denials — that they used controversial facial recognition app
Virginian Pilot: Virginia State Police admit — after repeated denials — that they used controversial facial recognition app by Jonathan Edwards (“After repeated denials, the Virginia State Police last week admitted that some of their detectives used a controversial facial … Continue reading
WaPo: How America’s surveillance networks helped the FBI catch the Capitol mob
WaPo: How America’s surveillance networks helped the FBI catch the Capitol mob by Drew Harwell and Craig Timberg (“Federal documents detailing the attacks at the U.S. Capitol show a mix of FBI techniques, from license plate readers to facial recognition, … Continue reading
NYT: If You Care About Privacy, It’s Time to Try a New Web Browser
NYT: If You Care About Privacy, It’s Time to Try a New Web Browser by Brian X. Chen (“A new crop of internet browsers from Brave, DuckDuckGo and others offer stronger privacy protections than what you might be used to.”) … Continue reading
VICE: How Musicians and Sex Workers Beat Facial Recognition in New Orleans
VICE: How Musicians and Sex Workers Beat Facial Recognition in New Orleans by Carolina Sinders (“A grassroots coalition of Black youth, sex workers, and community advocates stood against the surveillance state—and won.”)