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- Reason: Miami Sheriff Hired a Private Law Firm To Pursue—and Profit From—Asset Forfeiture Cases
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- Reason: Documents Reveal the Postal Service’s Broad Surveillance of Political Activists
- CA4: Not having child in a booster seat justified stop
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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
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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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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)
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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
NPR: Tech Companies Are Limiting Police Use of Facial Recognition. Here’s Why
NPR: Tech Companies Are Limiting Police Use of Facial Recognition. Here’s Why (“Earlier this month, IBM said it was getting out of the facial recognition business. Then Amazon and Microsoft announced prohibitions on law enforcement using their facial recognition tech. … Continue reading
Nat’l L. Rev.: The Constitution Protects Faces in the Crowd
Nat’l L. Rev.: The Constitution Protects Faces in the Crowd by Theodore F. Claypoole (“Unlimited law enforcement application of facial recognition software to surveillance footage is an unreasonable search and a violation of Constitutional rights for people in a peaceful … Continue reading
WaPo: LAX is testing fever-detecting cameras as passengers depart and arrive
WaPo: LAX is testing fever-detecting cameras as passengers depart and arrive by Hannah Sampson (“Starting Tuesday, some travelers at Los Angeles International Airport will be asked to undergo a new screening process long before they get to security checkpoints: walking … Continue reading
WSJ: IRS Used Cellphone Location Data to Try to Find Suspects [but it didn’t work]
WSJ: IRS Used Cellphone Location Data to Try to Find Suspects by Byron Tau (“The unsuccessful effort shows how anonymized information sold by marketers is increasingly being used by law enforcement to identify suspects”)
NYTimes: Council Forces N.Y.P.D. to Disclose Use of Drones and Other Spy Tech
NYTimes: Council Forces N.Y.P.D. to Disclose Use of Drones and Other Spy Tech by Alan Feuer (“The bill, which the mayor is likely to sign, compels the police to disclose the technology they use and data they collect.”)
CNN: Air Force inspector general investigating use of military aircraft to monitor protesters
CNN: Air Force inspector general investigating use of military aircraft to monitor protesters by Barbara Starr and Caroline Kelly:
Buzzfeed News: Many Police Departments Have Software That Can Identify People In Crowds
Buzzfeed News: Many Police Departments Have Software That Can Identify People In Crowds by Caroline Haskins (“BriefCam, a facial recognition and surveillance video analysis company, sells the ability to surveil protesters and enforce social distancing — without the public knowing.”)
Recode by Vox: Why it matters that IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business
Recode by Vox: Why it matters that IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business by Rebecca Heilweil (“Researchers have for years warned about the problems with facial recognition. Now Big Blue is ditching the tech.”)
OneZero: Google’s Geofence Warrants Face a Major Legal Challenge
OneZero: Google’s Geofence Warrants Face a Major Legal Challenge by Liz Brody (“Police requests for Google data that pinpoints anyone near the scene of a crime increased by more than 500% last year…The opposition to geofencing warrants is growing. The … Continue reading
WaPo: Amazon bans police use of its facial-recognition technology for a year
WaPo: Amazon bans police use of its facial-recognition technology for a year by Jay Greene:
N.D.Ind.: Def’s claim the warrant for his Facebook account is akin to Carpenter and CSLI fails as completely speculative and an admitted “guess”
United States v. Cox, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97326 (N.D. Ind. June 3, 2020):
Privacy News Online: DOJ grants DEA permission to conduct “covert surveillance” on protesters
Privacy News Online: DOJ grants DEA permission to conduct “covert surveillance” on protesters by Caleb Chen (” The DEA is now surveilling protesters in the United States. BuzzFeedNews has uncovered a memorandum that shows that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been … Continue reading
EFF: Don’t Mix Policing with COVID-19 Contact Tracing
EFF: Don’t Mix Policing with COVID-19 Contact Tracing by Adam Schwartz (“Over the weekend, Minnesota’s Public Safety Commissioner analogized COVID-19 contact tracing with police investigation of arrested protesters. This analogy is misleading and dangerous. It also underlines the need for … Continue reading
EFF: COVID-19 Patients’ Right to Privacy Against Quarantine Surveillance
EFF: COVID-19 Patients’ Right to Privacy Against Quarantine Surveillance by Adam Schwartz (“Governments around the world are using surveillance technologies to monitor whether COVID-19 patients are complying with instructions to quarantine at home. These include GPS ankle shackles, phone apps … Continue reading
Business Insider: Civil liberties groups are urging Congress to block the FBI from viewing Americans’ web-browsing history without a warrant
Business Insider: Civil liberties groups are urging Congress to block the FBI from viewing Americans’ web-browsing history without a warrant by Aaron Holmes (“More than 50 groups from across the political spectrum urged lawmakers to block legislation that would let … Continue reading
WSJ: Coronavirus Demands a Privacy Law
WSJ: Coronavirus Demands a Privacy Law by Christine Wilson (“Silicon Valley’s role in contact tracing and social-distancing enforcement has Americans worried.”):
FL5: Trial court’s order suppressing warrantless black box search affirmed for lack of a record
The trial court granted a motion to suppress the search of defendant’s car’s black box (“event data recorder”). The state on appeal seeks to depart from State v. Worsham, 227 So. 3d 602, 603 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017), that there … Continue reading
MA: Fixed license plate readers on bridge to Cape Cod did not provide “a mosaic of location information” sufficiently detailed to violate REP
Although the widespread use by Massachusetts police departments of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) could implicate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches, the positioning of four cameras in fixed positions on the ends of the two bridges leading to Cape Cod … Continue reading
EFF: Courts Issue Rulings in Two Cases Challenging Law Enforcement Searches of License Plate Databases
EFF: Courts Issue Rulings in Two Cases Challenging Law Enforcement Searches of License Plate Databases by Jennifer Lynch:
reason.com: How to Track COVID-19 Without Mass Surveillance
reason.com: How to Track COVID-19 Without Mass Surveillance by Zach Weissmueller (“Apple and Google’s Bluetooth-based app would reportedly be voluntary and anonymous. Privacy advocates say we should accept nothing less.”)