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
- NY Columbia Co.: Alleged excessive nervousness when multiple police cars arrive at a traffic stop doesn’t add to RS
- CA4: Backpack dumped in flight in grandmother’s yard was abandoned
- GA: Virtually all-inclusive list of items to be seized wasn’t overbroad
- CA4: Dist.Ct. erred in applying search incident to arrest to suppress bag when inventory was inevitable
- OR: Even if original served warrant wasn’t the one returned, it doesn’t warrant suppression
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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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State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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"On the Docket"–Medill
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General (many free):
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Westlaw.com $
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
Electronic Frontier Foundation
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
NYTimes: Does the F.B.I. Need Apple to Hack Into iPhones?
NYTimes: Does the F.B.I. Need Apple to Hack Into iPhones? By Jack Nicas (“There are tools to crack into the phones at the center of a new dispute over encryption. But the F.BI. says it still needs Apple’s aid.”)
NY Times: The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It
NY Times: The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It by Kashmir Hill A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and “might lead to a dystopian future or … Continue reading
NYTimes: How the Police Use Facial Recognition, and Where It Falls Short
NYTimes: How the Police Use Facial Recognition, and Where It Falls Short by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries (“Records from Florida, where law enforcement has long used the controversial technology, offer an inside look at its risks and rewards.”)
WaPo: Editorial: California’s privacy law was supposed to spur Congress to act. It flubbed instead.
WaPo: Editorial: California’s privacy law was supposed to spur Congress to act. It flubbed instead. (“Last year was supposed to be the year of a federal privacy law. But Congress flubbed it, so the digital privacy law that seems likely … Continue reading
WaPo: FBI asks Apple for help cracking Pensacola gunman’s iPhones
WaPo: FBI asks Apple for help cracking Pensacola gunman’s iPhones by Devlin Barrett: The FBI is pressing Apple for help opening iPhones that belonged to the Saudi military student who killed three people last month at a naval base in … Continue reading
The Recorder/Law.com: Ring Slapped With Lawsuit Following Reports of Camera Security Breaches
The Recorder/Law.com: Ring Slapped With Lawsuit Following Reports of Camera Security Breaches by Alaina Lancaster (“Despite Amazon-owned Ring’s suite of security offerings, the federal complaint contends that the company has failed to set up ‘even basic cybersecurity protections.’”)
USA Today: Racial bias in facial recognition software: What travelers should know as TSA, CBP expand programs
USA Today: Racial bias in facial recognition software: What travelers should know as TSA, CBP expand programs by Curtis Tate (“The Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been testing facial recognition technology at airports across the … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘I killed Jennifer’: Doorbell camera captures a man confessing to his sister’s stabbing, police say
WaPo: ‘I killed Jennifer’: Doorbell camera captures a man confessing to his sister’s stabbing, police say by Brittany Shammas (“Michael Egwuagu was arrested on a murder charge — a stunning turn for the once-standout college football player.”)
BuzzFeed: The Rise — And Rise — Of Mass Surveillance
BuzzFeed: The Rise — And Rise — Of Mass Surveillance by Megha Rajagopalan (“Eavesdropping bureaucrats have been replaced by algorithm-driven facial recognition technology. But the real impact of indiscriminate surveillance may be in our minds.”)
N.D.Cal.: Google location history case is dismissed without prejudice
The Google location history case is dismissed without prejudice with leave to amend. Plaintiffs don’t show it is an invasion of privacy just because Google tracked only when using Google services. Carpenter and Jones are rejected as binding authority. In … Continue reading
Fortune: Why Apple and Google Have ‘No Real Way’ to Stop Surveillance Apps Like ToTok
Fortune: Why Apple and Google Have ‘No Real Way’ to Stop Surveillance Apps Like ToTok by Alyssa Newcomb (“Perhaps the most troubling part of it all is that there would have been no way for either company to detect any … Continue reading
EFF: Ring Throws Customers Under the Bus After Data Breach
EFF: Ring Throws Customers Under the Bus After Data Breach by Cooper Quintin and Bill Budington:
NYTimes: Giving the Gift of Surveillance
NYTimes: Giving the Gift of Surveillance by Alex Kingsbury (“As 2019 comes to a close, millions of new spying devices are headed for American homes.”)
Bloomberg Law: States Press Ahead With Privacy Laws Even as Congress Stalls
Bloomberg Law: States Press Ahead With Privacy Laws Even as Congress Stalls (“States across the country will keep moving on privacy regulation next year as Congress struggles to come up with a broad federal law, lobbyists and privacy attorneys say. … Continue reading
NYTimes: Be Paranoid About Privacy
NYTimes: Be Paranoid About Privacy by Kara Swisher (“We need to take back our privacy from tech companies — even if that means sacrificing convenience.”):
WaPo: Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands
WaPo: Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands by Drew Harwell:
Biometric Update: Federal, state court rulings on whether biometrics protected by Fifth Amendment get murky
Biometric Update: Federal, state court rulings on whether biometrics protected by Fifth Amendment get murky by Anthony Kimery (“Because courts have ruled they are, and they aren’t, U.S. Supreme Court may be final arbiter.”)
NYTimes: How Your Phone Betrays Democracy
NYTimes: How Your Phone Betrays Democracy by Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson. Hong Kong protestors tracked by their cell phones:
Pacific Legal Foundation: How the Fourth Amendment can protect us from becoming a surveillance state
Pacific Legal Foundation: How the Fourth Amendment can protect us from becoming a surveillance state by Daniel Woislaw. Can it if we aren’t constantly vigilant, and not just going along?
WaPo: Editorial: Why Congress needs to regulate facial-recognition systems
WaPo: Editorial: Why Congress needs to regulate facial-recognition systems (“A MASSIVE government study in which more than 18 million images of more than 8 million people were run through almost 200 algorithms has confirmed what researchers have been warning for years: Facial-recognition … Continue reading