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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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)
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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
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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: Surveillance technology
NYTimes: Opinion: You Should Be Freaking Out About Privacy
NYTimes: Opinion: You Should Be Freaking Out About Privacy featuring Farhad Manjoo and Kara Swisher (“Nothing to hide, nothing to fear? Think again.”)
NYTimes Editorial: Total Surveillance Is Not What America Signed Up For
NYTimes Editorial: Total Surveillance Is Not What America Signed Up For:
NYTimes: Police Surveillance Planes to Fly Above Baltimore in 2020
NYTimes: Police Surveillance Planes to Fly Above Baltimore in 2020 by AP (“BALTIMORE — The city of Baltimore will be monitored by surveillance airplanes for up to six months next year under a pilot program announced Friday that is aimed … Continue reading
NYTimes: Many Facial-Recognition Systems Are Biased, Says U.S. Study
NYTimes: Many Facial-Recognition Systems Are Biased, Says U.S. Study by Natasha Singer and Cade Metz (“Algorithms falsely identified African-American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more than Caucasian faces, researchers for the National Institute of Standards and Technology found.”)
NYTimes: Opinion: The Privacy Project || Smartphones Are Spies. Here’s Who They Report To.
NYTimes: Opinion: The Privacy Project || Smartphones Are Spies. Here’s Who They Report To. by Stuart A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel: Your smartphone is probably sending your precise location to companies right now. Their job is to turn your shopping … Continue reading
NYTimes: Your Landlord Could Know That You’re Not at Home Right Now
NYTimes: Your Landlord Could Know That You’re Not at Home Right Now by Michael McKee (“Key fobs and other smart-access technologies make it easier for us to get in and out of our homes — but they’re also a privacy … Continue reading
WaPo: She installed a Ring camera in her children’s room for ‘peace of mind.’ A hacker accessed it and harassed her 8-year-old daughter.
WaPo: She installed a Ring camera in her children’s room for ‘peace of mind.’ A hacker accessed it and harassed her 8-year-old daughter. By Allyson Chiu (“Several Ring users nationwide have reported that their security systems were also infiltrated by … Continue reading
Vox: How to avoid a dystopian future of facial recognition in law enforcement
Vox: How to avoid a dystopian future of facial recognition in law enforcement y Shirin Ghaffary (“The future of police surveillance doesn’t have to be scary. But government and citizens need to step up.”) Vox: What facial recognition steals from … Continue reading
VICE: Inside Ring’s Quest to Become Law Enforcement’s Best Friend
VICE: Inside Ring’s Quest to Become Law Enforcement’s Best Friend by Caroline Haskins (“Amazon’s surveillance company has seeped into hundreds of American communities by throwing parties for police and giving them free devices.”)
WaPo: DHS withdraws proposal to require airport facial scans for U.S. citizens
WaPo: DHS withdraws proposal to require airport facial scans for U.S. citizens by Lori Aratani (“Homeland security officials said Thursday they were dropping a proposal that would have required citizens to have their faces scanned when entering or leaving the … Continue reading
WSJ: A Billion Surveillance Cameras Forecast to Be Watching Within Two Years
WSJ: A Billion Surveillance Cameras Forecast to Be Watching Within Two Years by Liza Lin and Newley Purnell (“Global numbers to grow almost 30% as higher image quality allows better facial recognition. … As governments and companies invest more in … Continue reading
techdirt: EU Tells US: Ban Strong Encryption, And Privacy Shield Data Sharing Agreement Could Be At Risk
techdirt: EU Tells US: Ban Strong Encryption, And Privacy Shield Data Sharing Agreement Could Be At Risk by Glyn Moody:
The Intercept: Amazon’s Ring Planned Neighborhood “Watch Lists” Built on Facial Recognition
The Intercept: Amazon’s Ring Planned Neighborhood “Watch Lists” Built on Facial Recognition by Sam Biddle (“Ring, Amazon’s crimefighting surveillance camera division, has crafted plans to use facial recognition software and its ever-expanding network of home security cameras to create AI-enabled … Continue reading
The Intercept: Senators Press Amazon on Ring’s Sloppy Security Practices
The Intercept: Senators Press Amazon on Ring’s Sloppy Security Practices by Sam Biddle (“This past year has been chock full of uncomfortable revelations about Ring, the surveillance social network and home security hardware company acquired by Amazon for a reported … Continue reading
NBC News: Police used Google location data to find an accused bank robber. He says that’s illegal.
NBC News: Police used Google location data to find an accused bank robber. He says that’s illegal. By Jon Schuppe (“The demand for Google data, known as a geofence warrant, is a way for law enforcement authorities to take advantage … Continue reading
WaPo: Police can keep Ring camera video forever and share with whomever they’d like, Amazon tells senator
WaPo: Police can keep Ring camera video forever and share with whomever they’d like, Amazon tells senator
Courthouse News: Judge Rules FBI Cannot Hide Use of Social Media Surveillance Tools
Courthouse News: Judge Rules FBI Cannot Hide Use of Social Media Surveillance Tools by Nicholas Iovino (“The FBI cannot hide whether it uses powerful surveillance tools to monitor the social-media activity of millions of Americans and noncitizens, a federal judge … Continue reading
USA Today: Facial recognition: The fight over the use of our faces is far from over
USA Today: Facial recognition: The fight over the use of our faces is far from over by Terry Collins:
WaPo: Fingerprints and face scans are the future of smartphones. These holdouts refuse to use them.
WaPo: Fingerprints and face scans are the future of smartphones. These holdouts refuse to use them. by Heather Kelly:
BuzzFeed: Amazon-Owned Ring Shared Data About Tracking Kids On Halloween
BuzzFeed: Amazon-Owned Ring Shared Data About Tracking Kids On Halloween by Caroline Haskins (“The home surveillance company owned by Amazon bragged on Instagram about taping millions of kids going door to door.”)