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 -
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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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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
NBC News: Amazon’s Alexa may have witnessed alleged Florida murder, authorities say
NBC News: Amazon’s Alexa may have witnessed alleged Florida murder, authorities say By Minyvonne Burke (“Adam Reechard Crespo is charged with murder in connection to the July death of his girlfriend, Silvia Galva, in Hallandale Beach.”)
WaPo: ACLU sues FBI, DOJ over facial-recognition technology, criticizing ‘unprecedented’ surveillance and secrecy
WaPo: ACLU sues FBI, DOJ over facial-recognition technology, criticizing ‘unprecedented’ surveillance and secrecy by Drew Harwell (“The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday sued the Justice Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI for records detailing their use of … Continue reading
NYTimes: You Got a Brain Scan at the Hospital. Someday a Computer May Use It to Identify You.NYTimes: You Got a Brain Scan at the Hospital. Someday a Computer May Use It to Identify You.
NYTimes: You Got a Brain Scan at the Hospital. Someday a Computer May Use It to Identify You. By Gina Kolata (“In a disturbing experiment, imaging and facial recognition technologies were used to match research subjects to their M.R.I. scans.”)
Law.com: Commentary: The Privacy Revolution Has Arrived (in the US)
Law.com: Commentary: The Privacy Revolution Has Arrived (in the US) (“While the European Economic Area, including the European Union, has led the modern privacy revolution, specifically by enacting and enforcing the groundbreaking General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the protection of … Continue reading
NYLJ: Analysis: Warrant-Proof Encryption and Lawful Decryption
NYLJ: Analysis: Warrant-Proof Encryption and Lawful Decryption (“In his Cyber Crime column, Peter A. Crusco addresses the legal landscape surrounding the question of what legal options are available for decrypting an electronic device that has been seized via a lawful … Continue reading
NYTimes: Opinion: Why We Must Ban Facial Recognition Software Now
NYTimes: Opinion: Why We Must Ban Facial Recognition Software Now by Evan Selinger and Woodrow Hartzog (“The benefits do not come close to outweighing the risks.”) Daily Beast: Border Agents Could Get Bodycams With Facial Recognition Technology by Blake Montgomery … Continue reading
Just Security: A Fourth Amendment Framework for Voiceprint Database Searches
Just Security: A Fourth Amendment Framework for Voiceprint Database Searches by Cassandra Deskus & Joshua R. Fattal:
NYTimes: Opinion: You’re in a Police Lineup, Right Now
NYTimes: Opinion: You’re in a Police Lineup, Right Now (“Face-recognition technology is the new norm. You may think, ‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ but we all should be concerned.”).
The Nation: Google Is Coming for Your Face
The Nation: Google Is Coming for Your Face (“Personal data is routinely harvested from the most vulnerable populations, without transparency, regulation, or principles—and this should concern us all.”)
Miami Herald: Miami Police to purchase spyware to trace and monitor phones and social media
Miami Herald: Miami Police to purchase spyware to trace and monitor phones and social media by Jack Brooke (“The Miami Police Department will soon have its own surveillance technology to track and monitor phone calls and social media messages.”)
ZDNet: Civil rights groups urge lawmakers to dissolve police partnerships with Ring
ZDNet: Civil rights groups urge lawmakers to dissolve police partnerships with Ring by Charlie Osborne (“It has been reported that roughly 400 US police departments are collaborating with the smart doorbell firm.”) ZDNet: iOS 13 tells you when apps are … Continue reading
Justice Department takes another run at encryption backdoors with ‘lawful access’
CSO: Justice Department takes another run at encryption backdoors with ‘lawful access’ by Cynthia Brumfield (“Law enforcement officials and experts on the distribution of child pornography gathered on Friday to make the emotional, if not technological, case that tech companies … Continue reading
Legal Intelligencer: Commentary: What Is a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Digital World? Part II
Legal Intelligencer: Commentary: What Is a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Digital World? Part II by Leonard Deutchman (“In last week’s article, I discussed the findings of the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s nonprecedential decision in Commonwealth v. Mason, in which … Continue reading
Forbes: Facial Recognition: A Force For Good … Or Government?
Forbes: Facial Recognition: A Force For Good … Or Government? by Jon Markman (“The world is on the cusp of a massive $12.3 trillion 5G explosion. Former Verizon CEO, Lowell McAdam, says 5G ‘will usher in the Fourth Industrial Revolution … Continue reading
Wired: The Ringification of Suburban Life
Wired: The Ringification of Suburban Life by Louise Matsakis (“Consumer surveillance cameras are everywhere now, and they’re capturing moments we otherwise would never have known happened.”)
Slate: The Rise of Networked Vigilante Surveillance
Slate: The Rise of Networked Vigilante Surveillance by Elizabeth Joh (“What happens when the neighborhood watch gets automatic license plate readers?”)
NYT: Opinion: The Loophole That Turns Your Apps Into Spies
NYT: Opinion: The Loophole That Turns Your Apps Into Spies by Charlie Warzel (“Just by downloading an app, you’re potentially exposing sensitive data to dozens of technology companies, ad networks, data brokers and aggregators.”)
Lawfare: How Companies Can Help Make Police Facial Recognition Systems More Transparent
Lawfare: How Companies Can Help Make Police Facial Recognition Systems More Transparent by Jake Laperruque (“As facial recognition becomes an increasingly common law enforcement tool, the risks it can pose are becoming increasingly clear. Recently, police in Hong Kong are … Continue reading
The Hill: Basic biometrics: Why this emerging technology must be regulated now
The Hill: Basic biometrics: Why this emerging technology must be regulated now by Adam Leval:
Motherboard: The Private Surveillance System That Tracks Cars Nationwide
Motherboard: The Private Surveillance System That Tracks Cars Nationwide (“It’s not just the NSA with all of the surveillance power in America, there’s a booming corporate-owned surveillance industry used by private investigators.”).