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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 -
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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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"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
Law & Crime: Robert Kraft Gets Huge Win: Judge Blocks Spa Video, Says Evidence Was Illegally Obtained
Law & Crime: Robert Kraft Gets Huge Win: Judge Blocks Spa Video, Says Evidence Was Illegally Obtained by Alberto Luperon: A Florida judge decided to suppress police surveillance footage of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft from a prostitution case, … Continue reading
AP: San Francisco may ban police, city use of facial recognition
AP: San Francisco may ban police, city use of facial recognition by Mat O’Brien and Janie Har: If San Francisco adopts a ban, other cities, states or even Congress could follow, with lawmakers from both parties looking to curtail government … Continue reading
NBC News: How facial recognition became a routine policing tool in America
NBC News: How facial recognition became a routine policing tool in America by Jon Schuppe:
Reason: San Francisco a Step Closer to Banning Police Use of Facial Recognition Surveillance
Reason: San Francisco a Step Closer to Banning Police Use of Facial Recognition Surveillance by Ronald Bailey:
WaPo Podcast: Police test facial recognition in Oregon. But privacy advocates have serious concerns.
WaPo Podcast: Police test facial recognition in Oregon. But privacy advocates have serious concerns. by Drew Harwell
Outside the Beltway: Virginia Judge Rules Automated Collection Of License Plate Data Illegal
Outside the Beltway: Virginia Judge Rules Automated Collection Of License Plate Data Illegal by Doug Mataconis: A Virginia Judge has ruled that automated license plate collection systems violate state law.
Wired: Hacker Says He Can Remotely Kill Car Engines Via Compromised GPS Apps
Wired: Hacker Says He Can Remotely Kill Car Engines Via Compromised GPS Apps:
NYT: The Privacy Project
NYT: The Privacy Project:
NYT: Losing Our Fourth Amendment Data Protection
NYT: Losing Our Fourth Amendment Data Protection by Josephine Wolff: The courts have shielded information when we have a “reasonable expectation” it will stay private. What happens when we stop believing?
Just Security: CBP’s New Social Media Surveillance: A Threat to Free Speech and Privacy
Just Security: CBP’s New Social Media Surveillance: A Threat to Free Speech and Privacy by Raya Koreh:
Gizmodo: If You Care About Privacy, Throw Your Amazon Alexa Devices Into the Sea
Gizmodo: If You Care About Privacy, Throw Your Amazon Alexa Devices Into the Sea by Matt Novak:
WaPo: Code words and fake names: The low-tech ways women protect their privacy on pregnancy apps
WaPo: Code words and fake names: The low-tech ways women protect their privacy on pregnancy apps by Drew Harwell:
Reason: The Feds Are Dropping Child Porn Cases Instead of Revealing Info on Their Surveillance Systems
Reason: The Feds Are Dropping Child Porn Cases Instead of Revealing Info on Their Surveillance Systems by Elizabeth Nolan Brown Human Rights Watch and other groups say these systems draw serious concerns.
Criminal Justice: Facial Recognition Technology: Where Will It Take Us?
Criminal Justice: Facial Recognition Technology: Where Will It Take Us? by Kristine Hamann & Rachel Smith:
NextGov: FBI’s Facial Recognition Programs Under Fire Over Privacy, Accuracy Concerns
NextGov: FBI’s Facial Recognition Programs Under Fire Over Privacy, Accuracy Concerns by Jack Corrigan The bureau has largely ignored the Government Accountability Office’s concerns about its use of facial recognition in criminal investigations.
NYT: We Built a (Legal) Facial Recognition Machine for $60
NYT: We Built a (Legal) Facial Recognition Machine for $60 by Sahil Chinoy. They took the feeds from online cameras and matches faces at, for example, Bryant Park
Law.com: Artificial Intelligence and the Fourth Amendment: When Alexa Can Be a Witness Against You
Law.com: Artificial Intelligence and the Fourth Amendment: When Alexa Can Be a Witness Against You by Katherine B. Forrest: Today, artificial intelligence is actually able to provide much of the same evidence that human witnesses can, with a higher degree … Continue reading
NYT: The Privacy Project
NYT: The Privacy Project:
KY: Possession of MJ on one’s person away from home doesn’t create exigency for search of house
Defendant’s possession of marijuana on his person away from his house didn’t create exigent circumstances for a search of it. Giles v. Commonwealth, 2019 Ky. App. LEXIS 6= (Apr. 12, 2019). Installation of an electronically read gas meter was a … Continue reading
NYT: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police The tech giant records people’s locations worldwide. Now, investigators are using it to find suspects and witnesses near crimes, running the risk of snaring the innocent.
NYT: Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police The tech giant records people’s locations worldwide. Now, investigators are using it to find suspects and witnesses near crimes, running the risk of snaring the innocent. by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries Gizmodo: … Continue reading