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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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"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
NPRL: Body Camera Maker Weighs Adding Facial Recognition Technology
NPRL: Body Camera Maker Weighs Adding Facial Recognition Technology by Ian Wren: The largest supplier of law enforcement body cameras in the U.S. is exploring pairing its cameras with new AI capabilities — including real-time face recognition.
Wired UK: Facial recognition tech used by UK police is making a ton of mistakes
Wired UK: Facial recognition tech used by UK police is making a ton of mistakes by Matt Burgess: South Wales Police, London’s Met and Leicestershire have all been trialling automated facial recognition in public places. But a lack of legal … Continue reading
VA: LP reader information is “personal information” under state law
Under Virginia law, “[t]he pictures and associated data stored in the Police Department’s A[utomated] L[icense] P[late] R[reader] database meet the statutory definition of ‘personal information.’” The court can’t tell on this record whether it constitutes an “information system.” Neal v. … Continue reading
IN: Thermal imaging SW was based on PC, then SW for house was, too
The police obtained a thermal imaging warrant, and it was based on probable cause, information from a CI that was corroborated. That led to a search warrant for the premises, and it was also based on collective knowledge of the … Continue reading
Fortune: Police Body Cameras Could Get Facial Recognition Technology
Fortune: Police Body Cameras Could Get Facial Recognition Technology by Lisa Marie Segarra:
The Crime Report: Facial Recognition Software: Coming Soon to Your Local Retailer?
The Crime Report: Facial Recognition Software: Coming Soon to Your Local Retailer? by Nick Coult: Shoplifting is harmless, right? It’s nothing more than a victimless petty crime. Besides, it doesn’t really hurt the retailers because they just write off their … Continue reading
The Reporter: Columnist: Answers to privacy concerns depend on philosophical approach
The Reporter: Columnist: Answers to privacy concerns depend on philosophical approach by Richard Bammer:
Motherboard: Mass Surveillance Memes Show Our Collective Anxiety Over Government Spying
Motherboard: Mass Surveillance Memes Show Our Collective Anxiety Over Government Spying by Mack DeGeurin: Surveillance memes are everywhere because it feels like surveillance is everywhere.
WSJ: Artificial Intelligence Could Soon Enhance Real-Time Police Surveillance
WSJ: Artificial Intelligence Could Soon Enhance Real-Time Police Surveillance by Shibani Mahtani and Zusha Elinson: CHICAGO—Several technology companies are working with police departments across the U.S. to develop the capability to add artificial intelligence to video surveillance and body cameras … Continue reading
The Economist: There will be little privacy in the workplace of the future
The Economist: There will be little privacy in the workplace of the future: AI will make workplaces more efficient, safer-and much creepier.
NYTimes: Hey, Alexa, What Can You Hear? And What Will You Do With It?
NYTimes: Hey, Alexa, What Can You Hear? And What Will You Do With It? by Sapna Maheswari: Amazon and Google have filed patent applications, many still under consideration, that outline how digital assistants can monitor more of what users say … Continue reading
The Intercept: ICE Uses Facebook Data to Find and Track Suspects, Internal Emails Show
The Intercept: ICE Uses Facebook Data to Find and Track Suspects, Internal Emails Show by Lee Fang: ICE, the federal agency tasked with Trump’s program of mass deportation, uses backend Facebook data to locate and track suspects.
Courthouse News Service: Seventh Circuit Hears Privacy Case Over Smart Meters
Courthouse News Service: Seventh Circuit Hears Privacy Case Over Smart Meters by Lorraine Bailey:
cgn.com: Unlocking iPhones at $50 a pop
cgn.com: Unlocking iPhones at $50 a pop by Sara Friedman
NYLJ: Swarms of Drones: Collecting Data and Delivering Potential Liabilities
NYLJ: Swarms of Drones: Collecting Data and Delivering Potential Liabilities by Paul B. Keller:
Daily Beast: New Facebook-Backed Law Would Let Foreign Governments Get Your Data Without a Warrant
Daily Beast: New Facebook-Backed Law Would Let Foreign Governments Get Your Data Without a Warrant by Spencer Ackerman:
NYTimes: Opinion: How Democracy Can Survive Big Data
NYTimes: Opinion: How Democracy Can Survive Big Data by Colin Coopman: An adequate ethics of data for today would include not only regulatory policy and statutory law governing matters like personal data privacy and implicit bias in algorithms.
NYTimes: Justice Dept. Revives Push to Mandate a Way to Unlock Phones
NYTimes: Justice Dept. Revives Push to Mandate a Way to Unlock Phones by Charlie Savage: Federal law enforcement officials are renewing a push for a legal mandate that tech companies build tools into smartphones and other devices that would allow … Continue reading
AppleInsider: Apple-supported CLOUD Act passes Congress, will change how governments share data
AppleInsider: Apple-supported CLOUD Act passes Congress, will change how governments share data by Stephen Silver:
The Crime Report: Can Alexa Testify Against You?
The Crime Report: Can Alexa Testify Against You? by Julia Pagnamenta As Amazon actively looks for new ways to expand Alexa’s functions, the risks for privacy violations increase exponentially as well.