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- Reason: Miami Sheriff Hired a Private Law Firm To Pursue—and Profit From—Asset Forfeiture Cases
- D.Conn.: Pole camera on def’s house and curtilage didn’t show inside house, so it’s reasonable
- OH12: Officer’s violation of knock-and-announce statute justifies suppression
- 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 -
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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Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
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General (many free):
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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
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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
WIRED: Your Own Pacemaker Can Now Testify Against You In Court
WIRED: Your Own Pacemaker Can Now Testify Against You In Court by Deanna Paul: When Ross Compton had a pacemaker installed, he had a constitutional right to remain silent. One would expect his body to have the same. But when … Continue reading
The Hill: Congress must act to protect data privacy before courts make surveillance even easier
The Hill: Congress must act to protect data privacy before courts make surveillance even easier by Ashley Baker:
LATimes: Privacy trumps the expedience of police technology tools
LATimes: Privacy trumps the expedience of police technology tools (editorial):
The Guardian: ‘Anonymous’ browsing data can be easily exposed, researchers reveal
The Guardian: ‘Anonymous’ browsing data can be easily exposed, researchers reveal by Alex Hearn: A journalist and a data scientist secured data from three million users easily by creating a fake marketing company, and were able to de-anonymise many users.
NYT: Border Agents Test Facial Scans to Track Those Overstaying Visas
NYT: Border Agents Test Facial Scans to Track Those Overstaying Visas by Ron Nixon:
ABA Litigation News: Alexa, How Private Is My Home?
ABA Litigation News (Summer 2017): Alexa, How Private Is My Home? by Carl A. Aveni (online title: How Private Is Your Home in the Age of Alexa?)
Law.com: Roberts Is Uneasy About Invasive Police Devices, Gorsuch Has His Back
Law.com: Roberts Is Uneasy About Invasive Police Devices, Gorsuch Has His Back by Marsha Coyle:
Carbonated.tv: Traveling abroad? Now Your Face Could Be Scanned At Airports
Carbonated.tv: Traveling abroad? Now Your Face Could Be Scanned At Airports by Alice Salles While the government says the plan to keep track of travelers is about security, privacy advocates have reason to believe Americans are the ones facing risks.
Motherboard: Liberty Might Be Better Served by Doing Away with Privacy
Motherboard: Liberty Might Be Better Served by Doing Away with Privacy by Zoltan Istvan: If tech is surveilling us constantly, we need the ability to use it to watch the watchers. [Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, transhumanist, author of The … Continue reading
NY Times: When You Should (and Shouldn’t) Share Your Location Using a Smartphone
NY Times: When You Should (and Shouldn’t) Share Your Location Using a Smartphone by Brian X. Chen:
Techno Examiner: Facebook Gag Order For User Account Search Warrants
Techno Examiner: Facebook Gag Order For User Account Search Warrants by Juliana Dante:
Forbes: The DOJ Wants To Take Away Online Privacy. And A Court Says Okay
Forbes: The DOJ Wants To Take Away Online Privacy. And A Court Says Okay by Frank Miniter:
CBS News: What is the future of privacy, surveillance and policing technologies under Trump?
CBS News: What is the future of privacy, surveillance and policing technologies under Trump? by Kathryn Watson:
WaPo: How tech sleuths cracked the mysterious code that turns your printer into a spying tool
WaPo: How tech sleuths cracked the mysterious code that turns your printer into a spying tool by Derek Hawkins:
Michigan Lawyers Weekly: Fitbit data, other digital evidence used by prosecution in murder case
Michigan Lawyers Weekly: Fitbit data, other digital evidence used by prosecution in murder case by Nicole Black: This case is particularly interesting since there was so much digital data used by the prosecution to refute the defendant’s version of the … Continue reading
someecards: Bragging drug dealer gets instant karma when cops raid his house on Facebook Live
someecards: Bragging drug dealer gets instant karma when cops raid his house on Facebook Live by Kelsey Solywoda: A house in Jacksonville, FL was raided by police recently while the guy that lived there was in the middle of a … Continue reading
ABC News: JetBlue testing facial-recognition boarding system in Boston
ABC News: JetBlue testing facial-recognition boarding system in Boston by Jeffrey Cook: JetBlue Airways will soon begin testing technology at Boston’s Logan International Airport that will use facial-recognition in lieu of a boarding pass to clear passengers to board their … Continue reading
Time: Alexa Takes the Stand: Listening Devices Raise Privacy Issues
Time: Alexa Takes the Stand: Listening Devices Raise Privacy Issues by Haley Sweetland Edwards:
ABAJ: Murdered woman’s Fitbit data inconsistent with husband’s story, police say
ABAJ: Murdered woman’s Fitbit data inconsistent with husband’s story, police say by Debra Cassens Weiss:
WaPo: Why it matters that Google Home can now identify you by voice
WaPo: Why it matters that Google Home can now identify you by voice by Hayley Tsukayama: Consumers should also think about how this information could be used outside of the company, Shear said. He pointed to a recent murder case … Continue reading