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- CO: Not 4A or state constitutional violation for govt to access def’s computer via peer-to-peer sharing with BitTorrent software
- WSJ: ‘We Know You Live Right Here’: No Secrets in America’s New Surveillance Dragnet
- 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
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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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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)
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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
The Legal Intelligencer, Will Technology Change the Interpretation of the Fourth Amendment?
The Legal Intelligencer, Will Technology Change the Interpretation of the Fourth Amendment? by Leonard Deutchman:
New Law Review: “The Positive Law Model of the Fourth Amendment,” for evaluating new technological problems and the third-party doctrine
New Law Review: “The Positive Law Model of the Fourth Amendment,” 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1821 (2016) by William Baude & James Y. Stern: For fifty years, courts have used a “reasonable expectation of privacy” standard to define “searches” under … Continue reading
SW for Amazon Echo: USA Today: Alexa: Who dunnit?
USA Today: Alexa: Who dunnit? by Elizabeth Weise:
Harvard Magazine: The Watchers
Harvard Magazine: The Watchers by Jonathan Shaw “Can the behavior of an entire population, even in a modern democracy, be changed by awareness of surveillance? And what are the effects of other kinds of privacy invasions?”
Reuters: Yahoo email scan shows U.S. spy push to recast constitutional privacy
Reuters: Yahoo email scan shows U.S. spy push to recast constitutional privacy by Joseph Menn: Yahoo Inc’s secret scanning of customer emails at the behest of a U.S. spy agency is part of a growing push by officials to loosen … Continue reading
NPR: This Doll May Be Recording What Children Say, Privacy Groups Charge
NPR: This Doll May Be Recording What Children Say, Privacy Groups Charge by Brian Naylor: It’s called My Friend Cayla. It’s a doll and looks pretty much like most dolls do. She is available in various skin tones and hair … Continue reading
New law review article: Apple and the American Revolution: Remembering Why We Have the Fourth Amendment,
Clark D. Cunningham, Apple and the American Revolution: Remembering Why We Have the Fourth Amendment, 126 Yale L.J. Forum ___ (2016). Abstract: This essay provides a concise history of events prior to the Revolutionary War that led to the adoption … Continue reading
ACLU.org: In Federal Appeals Court for Wikimedia v. NSA: Here’s How It Went
ACLU.org: In Federal Appeals Court for Wikimedia v. NSA: Here’s How It Went by Jim Buatti & Aeryn Palmer: Originally posted on Wikimedia’s blog.
WaPo: Police are using software to predict crime. Is it a ‘holy grail’ or biased against minorities?
WaPo: Police are using software to predict crime. Is it a ‘holy grail’ or biased against minorities? by Justin Jouvenal:
NPR: It Ain’t Me, Babe: Researchers Find Flaws In Police Facial Recognition
NPR: It Ain’t Me, Babe: Researchers Find Flaws In Police Facial Recognition by Laura Sydell: Nearly half of all American adults have been entered into law enforcement facial recognition databases, according to a recent report from Georgetown University’s law school. … Continue reading
NPR: Police Facial Recognition Databases Log About Half Of Americans
NPR: Police Facial Recognition Databases Log About Half Of Americans: A new report from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology says all it takes is a driver’s license to be included in the searchable databases. Rachel Martin talks to … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: The Fifth Amendment and Touch ID
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: The Fifth Amendment and Touch ID by Orin Kerr: My recent post on the legality of warrants that permit phone unlocking prompted some reader comments on how the Fifth Amendment might apply to using fingerprint readers such … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Can warrants for digital evidence also require fingerprints to unlock phones?
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Can warrants for digital evidence also require fingerprints to unlock phones? by Orin Kerr: There has been a lot of press coverage recently about a search warrant obtained in Los Angeles allowing the government to force people … Continue reading
NPR: Why What Facebook Knows About You Could Matter Offline
NPR: Why What Facebook Knows About You Could Matter Offline The investigative team at ProPublica wants you to know what Facebook knows about you. It’s more than you can imagine.
Techdirt: Granted Warrant Allowed Feds To Force Everyone At Searched Residence To Unlock Devices With Their Fingerprints
Techdirt: Granted Warrant Allowed Feds To Force Everyone At Searched Residence To Unlock Devices With Their Fingerprints by Tim Cushing: This is the reality of what the government is seeking: law enforcement officers detaining suspects and non-suspects alike and forcing … Continue reading
The Atlantic: Hackers Can Listen In on Your Skype Calls
The Atlantic: Hackers Can Listen In on Your Skype Calls by Kaveh Waddell: A security researcher found a way to ‘piggyback’ on video chats, and it’s very hard to detect.
WaPo: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sent feeds that helped police track minorities in Ferguson and Baltimore, report says
WaPo: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sent feeds that helped police track minorities in Ferguson and Baltimore, report says by Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin: A powerful surveillance program that police used for tracking racially charged protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, … Continue reading
WaPo: Meet the judge who just released 200 secret government surveillance requests
WaPo: Meet the judge who just released 200 secret government surveillance requests by Spencer Hsu: In ordering the first-ever release by a full federal district court of a year’s worth of secret government surveillance requests, U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl … Continue reading
EFF: The Playpen Story: Some Fourth Amendment Basics and Law Enforcement Hacking
EFF: The Playpen Story: Some Fourth Amendment Basics and Law Enforcement Hacking by Mark Rumold: (This is part of a series of blog posts about the Playpen cases. For more background, see our earlier blog post and our FAQ.)
WaPo: The Watch: Lunch links: Police agencies across America are assembling massive databases about you
WaPo: The Watch: Lunch links: Police agencies across America are assembling massive databases about you by Radley Balko.