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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
VICE: The Future of Border Securing Technology Is Here and It’s Terrifying
VICE: The Future of Border Securing Technology Is Here and It’s Terrifying by Meredith Hoffman: At the Tenth Annual Border Security Expo in San Antonio, Texas, officials from the Department of Homeland Security browsed booths with 3D holographic images, portable … Continue reading
Windows IT Pro: Microsoft to DOJ: The cloud isn’t an automatic Fourth Amendment exemption; challenging the third-party doctrine in the Cloud
Windows IT Pro: Microsoft to DOJ: The cloud isn’t an automatic Fourth Amendment exemption by Michael Morisy: Company fights government demands for secret searches of cloud customers
WaPo: FBI paid professional hackers one-time fee to crack San Bernardino iPhone
WaPo: FBI paid professional hackers one-time fee to crack San Bernardino iPhone by Ellen Nakashima: The FBI cracked a San Bernardino terrorist’s phone with the help of professional hackers who discovered and brought to the bureau at least one previously … Continue reading
R St.: Encryption: Balancing the needs of law enforcement and the Fourth Amendment
R St.: Encryption: Balancing the needs of law enforcement and the Fourth Amendment (pdf)
WaPo: FBI has accessed San Bernardino shooter’s phone without Apple’s help
WaPo: FBI has accessed San Bernardino shooter’s phone without Apple’s help by Matt Zapotosky: The Justice Department is abandoning its bid to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino … Continue reading
The Hill: Former NSA head to FBI: ‘Get over’ Apple dispute
The Hill: Former NSA head to FBI: ‘Get over’ Apple dispute by Cory Bennett: A former head of two intelligence agencies had a clear message on Friday for the government as it tries to get Apple to unlock an iPhone … Continue reading
NYTimes: F.B.I. Clash With Apple Loosed a Torrent of Possible Ways to Hack an iPhone
NYTimes: F.B.I. Clash With Apple Loosed a Torrent of Possible Ways to Hack an iPhone by Katies Benner: SAN FRANCISCO — For weeks, the United States government has said that the only way to open an iPhone used by a … Continue reading
NYTimes: Apple Policy on Bugs May Explain Why Hackers Would Help F.B.I.
NYTimes: Apple Policy on Bugs May Explain Why Hackers Would Help F.B.I. by Nicole Perlroth and Katie Benner: For all the steps Apple has taken to encrypt customers’ communications and its rhetoric around customer privacy, security experts said the company … Continue reading
NYTimes: FBI may not need Apple to unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone
NYTimes: FBI may not need Apple to unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone by Ellen Nakashima: RIVERSIDE, Calif.— The FBI may have found a way without Apple’s assistance to unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San … Continue reading
CNN: FBI may have found a way into terrorist’s iPhone
CNN: FBI may have found a way into terrorist’s iPhone by Jackie Wattles: On the eve of a court showdown with Apple, the Department of Justice wants to cancel the hearing, saying it may have found a way into the … Continue reading
ABA Journal: EFF’s Cindy Cohn calls for lawyer support in fight over mass surveillance
ABA Journal: EFF’s Cindy Cohn calls for lawyer support in fight over mass surveillance by Victor Li:
NewsOK: OU professor: Fourth Amendment at heart of dispute between FBI, Apple
NewsOK: OU professor: Fourth Amendment at heart of dispute between FBI, Apple by Stephen E. Henderson
NYTimes: Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist
NYTimes: Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist by John Markoff, Katie Benner and Brian X. Chen: SAN FRANCISCO — If the F.B.I. wins its court fight to force Apple’s help in unlocking an iPhone, the agency … Continue reading
Lawfare: Apple v. FBI Shows That Lawyers and Tech Speak Different Language on Privacy
Lawfare: Apple v. FBI Shows That Lawyers and Tech Speak Different Language on Privacy by Timothy Edgar:
The Guardian: FBI could force us to turn on iPhone cameras and microphones, says Apple
The Guardian: FBI could force us to turn on iPhone cameras and microphones, says Apple: Eddy Cue warns precedent set by San Bernardino case could lead to company being forced to turn users’ smartphones into surveillance devices.
NYTimes: Obama, at South by Southwest, Backs Law Enforcement in Fight Over Encryption
NYTimes: Obama, at South by Southwest, Backs Law Enforcement in Fight Over Encryption by Michael D. Shear: President Obama told an audience of technology enthusiasts in Austin that he supported efforts to gain protected information from electronic devices, opposing the … Continue reading
The Guardian: Apple accused of trying to make iPhones ‘warrant-proof’ in FBI case
The Guardian: Apple accused of trying to make iPhones ‘warrant-proof’ in FBI case Danny Yadron and Spencer Ackerman: The Justice Department reasserted claims that the tech company is putting its brand ahead of safety in formal legal rebuttal over landmark … Continue reading
NJ: A “roving wiretap” from an authorized phone to a new phone is valid under the Fourth Amendment and Title III with after the fact notice to court
A “roving wiretap” from an authorized phone to a new phone is valid under the Fourth Amendment, Title III, and state law provided the judge issuing the order is notified within 48 hours. State v. Feliciano, 2016 N.J. LEXIS 229 … Continue reading
WaPo: Devices on public buses in Maryland are listening to private conversations
WaPo: Devices on public buses in Maryland are listening to private conversations By Ovetta Wiggins: The Maryland Senate on Tuesday delayed action on a bill that would clamp down on when public buses and trains can record the private conversations … Continue reading
NYTimes: F.B.I. Error Locked San Bernardino Attacker’s iPhone
NYTimes: F.B.I. Error Locked San Bernardino Attacker’s iPhone by Cecilia Kang and Eric Lichtblau: WASHINGTON — The head of the F.B.I. acknowledged on Tuesday that his agency lost a chance to capture data from the iPhone used by one of … Continue reading