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- S.D.Fla.: Inventory that omitted “miscellaneous personal items” was not unreasonable
- CA4: That ptf charged with witness intimidation didn’t do it again wasn’t material for Franks
- 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
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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
NYTimes: The iPhone Stays Locked, for Now
NYTimes: Editorial: The iPhone Stays Locked, for Now: The Justice Department has argued that Apple has a legal responsibility to help the government unlock iPhones that may contain evidence needed in criminal investigations. A federal judge in Brooklyn argues, persuasively, … Continue reading
The Hill: Privacy groups wary of compromise encryption bill
The Hill: Privacy groups wary of compromise encryption bill by Cory Bennett: Privacy advocates are already concerned about legislation to establish a national commission to explore how police can get at encrypted data without endangering Americans’ privacy.
NPR: Advertising Company Will Use Its Billboards To Track Passing Cellphones
NPR: Advertising Company Will Use Its Billboards To Track Passing Cellphones by Merrit Kennedy: The technology is sure to help advertisers better target their ads. But privacy advocates argue that it’s, well, a little creepy.
E.D.N.Y.: Apple can’t be forced to unlock an iPhone; not the California case
Apple wins first encryption case in E.D.N.Y. Court refuses to order phone opened, via techcrunch. In re Order Requiring Apple, Inc. to Assist in the Execution of a Search Warrant, 15-MC-1902 (JO) (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 29, 2016)( (USMJ Orenstein):
eff.org: A Texas City Rescinds “No Cost” License Plate Reader Deal For Being “Big-Brotherish”
eff.org: A Texas City Rescinds “No Cost” License Plate Reader Deal For Being “Big-Brotherish”:
Apple’s response in the compelled iPhone hack case posted
In the Matter of the Search of an Apple iPhone Seized During the Execution of a Search Warrant on a Black Lexus IS300, California License Plate 35KGD203, ED No. CM 16-10 (SP) (N.D.Cal.), Apple Inc’s Motion to Vacate Order Compelling … Continue reading
WaPo: Apple says FBI seeks ‘dangerous power,’ files motion opposing court order to help unlock iPhone
WaPo: Apple says FBI seeks ‘dangerous power,’ files motion opposing court order to help unlock iPhone by Mark Berman and Ellen Nakashima:
NYTimes: The Apple Case Will Grope Its Way Into Your Future
NYTimes: The Apple Case Will Grope Its Way Into Your Future by Farhad Manjoo: If every device can monitor you, and if they can all be tapped by law enforcement officials under court order, can anyone ever have a truly … Continue reading
NYTimes: Apple Is Said to Be Trying to Make It Harder to Hack iPhones
NYTimes: Apple Is Said to Be Trying to Make It Harder to Hack iPhones by Matt Apuzzo and Katie Benner:
Criminal Law Reporter: Apple, FBI iPhone Fight Reveals Fourth Amendment Flaws
Criminal Law Reporter: Apple, FBI iPhone Fight Reveals Fourth Amendment Flaws by Jessica DeSilva: Apple Inc.’s public refusal to comply with a court order requiring the company to assist the FBI in gaining access into an iPhone belonging to one … Continue reading
WaPo: Apple tells Justice Dept. to withdraw demands for help, says its objections are ‘absolutely not’ about marketing
WaPo: Apple tells Justice Dept. to withdraw demands for help, says its objections are ‘absolutely not’ about marketing by Mark Berman: The public dispute between the Justice Department and Apple continued Monday as the tech giant called on the government … Continue reading
The Hill: FBI v. Apple: The legal war begins | FBiOS
The Hill: FBI v. Apple: The legal war begins by Julian Hattem: The FBI is basing its demand that Apple help hack into an encrypted iPhone on a little-known 18th century law that critics say is being badly abused. A … Continue reading
NPR: It’s Not Just The iPhone Law Enforcement Wants To Unlock
NPR: It’s Not Just The iPhone Law Enforcement Wants To Unlock by Rachel Martin: Manhattan Defense Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. tells NPR’s Rachel Martin that his cyberlab has asked Apple to break into 175 phones.
NYTimes: Opinion: In the Government vs. Apple, Who Wears the Black Hat?
NYTimes: Opinion: In the Government vs. Apple, Who Wears the Black Hat? by Robert Levine: The government, not Apple, should guarantee our privacy rights. But this dispute has arisen precisely because the government hasn’t done so. Instead, it squandered much … Continue reading
WaPo: FBI asked San Bernardino to reset the password for shooter’s phone backup
WaPo: FBI asked San Bernardino to reset the password for shooter’s phone backup by Ellen Nakashima and Mark Berman: In the chaotic aftermath of the shootings in San Bernardino in December, FBI investigators seeking to recover data from the iPhone … Continue reading
NYTimes: Apple’s Line in the Sand Was Over a Year in the Making
NYTimes; Apple’s Line in the Sand Was Over a Year in the Making by Matt Apuzoo, Joseph Goldstein and Eric Lichtblau: WASHINGTON — Time and again after the introduction of the iPhone nearly a decade ago, the Justice Department asked … Continue reading
NYTimes: How Tim Cook, in iPhone Battle, Became a Bulwark for Digital Privacy
NYTimes: How Tim Cook, in iPhone Battle, Became a Bulwark for Digital Privacy by Katie Benner and Nicole Perloth: SAN FRANCISCO — Letters from around the globe began pouring into the inbox of Timothy D. Cook not long after the … Continue reading
The New Yorker: The Dangerous Precedent in the Apple Case
The New Yorker: The Dangerous Precedent in the Apple Case by Amy Davidson: What happens when the government demands that you give it something that you do not have?
The Atlantic: Is Law Enforcement Crying Wolf About the Dangers of Locked Phones?
The Atlantic: Is Law Enforcement Crying Wolf About the Dangers of Locked Phones? by Conor Friedersdorf: The examples put forward by FBI Director James Comey and his defenders are underwhelming.
WaPo: Showdown over iPhone reignites privacy debate
WaPo: Showdown over iPhone reignites privacy debate by Todd C. Frankel and Ellen Nakashima: The Justice Department calculated that it held a winning hand — the passcode-locked Apple iPhone of a terrorist — when it went to a federal court … Continue reading