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- WSJ: ‘We Know You Live Right Here’: No Secrets in America’s New Surveillance Dragnet
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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
NYTimes: Justice Department Calls Apple’s Refusal to Unlock iPhone a ‘Marketing Strategy’
NYTimes: Justice Department Calls Apple’s Refusal to Unlock iPhone a ‘Marketing Strategy’ by By Eric Lichtblau and Matt Apuzzo: The Justice Department, frustrated by its inability to unlock the iPhone of one of the attackers in the San Bernardino killings, … Continue reading
POLICE TECHNICAL to Release Controversial Tactical Hacking Book
POLICE TECHNICAL to Release Controversial Tactical Hacking Book by Brianne Hoffman: POLICE TECHNICAL is weeks away from releasing Introduction to Tactical Hacking: A Guide for Law Enforcement on pre-sale. The road to get there, however, has been long and challenging … Continue reading
NYTimes Editorial: Why Apple Is Right to Challenge an Order to Help the F.B.I.
NYTimes Editorial: Why Apple Is Right to Challenge an Order to Help the F.B.I.: It is understandable that federal investigators want to unlock an iPhone used by one of the attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in … Continue reading
The Atlantic: The Conscription of Apple’s Software Engineers
The Atlantic: The Conscription of Apple’s Software Engineers by Conor Friedersdorf: The federal government is empowered to compel individuals and corporations to hand over data in their possession upon the presentation of a valid search warrant. Is the FBI also … Continue reading
Salon: The NYPD’s “Big Brother” problem is getting even worse
Salon: The NYPD’s “Big Brother” problem is getting even worse by Daniel Denvir: America’s largest police force has long behaved like an intelligence agency. That hasn’t changed in the Snowden era.
Computerworld: ENCRYPT Act co-sponsor learned tech ropes at Microsoft
Computerworld: ENCRYPT Act co-sponsor learned tech ropes at Microsoft By Matt Hamblen: U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, a former Microsoft executive, is a co-sponsor of a bill to preempt states from enacting separate versions of encryption laws. One of four congressional … Continue reading
Harv.L.Rev.: Digital Duplications and the Fourth Amendment
Harv.L.Rev.: Note, Digital Duplications and the Fourth Amendment, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1046 (2016): The explosive growth of digital data in the twenty-first century has been both a boon and a curse for law enforcement. On one hand this growth … Continue reading
ABAJ: Texas police turn into ‘mobile debt collectors’ with license-reader program
ABAJ: Texas police turn into ‘mobile debt collectors’ with license-reader program by Debra Cassens Weiss:
NPR: Encryption May Hurt Surveillance, But Internet Of Things Could Open New Doors
NPR: Encryption May Hurt Surveillance, But Internet Of Things Could Open New Doors by Alina Selyukh: The report concluded that information from some apps and devices like smartphones may be harder for government investigators to intercept because of stronger encryption. … Continue reading
NY Times: New Technologies Give Government Ample Means to Track Suspects, Study Finds
NY Times: New Technologies Give Government Ample Means to Track Suspects, Study Finds by David E. Sanger: Now, a study in which current and former intelligence officials participated concludes that the warning is wildly overblown, and that a raft of … Continue reading
WaPo: FBI use of hacking tool to find child-porn users affirmed
WaPo: FBI use of hacking tool to find child-porn users affirmed by Ellen Nakashima: Over the past week, two federal judges have found that the government’s use of software in a mass hacking of child-porn websites to identify users is … Continue reading
Road and Track: One Company Is Selling Location Data for Billions of License Plates to Police
Road and Track: One Company Is Selling Location Data for Billions of License Plates to Police A private company called Vigilant Solutions owns 2.2 billion photographs of car and truck licenses. Is this a violation of privacy?
ABAJ: This high-tech police department trawls social media, license plates; watches city with audio, video
ABAJ: This high-tech police department trawls social media, license plates; watches city with audio, video by Debra Cassens Weiss: The type of data used in marketing is also being used by police departments to help solve crimes and analyze the … Continue reading
The Hill: 5 things to watch in Internet privacy fight
The Hill: 5 things to watch in Internet privacy fight By Mario Trujillo: Advocates are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to quickly propose strong Internet privacy rules, one of the unfinished parts of last year’s net neutrality order. The agency … Continue reading
WaPo: The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’
WaPo: The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’ by Justin Jouvenal: FRESNO, Calif. — While officers raced to a recent 911 call about a man threatening his ex-girlfriend, a police operator in headquarters consulted software that … Continue reading
WSJ: Viral Videos Shape Views of Police Conduct
WSJ: Viral Videos Shape Views of Police Conduct by Scott Calvert and Valerie Bauerlein As citizen footage sharpens a debate, states work to ensure transparency The article also mentions seizures of cell phones and iPads to delete the videos, which … Continue reading
WaPo: Wonkblog: New federal rules will subject truck drivers to more monitoring than ever
WaPo: Wonkblog: New federal rules will subject truck drivers to more monitoring than ever by Lydia DePillis: And they’re not very happy about it. [And under the third-party doctrine, the government can subpoena it all for use in a prosecution.]
Washington Lawyer: Data Privacy and Your Wearable Fitness Device
Data Privacy and Your Wearable Fitness Device: Sarah Kellogg, Every Breath You Take, 30 Wash. Law. 22 (No. 4, Dec. 2015).
WSJ: The Fourth Amendment and TIA Algorithms
WSJ: The Fourth Amendment and TIA Algorithms A Total Information Awareness system will be one-stop shopping for hackers; data “loss” will be inevitable. Concerning Total Information Awareness, Holman Jenkins is wrong: TIA will not protect us, and it does threaten … Continue reading