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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.
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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General (many free):
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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
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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
ProPublica: The FBI Built a Database That Can Catch Rapists — Almost Nobody Uses It
ProPublica: The FBI Built a Database That Can Catch Rapists — Almost Nobody Uses It by T. Christian Miller: For roughly 30 years the FBI has virtually ignored a system meant to help cops track the behavioral patterns of violent … Continue reading
NACDL: A Surveillance Bill by Any Other Name: The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act
NACDL: A Surveillance Bill by Any Other Name: The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act by Jumana Musa: With every news story of a database breached comes a steady drum beat of demands for more cybersecurity. This demand has taken shape in … Continue reading
Encryption and national security
The Atlantic: Do Encrypted Phones Threaten National Security? How Dangerous Is End-to-End Encryption? If it were possible, would proponents of “backdoor” access to encrypted communication also favor equivalent access to the private thoughts in our brains?
ars technica: Here are EFF’s most influential cases from its first 25 years
ars technica: Here are EFF’s most influential cases from its first 25 years by Cyrus Farivar: According to Executive Director Cindy Cohn, these are EFF’s greatest hits. On Friday, July 10, the Electronic Frontier Foundation celebrated its 25th anniversary. The … Continue reading
HuffPo: Will the Coming ‘Internet of Things’ Mean the Death of Privacy?
HuffPo: Will the Coming ‘Internet of Things’ Mean the Death of Privacy? by Vivek Wadhwa:
Fusion: Fitbit data just undermined a woman’s rape claim
Fusion: Fitbit data just undermined a woman’s rape claim by Kashmir Hill: It turns out that a fitness tracker can do more to betray you than showing your friends and families you’re a couch potato. It can also undermine your … Continue reading
Daily Iberian: Jindal nixes tool for police
Daily Iberian: Jindal nixes tool for police by Jeff Zeringue Louisiana Gov. Jindal vetoed a bill with veto-proof majorities allowing license plate scanners, but the legislature adjourned. He was concerned about privacy.
The Hill: Senators push warrants for spying in the skies
The Hill: Senators push warrants for spying in the skies by Julian Hattem: “Americans’ privacy rights shouldn’t stop at the treetops,” said Sen. Ron Wyden.
The Hill: Facial recognition talks break down as privacy advocates withdraw
The Hill: Facial recognition talks break down as privacy advocates withdraw by David McCabe: A group of privacy advocates have walked away from administration-backed talks to develop a privacy code of conduct for facial recognition software. The nine advocates — … Continue reading
NYLJ: How Has Digital Ubiquity Affected Fourth Amendment Law?
NYLJ: How Has Digital Ubiquity Affected Fourth Amendment Law? by Richard Raysman & Peter Brown:
USA Today: DEA eavesdropping tripled, bypassed federal courts
USA Today: DEA eavesdropping tripled, bypassed federal courts by Brad Heath: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration more than tripled its use of wiretaps and other types of electronic eavesdropping over the past decade, largely bypassing federal courts and Justice Department … Continue reading
AP: FBI behind mysterious surveillance aircraft over US cities
AP: FBI behind mysterious surveillance aircraft over US cities by Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan, and Eric Tucker:
NPR: Questions Remain About How To Use Data From License Plate Scanners
NPR: Questions Remain About How To Use Data From License Plate Scanners by Martin Kaste: License plate scanners have become a fact of life. They’re attached to traffic lights, on police cars — even ‘repo’ staff use them. All those … Continue reading
NPR: With Live Video Apps Like Periscope, Life Becomes Even Less Private
NPR: With Live Video Apps Like Periscope, Life Becomes Even Less Private with Laura Sydell: Cameras are ubiquitous — from the ones in our cellphones to the security cams in parking lots and shops. And just when you thought it … Continue reading
Sputnik: Federal authorities have dropped their appeal of a ruling in Washington State against a police department that nailed a webcam to a utility pole to spy on a suspect’s house 24 hours a day, for weeks on end
Sputnik: Federal authorities have dropped their appeal of a ruling in Washington State against a police department that nailed a webcam to a utility pole to spy on a suspect’s house 24 hours a day, for weeks on end [Remember, … Continue reading
NY Times: Airport Security Advances Clash With Privacy Issues
NY Times: Airport Security Advances Clash With Privacy Issues by Ron Nixon: BOSTON — At a mock airport in an underground laboratory here at Northeastern University, students pretending to be passengers head through a security exit in the right direction, … Continue reading
The Intercept: The Computers are Listening: How the NSA Converts Spoken Words Into Searchable Text
The Intercept: The Computers are Listening: How the NSA Converts Spoken Words Into Searchable Text by Brian Foomkin: Most people realize that emails and other digital communications they once considered private can now become part of their permanent record. But … Continue reading
WaPo: Surveillance planes spotted in the sky for days after West Baltimore rioting
WaPo: Surveillance planes spotted in the sky for days after West Baltimore rioting by Craig Timberg: Discovery of the flights – which involved at least two airplanes and the assistance of the FBI – has prompted the American Civil Liberties … Continue reading
The Hill: DOJ reviewing phone spying technology
The Hill: DOJ reviewing phone spying technology by Julian Hattem: The department has launched a review of its use of controversial surveillance techniques.
WaPo: Recent Fourth Amendment talks by Orin Kerr
WaPo: Recent Fourth Amendment talks by Orin Kerr: I’ve given several talks in the last few weeks about recent developments in Fourth Amendment law, and how Fourth Amendment law may be changing in response to computers and new technology. Here … Continue reading