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- 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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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
NYTimes: Report Seeks Overhaul of Postal Service Surveillance Program
NYTimes: Report Seeks Overhaul of Postal Service Surveillance Program by Ron Nixon: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement WASHINGTON — A Postal Service surveillance program that records the information on the outside of letters and packages delivered … Continue reading
NPR: Boston Marathon Surveillance Raises Privacy Concerns Long After Bombing
NPR: Boston Marathon Surveillance Raises Privacy Concerns Long After Bombing: Nearly a million people will line the streets to watch the Boston Marathon on Monday, and someone else will be watching them. Bill Ridge with the Boston Police says video … Continue reading
NYTimes: David Brooks: The Lost Language of Privacy
NYTimes: David Brooks: The Lost Language of Privacy: So, yes, on balance, cop-cams are a good idea. But, as a journalist, I can tell you that when I put a notebook or a camera between me and my subjects, I … Continue reading
Seattle Times Opinion: How to protect privacy in the digital age: a constitutional amendment
Seattle Times Opinion: How to protect privacy in the digital age: a constitutional amendment by Alex Alben: WE live under surveillance. In our homes. In our offices. In our public spaces. With the widespread deployment of GPS devices, digital networks … Continue reading
Police Technical: iOS8 Mobile Operating System Encryption Issues
Police Technical: iOS8 Mobile Operating System Encryption Issues (Whitepaper download) When an iOS 8 device is locked – a new encryption feature will not allow even Apple technicians to access the device. This whitepaper covers how to access a locked … Continue reading
WaPo: Editorial: The promise of body cameras
WaPo: Editorial: The promise of body cameras: LAW ENFORCEMENT agencies around the country, spurred by the fatal shooting of an unarmed man running from a police officer in South Carolina, are looking more closely at having officers on patrol wear … Continue reading
Buffalo News: As technology advances, courts will need to guard against unwarranted intrusions (opinion)
Buffalo News: As technology advances, courts will need to guard against unwarranted intrusions (opinion): Technology is the great new frontier in the law. Several cases have come before the Supreme Court lately in which the justices found that uncontrolled use … Continue reading
CNN: [State] Senator discusses police officers wearing body cameras
CNN: Senator discusses police officers wearing body cameras A South Carolina State Senator discussing a bill in the state legislature to require all officers to wear body camera, while referring to the recent shooting as an “accident.”
WaPo: As encryption spreads, U.S. grapples with clash between privacy, security
WaPo: As encryption spreads, U.S. grapples with clash between privacy, security by Ellen Nakashima and Barton Gellman: For months, federal law enforcement agencies and industry have been deadlocked on a highly contentious issue: Should tech companies be obliged to guarantee … Continue reading
Wired: Want to See Domestic Spying’s Future? Follow the Drug War
Wired: Want to See Domestic Spying’s Future? Follow the Drug War by Andy Greenberg: THE NSA ISN’T the only three-letter agency that’s been quietly collecting Americans’ data on a mind-boggling scale. The country learned this week that the Drug Enforcement … Continue reading
WaPo: North Charleston police to wear body cameras
WaPo: North Charleston police to wear body cameras by Wesley Lowery and Mark Berman: City officials here promised to outfit the entire police department with body cameras Wednesday, seeking to defuse tension over a graphic video showing a white officer … Continue reading
Police Technical: Snapchat: Investigating the ‘Self-Destructing’ App [free white paper]
Police Technical: Snapchat: Investigating the ‘Self-Destructing’ App [free white paper] by Aaron Edens: Snapchat users think their photos are gone, but they’re not. Snapchat, a popular mobile application, allows users to exchange “self-destructing” messages, pictures, or videos, making investigations involving … Continue reading
WaPo: DHS revives quest for license-plate access
WaPo: DHS revives quest for license-plate access by Ellen Nakashima: The Department of Homeland Security is seeking bids from companies able to provide law enforcement officials with access to a national license-plate tracking system – a year after canceling a … Continue reading
WaPo: Police body camera experiment in San Diego produces promising results
WaPo: Police body camera experiment in San Diego produces promising results by Radley Balko: There are still some issues to be worked out. One important one is determining how much and under what conditions video footage will be released to … Continue reading
Fusion: Is NYC’s new gunshot detection system recording private conversations?
Fusion: Is NYC’s new gunshot detection system recording private conversations? by Daniel Rivero: As Tyrone Lyles lay dying from a gunshot wound on an East Oakland street in 2007, he let out a few last words that would ultimately help … Continue reading
KPBS: Border Agency Brings Face Scanning To Otay Mesa
KPBS (San Diego State University): Border Agency Brings Face Scanning To Otay Mesa by David Wagner: The next time you walk across the Mexican border, an agent might ask to scan your face. In a pilot program rolling out this … Continue reading
Sputnik Int’l: FBI Moves Forward with Expansion of Hacking Powers Despite Privacy Concerns — Rule 41 change
Sputnik Int’l: FBI Moves Forward with Expansion of Hacking Powers Despite Privacy Concerns: Despite fears over privacy violations and constitutional conflicts, a change to an FBI procedural rule that would dramatically broaden their hacking powers has been quietly advanced after … Continue reading
NPR: When Police Are Given Body Cameras, Do They Use Them?
NPR: When Police Are Given Body Cameras, Do They Use Them? But Noelle Phillips, who covers the police for the Denver Post, tells NPR’s Arun Rath that an independent monitor’s evaluation of Denver’s pilot program found that in many cases … Continue reading
WaPo: Denver’s pilot program says very little about the effectiveness of police cameras
WaPo: Denver’s pilot program says very little about the effectiveness of police cameras by Radley Balko: From an Associated Press report: In a warning to law enforcement agencies rushing to equip officers with body cameras after killings by police nationwide, … Continue reading
Columbia Journalism Review: With more police wearing cameras, the fight over footage has begun in Florida
Columbia Journalism Review: With more police wearing cameras, the fight over footage has begun in Florida By Susannah Nesmith: As more police departments equip their officers with body-worn cameras, the question of who gets access to that footage-and at what … Continue reading