May 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Archives
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Recent Posts
- OR: Even if original served warrant wasn’t the one returned, it doesn’t warrant suppression
- Two on suicide calls as exigency
- W.D.N.Y.: Civil discovery dispute denies access to other employees’ cell phones as 4A issue
- Reason: All New Cars Could Have Mandatory Surveillance Tech Unless Congress Stops This Mandate
- CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”
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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:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
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First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
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Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
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
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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
The Intercept: LexisNexis Is Selling Your Personal Data to ICE So It Can Try to Predict Crimes
The Intercept: LexisNexis Is Selling Your Personal Data to ICE So It Can Try to Predict Crimes by Sam Biddle (“ICE uses LexisNexis to track cars, gather information on people, and make arrests for its deportation machine, according to a … Continue reading
Wired: An Anti-Porn App Put Him in Jail and His Family Under Surveillance
Wired: An Anti-Porn App Put Him in Jail and His Family Under Surveillance by Dhruv Mehrotra (“A court used an app called Covenant Eyes to surveil the family of a man released on bond. Now he’s back in jail, and … Continue reading
NYT: One of the Last Bastions of Digital Privacy Is Under Threat
NYT: One of the Last Bastions of Digital Privacy Is Under Threat by Julia Angwin:
Forbes: U.S. Government Buying ‘Intimate’ Data About Americans, Report Finds
Forbes: U.S. Government Buying ‘Intimate’ Data About Americans, Report Finds by Katherine Hamilton of the Forbes Staff (“Data brokers that collect information from Americans’ phones, web browsers and cars have contracts with numerous government agencies to sell them that data, … Continue reading
EFF: Victory! New Jersey Court Rules Police Must Give Defendant the Facial Recognition Algorithms Used to Identify Him
EFF: Victory! New Jersey Court Rules Police Must Give Defendant the Facial Recognition Algorithms Used to Identify Him by Karen Gullo (“In a victory for transparency in police use of facial recognition, a New Jersey appellate court today ruled that … Continue reading
NACDL: 4 articles on electronic searches
Clare Harvie, What Defense Counsel Should Know About Facial Recognition Technology, 47 Champion 16 (No. 3, May 2023) Jennifer S. Granick, Marking Warrants Great Again: Avoiding General Searches in the Execution of Warrants for Electronic Data, 47 Champion 28 (No. … Continue reading
NYT: Bad facial recognition match
NYT: Police Relied on Hidden Technology and Put the Wrong Person in Jail by Kashmir Hill and Ryan Mac (“Randal Reid spent nearly a week in confinement, falsely accused of stealing purses in a state he said he had never … Continue reading
Reason: Senators Ask DEA To Stop Buying Its Way Around Civil Liberties
Reason: Senators Ask DEA To Stop Buying Its Way Around Civil Liberties by Elizabeth Nolan Brown (“‘DEA agents were regularly paying for and receiving private customer information.’ Rather than obtain a warrant for some mailed packages or consumer travel data, … Continue reading
Even burner phones can be sometimes traced
Detroit News: Woman guilty in threats case after 2020 presidential election by Robert Snell:
Wired: Face Recognition Software Led to His Arrest. It Was Dead Wrong
Wired; Face Recognition Software Led to His Arrest. It Was Dead Wrong (“Alonzo Sawyer’s misidentification by algorithm made him a suspect for a crime police now say was committed by someone else—feeding debate over regulation.”)
Reason: The Feds Are Buying Their Way Around the 4th Amendment
We gave away our privacy, fair and square, and capitalism trumps the Fourth Amendment: Reason: The Feds Are Buying Their Way Around the 4th Amendment by David McGarry (“Government agencies have paid to access huge amounts of Americans’ data.”)
WaPo: Youngkin opposes effort to shield menstrual data from law enforcement
WaPo: Youngkin opposes effort to shield menstrual data from law enforcement by Laura Vozzella & Gregory S. Schneider (“The administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) helped defeat a bill this week to put menstrual data stored on period-tracking apps beyond … Continue reading
ABA: Katz or Dogs? Why the Katz Reasonable Expectation of Privacy Test Is More Applicable to Advancing Technology than a Test Applied to Dog Sniffs
Katz or Dogs? Why the Katz Reasonable Expectation of Privacy Test Is More Applicable to Advancing Technology than a Test Applied to Dog Sniffs by Blade M. Allen (ABA Criminal Justice Jan. 23, 2023). (And I’m tired of cutsy Katz … Continue reading
techdirt: Government Continues To Rely On Private Contractors To Bypass Privacy Protections
techdirt: Government Continues To Rely On Private Contractors To Bypass Privacy Protections by Tim Cushing (“There’s only so much domestic surveillance the government can engage in before it starts running into problems. The Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision strongly suggested gathering … Continue reading
The Conversation: Not Big Brother, but close: a surveillance expert explains some of the ways we’re all being watched, all the time
The Conversation: Not Big Brother, but close: a surveillance expert explains some of the ways we’re all being watched, all the time (“Nearly ten years on, surveillance technologies permeate all aspects of our lives. They collect swathes of data from … Continue reading
The Conversation: What is Fog Reveal? A legal scholar explains the app some police forces are using to track people without a warrant
The Conversation: What is Fog Reveal? A legal scholar explains the app some police forces are using to track people without a warrant by Anne Toomey McKenna (“Government use of Fog Reveal highlights a problematic difference between data privacy law … Continue reading
Gizmodo: Whistleblower: Pentagon Purchased Mass Surveillance Tool Collecting Americans’ Web Browsing Data
Gizmodo: Whistleblower: Pentagon Purchased Mass Surveillance Tool Collecting Americans’ Web Browsing Data (“Multiple military intelligence offices have paid a data broker for access to internet traffic logs, which could reveal the online browsing histories of U.S. citizens, Sen. Ron Wyden … Continue reading
The Crime Report: San Francisco PD Wants Access to Private Surveillance Cameras
The Crime Report: San Francisco PD Wants Access to Private Surveillance Cameras (“The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a consequential vote on a proposal from the San Francisco police department that seeks a boost in law enforcement access … Continue reading
LATimes: Police Commission sets new rules for how LAPD uses surveillance technology
LATimes: Police Commission sets new rules for how LAPD uses surveillance technology (“The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday adopted new rules for how police can use crimefighting technologies, despite opposition from advocacy groups who said they could lead to … Continue reading
Wired: Police Used a Baby’s DNA to Investigate Its Father for a Crime
Wired: Police Used a Baby’s DNA to Investigate Its Father for a Crime (“The blood is supposed to be used for medical purposes—these screenings identify babies with serious health issues, and they have been highly successful at reducing death and … Continue reading