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- IN: Overdose call led to EMS telling police what they saw and that led to SW
- NY1: A mental health defense waives REP in the medical records about it
- MA: When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, def gets to reopen the suppression issue
- RI: Challenge to one sentence of 8-page cell phone records SW fails; totality has to be considered
- WaPo: Subpoena bill would curtail secretive tool used to target government critics
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: Third Party Doctrine
CA2: § 215 of the Patriot Act does not authorize the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata of telephone calls
§ 215 of the Patriot Act does not authorize the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata of telephone calls, but the decision is stayed. The third party doctrine is important, but it doesn’t have to be reached. SCOTUS’s Amnesty International v. … Continue reading
Business Insider: A federal court just dealt a potentially huge blow to cellphone privacy
Business Insider: A federal court just dealt a potentially huge blow to cellphone privacy by Maxwell Tani: The government doesn’t need a warrant to search cellphone tower location records, a federal appeals court in Atlanta has ruled. In a potentially … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Eleventh Circuit rules for the feds on cell-site records — but then overreaches
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Eleventh Circuit rules for the feds on cell-site records — but then overreaches by Orin Kerr: The en banc Eleventh Circuit has ruled that historical cell-site records are not protected by the Fourth Amendment under the third-party … Continue reading
CA11 (en banc): CSLI third party information accessed under the Stored Communications Act does not violate the Fourth Amendment
CSLI third party information accessed under the Stored Communications Act does not violate the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Davis, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 7385 (11th Cir. May 5, 2015) (en banc) (4 concurrences, 2 dissents):
American Thinker: Homeland Chief: Fourth Amendment ‘Beyond My Competence’
American Thinker: Homeland Chief: Fourth Amendment ‘Beyond My Competence’ by Mark J. Fitzgibbons: Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, a man with sweeping power to invade the property rights and privacy of every American using judge-less warrants to search and … Continue reading
The Hill: Lawmakers in cybersecurity rush
The Hill: Lawmakers in cybersecurity rush by Cory Bennett: Lawmakers are rushing to pass a major cybersecurity bill this month before a divisive debate over reauthorizing the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs bogs them down. Lawmakers have maintained that their … 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
D.Mass.: Power company was not a state actor in providing electrical usage information
“The aphorism that ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ would certainly apply to the law enforcement officials who investigated this case.” Here, the city sanitation workers were seeing large amounts of marijuana debris coming in, and they called the … Continue reading
New Samsung TVs eavesdrop via microphone in remote
It’s for voice recognition for controlling the TV set, but Samsung admits that third-parties can intercept. And some have facial recognition. TechCrunch: Today In Creepy Privacy Policies, Samsung’s Eavesdropping TV Daily Mail (UK): Samsung warns viewers: Our smart TVs could … Continue reading
SC Magazine: Act would require gov’t to get warrant for electronic content, geolocation data
SC Magazine: Act would require gov’t to get warrant for electronic content, geolocation data by Teri Robinson: A bipartisan trio of legislators reintroduced the Online Communication and Geolocation Protection Act to extend Fourth Amendment rights to electronic communications. A bipartisan … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: SW not required for cell site location information; the third party doctrine hasn’t changed
A search warrant is not required for cell site location information. Jones is inapplicable, and the third party doctrine hasn’t changed. United States v. Lang, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7553 (N.D. Ill. January 23, 2015):
NYTimes: Holder Fortifies Protection of News Media’s Phone Records, Notes or Emails
NYTimes: Holder Fortifies Protection of News Media’s Phone Records, Notes or Emails By Matt Apuzzo: Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday eliminated what journalism groups worried could be used as a loophole in the rules governing how and … Continue reading
Payson Roundup: Editorial: Background Checks For Guns
Payson Roundup: Editorial: Background Checks For Guns. This Arizona newspaper thinks that a background check is an unreasonable search. Consider this: If the third party doctrine is going anywhere, maybe the NRA can get off its ass and push this … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Third-party doctrine well entrenched and SCA shows Congress isn’t changing it, yet
All things considered, the third party doctrine is well established in SCOTUS precedent, and the court declines to depart from it. In addition, the Stored Communications Act, remaining unchanged, is evidence that Congress intends it to remain that way. Cell … Continue reading
City AM: Uber has five out of six bases in New York City suspended after failing to hand over trip records
City AM: Uber has five out of six bases in New York City suspended after failing to hand over trip records by Guy Bentley: New York City has suspended the majority of Uber bases after the taxi app company refused … Continue reading
TechDirt: Court Asked Why There’s No Expectation Of Privacy In Cell Location Data, But An Expectation Of Privacy In The Cellphone Itself
TechDirt: Court Asked Why There’s No Expectation Of Privacy In Cell Location Data, But An Expectation Of Privacy In The Cellphone Itself by Tim Cushing: from the warrants-warranted dept