First Amendment Auditors: Knights or Nuisance



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39 thoughts on “First Amendment Auditors: Knights or Nuisance”

  1. The people may not feel the need to audit the police and other public officials if there was a binding independent civilian review board over government officials. As it is now police investigate themselves as do members of legislators and the executive branches control the offices that review legality. My point is when this public auditing and shaming is the only recourse left, government and law enforcement shouldn't be surprised or upset when that's what's used.

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  2. First Amendment Frauditors (the continual trollish ones) are no better than the Policing For Profit type of corruption they purport to expose.

    When your free speech rights start infringing on my rights as a private person, Frauditors are going to have a problem.

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  3. Resisting arrest is such a messed up charge. The vast majority of people are going to attempt to resist if being manhandled. Doesn't matter if youve done anything or not, if anything you're more likely to resist if you know you haven't done anything and it's so vague that it's a charge that can be added on to almost any interaction with the police

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  4. I remember seeing a video of one of those auditors recording outside of a skilled nursing facility. Nothing was going on, there was no police presence nearby, he just chose there to start recording. Having worked in a SNF myself for 5+ years I gotta say I was not on the side of the auditor that time. Because of the setting, you could not pretend you didn’t know you would make the people inside of that home feel unsafe and scared for their lives. You have people with paranoia, PTSD, dementia, schizophrenia, etc. all calling this home and here comes a guy with a kink for getting sent to the principal’s office looking for the next best thing. Those residents suffered while he got off on making these people miserable. But because he wasn’t recording directly into the bedrooms, and instead was recording the sidewalk, which coincidentally, you can see the windows and anything inside them, if the shades are open, he was allowed to keep recording.

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  5. I remember seeing a video of one of those auditors recording outside of a skilled nursing facility. Nothing was going on, there was no police presence nearby, he just chose there to start recording. Having worked in a SNF myself for 5+ years I gotta say I was not on the side of the auditor that time. Because of the setting, you could not pretend you didn’t know you would make the people inside of that home feel unsafe and scared for their lives. You have people with paranoia, PTSD, dementia, schizophrenia, etc. all calling this home and here comes a guy with a kink for getting sent to the principal’s office looking for the next best thing. Those residents suffered while he got off on making these people miserable. But because he wasn’t recording directly into the bedrooms, and instead was recording the sidewalk, which coincidentally, you can see the windows and anything inside them, if the shades are open, he was allowed to keep recording.

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  6. I often watch these videos vicariously. Mostly I'm on their side, but there's definitely some cognitive dissonance about what a lot of them are doing. Recently I saw Accountability For All, who was featured here for his positive encounter, enter a library with a fellow auditor. At some point, instead of peacefully gathering content like they usually do, they actually initiated encounters with people in the library in a "just a prank, bro" manner, ending with one Asian foreigner actually assaulting one of them (obviously I don't support assaulting people, to be clear). AFA's obnoxious/jovial (it's a mix) nature isn't anything new, but usually it's in response to someone interacting with him.

    Some are more obnoxious than others, and you could argue that maybe some people deserve that attitude due to how they approach someone filming, but their "I give what I get" principle, which many have, is somewhat childish and unproductive in my opinion. As is some of their ostensibly flawless logic to catch-22 situations where people ask not to be filmed and are hit with the classic response "then why did you come up to the camera?" Entertaining if nothing else. I consider watching 1AAs a guilty pleasure to a degree.

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  7. Remember there are thousands of 1st amendment auditor, legal eagle missed out many of them. For sure, long island audit is too much, disturbing in library, you don't study no problem but don't disturb others study. For good audit videos, look up Lacklustre, audit the audit etc.

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  8. I find there's an unfortunate cross over between the sovcit crowd and the 1st amendment auditor crowd. I think it's reasonable to film the police when something is ongoing but intentionally pissing the police off to test them seems both incredibly american and also quite irresponsible.

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  9. I had to train security on this.

    Ignore the camera. Only address the bad behavior (loitering, harassing staff, disrupting operations, etc). They want to make it about he recording, but a person can’t go anywhere or do anything just because they’ve got a camera in hand that they couldn’t do without it

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  10. The problem is that the frauditors (those who intentionally try to violate ordinances or harass people for views, then hide behind the guise of 1A auditing) tend to be the most prominent voices/channels we see associated with the movement. It's one thing to cop watch, or actively film reasonable interactions with public officials, but it's another thing to ignore filming restrictions at places like a post office or SSA building with the intention of filming yourself being arrested while screaming "tyrant" at the arresting cops. I personally have a disdain for policing in general due to rampant systemic issues, but too many people claim 1A auditing just so they can try to justify asshole behavior or feel special, and I see that as detracting from actual positive filming/auditing.

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  11. I think you need to re-evaluate your definition of “uncooperative”. To me, cooperation mean two or more people working together for a common goal. Police say “ uncooperative” when they mean “he’s not doing what I want”. You seem to have fallen into that trap.

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  12. First amendment auditors don't give a damn about the first amendment. They exist to be a nuisance and exercise some kind of hero power fantasy. Indeed, many of them deliberately set out to harass and provoke confrontation with members of the public, let alone police. They care about grifting in lue of getting a real job (because very often their personality flaws make them unemployable), not about anyone's rights.

    Citizens taking out their phones to spontaneously record police misconduct is not the same as a first amendment auditor.

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  13. If public officials are doing their job properly, then they shouldn't worry about being filmed. Also, interference is a physical act or threatening the police to stop their duties.

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  14. courts punish type of speech and free press in open court because they dont feel they need to obey laws. and courts like the supreme court still dont allow free press.

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  15. "They make the Police look bad" I wonder why showing multiple instances of illegal detention, arrest, argumentative and ignorant officers who clearly do not know the law causes prejudice to the reputation of Police. 🤔

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  16. I think what these auditors do is highly valuable. Most police are corrupt, and have very little understanding of the actual laws they are supposed to be upholding.
    The fact is, body cams are not for the protection of the police, but for the protection of the general citizenry.
    That said, I do believe that many of these auditors go out of their ways to be complete a-holes. As we all know, if you go looking for trouble, you will usually find it.

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  17. I find moral and philosophical issues with how antagonistic or ignorant of the actual law some of the auditors are. But when they are within the law, those other two categories of issues don't matter. Also, I don't really care the intent of the filming if the filming does uncover bad actors or people that shouldn't be trusted with the position they hold. An auditor could be out for clout but expose a cop with big badge syndrome that leads to their job being terminated. I'm ok with that. I don't want to get into all that myself, but I have considered wearing a bodycam during traffic stops or cameras that keep up with my speed and such as well. I haven't had a lot of bad interactions with cops. Most have been good and completely understandable (i.e. speeding where I was definitely doing so, brake light out, etc.). But I've had one pull me over in a fishing expedition. I've had one accuse me of an offense I didn't commit. I've had cops be apathetic to why they were being called in the light of a dangerous situation. I've had cops push very cavalier shoot first and ask questions later behavior (e.g. "a dead man can't testify"). That kind of stuff needs public attention and scrutiny because of the unbalanced power dynamic these "public servants" have over us.

    Reply

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